Steamed Chicken with Black Bean Sauce (蒜蓉豉汁蒸滑鸡)

This Steamed Chicken with Black Bean Sauce (蒜蓉豉汁蒸滑鸡) is a comforting homemade recipe that’s super simple yet flavorful and makes plenty of sauce to pour over steamed rice. Serve it with your favorite vegetable side dish for an absolutely fantastic, filling meal the whole family will agree on!

We were actually hoping to include this dish in our cookbook, but when we had to cut out 20 recipes due to page constraints, it ended up on the cutting room floor. Almost a year after the book was published, we are happy to finally be able to share it with you.

What is Wat?

If you haven’t made any of our Cantonese-style steamed chicken recipes, you haven’t yet experienced a texture known in Cantonese cuisine as What, which is often applied to chicken, as in waat gai (滑鸡). The word roughly translates to “slippery.”

Basically, when you take silky chicken and steam it, it has this smooth, tender, juicy and yes, slippery mouthfeel and a dining experience that you have to experience firsthand to fully appreciate.

Some of our other recipes that have this consistency include:

This version uses fermented black beans and garlic and I think it’s one of the tastiest!

pour sauce over steamed Chinese chicken with fermented black beans

Vegetarian side dishes to serve with this chicken

I know many readers like to mix some veggies with a pure protein dish like this to make a one-pot meal. While I really understand this impulse (we always need some veggies on our table!), it’s not the best idea for this recipe.

You don’t want to dilute the flavor of the chicken with too many additional ingredients. Instead, cook a quick vegetable side dish separately to include the veggies.

Here are some options:

Browse our Vegetables category index for more vegetable side dish ideas!

Notes on the recipe:

I like dark meat, which is why I used boneless, skinless chicken thighs here, but I know many of you will ask about chicken breast. If you prefer, you can use boneless, skinless chicken breast: just cut the pieces a little thinner, about 5 cm long and 1.25 cm thick for a better texture.
The “black beans” in the black bean sauce here are Chinese fermented black beans. You can find them in Chinese grocery stores and they are very cheap. You might even find them online! These are not your average black beans in the canned vegetable aisle of your supermarket. They are actually fermented black soybeans. They add a lot of umami to this dish and are a necessary component. If you can’t find them, try one of our other steamed chicken recipes (listed above) instead!
You will need a steamer set for this dish. Sarah has written an in-depth article on how to install a steamer (without necessarily having special equipment), which will help you if you are inexperienced!

Ok, let’s move on to the recipe!

Steamed chicken thigh ball with fermented black beans and garlic

Recipe instructions

In a medium bowl, marinate the chicken pieces with the Shaoxing wine, light soy sauce, neutral oil, oyster sauce, sugar, sesame oil, salt and white pepper. Mix well until the chicken is evenly coated in the marinade. Cover the bowl with an inverted plate and marinate in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours, or overnight.

Marinated skinless and boneless chicken thigh pieces

One hour before cooking, remove the chicken from the refrigerator and let it come to room temperature. Prepare the garlic, shallots and black beans.

black beans in a bowl and minced garlic on cutting board

Just before cooking, add the garlic, black beans, water (I used 2 tablespoons, but you can add up to 4 if you prefer more sauce), and cornstarch. Mix well and transfer the chicken to a heatproof dish large enough to keep the chicken in a single layer while still fitting it in the steamer, with some depth to retain any sauces/juices. A glass or ceramic cake plate will work.

Bring the water in the steamer pot to a boil over high heat, making sure the water level is at least a couple of inches, but does not touch the bottom of the pot while boiling. Cover and steam the chicken on high heat for 10 minutes. (Steam for 9 minutes if using chicken breast.)

Turn off the heat, but keep the lid tightly covered. Let the chicken rest in the steamer for another 2 minutes before removing the lid. Use a clean, dry kitchen towel or plate lifter carefully remove the dish from the steamer.

Use a plate lifter to remove hot food from steaming in the wok — *In case you’ve never seen one, this photo shows the type of plate gripper/lifter we’re referring to!* *Photo copyright: Cristina Han*

Garnish with chopped scallions and serve immediately with rice and your favorite vegetable side dish!