These Vietnamese Sticky Chicken Skewers balance all the flavors—sweet, salty, sour, and savory! Great as a party appetizer or fun weeknight meal.

Photography Credit: Sally Vargas

There’s a lot to love here with these sweet, sour, spicy nuggets of chicken on a skewer — barbecued when the weather cooperates, or broiled in the oven when it does not.

They’re real crowd-pleasers (watch out, Super Bowl food competitors, this one’s in the running!), but they’re so good that you’ll want to put them on the menu every week!

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Vietnamese cooking, like many Southeast Asian cuisines, is all about balance. These skewers have palm sugar for sweetness and fish sauce for salt and umami (don’t worry, the fish sauce really does blend in with the rest of the flavors).

Chili sauce and ginger bring some heat, bright acidity comes from rice wine vinegar, and then it’s all topped off with some pungent cilantro. Fresh mint or Thai basil are also good.

There’s more than enough here to excite your palate and make you reach for just one more skewer.

Roadside stands all over Vietnam sell grilled meats and fish, and they always, always serve them with rice — either in the form of rice noodles or cooked rice. I suggest you do the same!

If I’m making this for a weeknight dinner, I like to remove the meat from the skewers and serve it on top of a bed of rice noodles that I’ve tossed with a little rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, and soy sauce. A crunchy salad served alongside completes the meal.

You can do the same for a party, or just serve them left on the skewer.

Really, you can serve these any way you like—the only thing that matters is that you make them!

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