🍽️ DINNER
Three-Cup Chicken (San Bei Ji)
Bone-in chicken braised with heaps of ginger and garlic in a glossy sauce of sesame oil, soy, and rice wine, finished with a flurry of Thai basil.
Taiwanese · easy · serves 4
prep 15 min · cook 25 min
~562 cal · 58g protein · 10g carbs · 28g fat · 0g fiber · 3g sugars · 6g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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AI-generated illustration
Three-cup chicken, san bei ji, is one of Taiwan's most beloved home dishes, named for the trio of liquids that once went in, in equal cups: sesame oil, soy sauce, and rice wine. Modern cooks the ratios, but the idea holds, three pantry staples reduced with the chicken into a dark, sticky, intensely savoury glaze.
The building blocks are slow-fried ginger and a startling quantity of whole garlic cloves, caramelised in toasted sesame oil until sweet before the chicken goes in. Then the wine and soy and a little sugar it down until the sauce clings to every piece. The finishing touch, and the sign that this is Taiwanese rather than its mainland ancestor, is a great handful of Thai basil stirred in off the heat so it wilts and perfumes the pot.
Traditionally cooked and served in a clay pot brought bubbling to the table, it is eaten over plenty of rice to soak up the concentrated sauce. Pungent, glossy, and garlicky, it is a weeknight dish that Taiwanese families miss when they are far from home.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally dairy-, nut-, egg- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 4
- 2 lbs bone-in chicken thighs and drumsticks, chopped into pieces
- 1/4 cup toasted sesame oil
- 2 inch piece fresh ginger, thickly sliced
- 12 garlic cloves, peeled and whole
- 2 dried red chilies
- 1/4 cup soy sauce (with a splash of dark soy for colour)
- 1/3 cup Shaoxing rice wine
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 2 cups Thai basil leaves
- 4 bowls steamed rice, to serve
Instructions
- 1Warm the sesame oil in a wide pan or wok over low heat and fry the ginger slices slowly for several minutes until curled and fragrant, then add the whole garlic and dried chilies and cook until the garlic is golden.✎ Chef’s noteKeep the heat low: toasted sesame oil burns and turns bitter easily, and the slow-fried garlic and ginger are the backbone of the dish.
- 2Turn the heat up, add the chicken pieces, and cook until they colour on all sides, tumbling them with the aromatics.
- 3Pour in the soy sauce (or tamari), rice wine, and sugar, bring to a simmer, then cover and braise gently for about 15 minutes, turning the chicken so every piece stains dark.
- 4Uncover and let the sauce reduce to a glossy, syrupy glaze that coats the chicken, stirring so nothing catches.
- 5Turn off the heat, stir in the Thai basil until it wilts, and serve straight away over steamed rice.
Taiwanese home cooking.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Taipei. The beef noodle soup Taipei argues about was not born in Taipei. It is traced to Air Force military dependents' villages at Gangshan in Kaohsiung in the 1950s, where mainland veterans built a Sichuan-style braise on a local hot bean paste, at a time when most Taiwanese did not eat beef at all.
🗺️
Taiwan. Fifty years of Japanese rule, from 1895 to 1945, left marks that outlasted it. The staple rice was switched from long-grain indica to Japanese short-grain japonica, which is still what Taiwan grows; miso, Japanese soy sauce and MSG entered the pantry; and the word for a cuisine, liaoli, is itself a Japanese borrowing.
🌍
Asia. Fermentation is the thread that runs the whole way across: soy sauce and miso, Korean doenjang and kimchi, Southeast Asian fish sauces, the soured batter behind an idli. Chilli is the newcomer among them, arriving only after 1500 with Portuguese and Spanish traders, which makes the heat in Sichuan, Thai and Korean cooking far younger than the fermenting underneath it.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Taiwan
Taiwanese Beef Noodle SoupChewy wheat noodles in a dark, star-anise beef broth with melting shank and pickled mustard greens.
Dan BingA soft, chewy egg crepe rolled up and sliced, Taiwan's favorite hot breakfast off the griddle.
Gua Bao (Pork Belly Buns)Taiwan’s famous night-market bun: a pillowy folded steamed bun cradling red-braised pork belly, tangy pickled mustard greens, cilantro, and sweet peanut powder.
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Good to know
You’ll need: Wok, Steamer.
Storing it: Cool leftover rice quickly and refrigerate within an hour. Keep up to 2 days and reheat until piping hot all the way through.
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Frequently asked questions
What is Three-Cup Chicken (San Bei Ji)?
Bone-in chicken braised with heaps of ginger and garlic in a glossy sauce of sesame oil, soy, and rice wine, finished with a flurry of Thai basil.
Where does Three-Cup Chicken (San Bei Ji) come from?
Three-Cup Chicken (San Bei Ji) is a Taiwanese dish from Taipei, Taiwan.
Can Three-Cup Chicken (San Bei Ji) be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Three-Cup Chicken (San Bei Ji) recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions. Treat the substitutions as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Three-Cup Chicken (San Bei Ji) safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we still count coconut as a tree nut to be cautious, although the FDA stopped listing it as one in 2025), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Three-Cup Chicken (San Bei Ji) take to make?
About 40 minutes total (15 minutes prep, 25 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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