How to make easy Chicken Chop with a delicious Black Pepper Sauce.

Chicken Chop with Black Pepper Sauce is a standard offering at Western stalls at hawker centres in Singapore. The Chicken Chop is flavourful and juicy, while the black pepper sauce is a deliciously savoury, and addictive addition to the chicken!

What Chicken Part to Use for Chicken Chop?

Chicken Chop exclusively uses boneless chicken thighs! This is why it can remain juicy. When I purchase boneless chicken thighs here, it’s already sold filleted and splayed into a large, flat piece of chicken.

If your thighs are a thicker portion, you want to fillet it by slicing it in half. Keep it connected on the ends so that you can lay the chicken thigh out so it becomes a larger but thinner piece of meat.

Chicken shrinks as it cooks, therefore you want to keep the look intact as you fry it! Chicken Chop just looks more impressive as a large chunk of meat.

If you want to use chicken breasts, you can as well. With chicken breast, you definitely want to fillet it into a bigger piece since breasts have irregular thickness. This would ensure even cooking.

How to Cook the Chicken Chop?

You can cook your chicken a myriad of ways! Pan-frying, grilling, roasting in the oven, or even pop it in the air fryer.

Chicken Chop is typically grilled or pan-fried at the stalls. In this recipe, I chose to pan-fry. I used a cast iron pan, but a regular pan will work just as well.

TIP – Keep a medium low to medium heat. This will allow the chicken to properly cook through – and the fat from the chicken skin to properly render for crispier skin – without burning the surface of the chicken.

My boneless chicken thighs cooked through in about 7-8 minutes.

I’ll be honest – I usually bake this in the oven! Unlike pan frying, I can simply pop this in the oven and leave it there. Meanwhile, I make the sauce! By the time I’m done with the sauce, my chicken is too. To roast this in the oven, lay on a baking pan and bake in a preheated oven of 180°C or 356°F. Allow to bake for 25 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through. If using an air-fryer, the settings are also the same.

The Easiest Black Pepper Sauce

This black pepper sauce is extremely easy to make! It’s made with ingredients that you’d probably have in your pantry. Black pepper is the most important ingredient, but stock is essential too. I used stock cubes which has a stronger flavour (thanks to MSG). It would also taste closer to what you find at the hawker stalls. I used beef stock, but chicken will work too.

If you have homemade chicken or beef stock then feel free to use! Replace water and the stock cube here with your homemade stock.

I used both light and dark soy sauce here, but you can just use either one. I prefer the combo of the two. With the dark soy sauce, you will get that dark colour – which I think is so attractive for black pepper sauce! The light soy sauce add salt, without the added sugar of the dark soy sauce.

I used kicap manis, but you can use regular, Chinese dark soy sauce too.

What to Serve Chicken Chop and Black Pepper Sauce with?

Chicken Chop is served with sides. This can include fries, mashed potatos, rice, coleslaw, pasta and boiled/steamed/roasted vegetables! You can really have fun here. My go-tos are usually easy rice cooker mac and cheese, aglio olio and quick blanching some broccoli, cauliflower and carrots.

If you make mashed potatoes though, you can use that black pepper sauce with it too! Too much effort for me to make the mashed potatoes from scratch though.

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