Name: Spicy Korean Chicken Meal Prep
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 25 min
Total time: 35 min
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients: 8 chicken thighs; 2-3 tbsp gochujang; 1 tsp gochugaru (Korean chili powder or chili powder); 1 tsp smoke paprika; 2 tbsp soy sauce; 2 tsp maple syrup or honey; 5 cloves garlic

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Looking for a lunch with a bit of a kick? This Spicy Korean Chicken Meal Prep is prefect for you! The chicken is oven baked so they’re wonderfully juicy and tender on the inside while still being crispy on the outside!

A Spicy Chicken Meal Prep inspired by Korean BBQ

Y’all know I’m obsessed with Korean food. If I was told I could only eat one cuisine for the rest of my life, you bet I’d pick Korean. Recently, with H gone, I’ve been on my own so there’s no one to drive me out to have my weekly Korean fix. I’ve been craving “dak gui” which is a grilled chicken dish. There’s something about a good bbq/grilled chicken dish that just hits the spot for me so here I am, at home by myself, recreating this grilled chicken recipe as a meal prep!

What You’ll Need to Make this Spicy Chicken Meal Prep

To make this Korean Spicy Chicken Meal Prep, you’ll need Gochujang (고추장), aka hot pepper paste. No, this is not sponsored, this is just the brand that I buy at my local Korean supermarket. It might be labelled as red pepper paste as well due to translations of the labels. This fermented paste adds a delicious spiciness and sweetness (spiciness/sweetness levels vary between brands) to the dish that it’s added to.

To make this meal prep, I’d highly recommend you get some gochujang as the taste is just not the same with a regular hot sauce. You will literally see shelves of gochujang at the store. They come in single use packets if you want to just give it a try and they also come in 2lb tubs!

After the recipe card down below, I’ll list some other recipes on this blog that uses gochujang so you can confidently buy a tub and use it all up! Here’s another photo because i love this stuff haha.

chicken thighs
gochujang
gochugaru (Korean chili powder) or chili powder
smoke paprika
soy sauce
maple syrup or honey
garlic
optional: I served it with a side of rice and threw some onion, mushrooms, and zucchini in a pan with oil

How to make this spicy korean chicken meal prep

Once you have all your ingredients, this is the easiest meal prep ever! Promise.

Combine your gochujang, chili powder, smoked paprika, soy sauce, maple syrup, and garlic together.
Marinate your chicken in the sauce either overnight or for 30-60 minutes.
Heat your oven up to 400F
Place your chicken, after it’s been coated with sauce, onto a lined sheet pan (or coated with non-stick)
Pop it into the oven for 25 minutes, keeping an eye on it near the end to make sure the skin doesn’t burn as the sauce has maple syrup in it.
While the spicy chicken was baking, I prepared my sides. Pick what you’d like but I went with rice and in a pan with oil, I cooked up 1 sliced onion, 1 zucchini, and a package of mushrooms.

Tip to make the perfect spicy chicken meal prep

I use these Glasslock square airtight containers to keep my meal prep fresh in the fridge
I used pre-made garlic paste to shave a minuter or two off my prep time
If you want to prep this spicy Korean chicken meal prep in advance, this is a freezer friendly recipe! Just put it all in a ziplock bag and freeze for up to 3 months.
Other methods to cook the chicken is in the Instant Pot or slow cooker but the skin won’t be crispy. You’ll have to put it under the broiler to crisp up the skin.
If you want to make this chicken meal prep even spicier, you can add red pepper flakes to the marinade as well.