CANTONESE HOME COOKING
Steamed Chicken with Shiitake Mushrooms
香菇蒸鸡
A Cantonese-style chicken and shiitake dish with a savory sauce for rice. This version briefly stir-fries the marinated chicken and mushrooms before steaming, with clear guidance on dried mushrooms, boneless dark meat and safe doneness.
By Canto Hearth Editorial · Source-informed recipe. Not yet kitchen-tested by us.
Jump to ingredients & steps ↓7 step-by-step photos · Tap any photo for a closer look.
Before you start
- Equipment: skillet or wok, steamer or lidded pot with a rack, two shallow heatproof bowls, oven mitts and a digital food thermometer. Check that both bowls fit before cooking.
- Hydrate the dried mushrooms according to the package until their centers are soft, not just the edges. Timing varies by thickness; if soaking overnight, keep them covered in the refrigerator. Discard the soaking liquid for this recipe.
- The 90-minute estimate allows up to about an hour for mushroom preparation, with chicken preparation and the 20-minute refrigerated marinade overlapping, followed by roughly 25 minutes of pan cooking and steaming. Longer package-directed soaking adds time.
- Prepare mushrooms and vegetables on a clean board before handling raw chicken. Pat the chicken dry; do not splash-rinse it. Wash hands, board and utensils after raw-meat preparation.
Let’s cook.
Cut the boneless chicken evenly
Trim any remaining hard cartilage or bone fragments, then cut the meat into pieces about 2.5 cm (1 inch) across. If starting with drumsticks, debone them carefully and weigh out the listed amount of meat. Ready-boned thigh meat is the simpler option.
Look for thisSimilar-size pieces cook more evenly than a mixture of tiny scraps and thick chunks.
Marinate in the refrigerator
Mix the chicken with light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, sugar, cooking wine, cornstarch and white pepper. Cover and refrigerate for 20 minutes while you finish the mushroom preparation. No extra salt is needed at this point.
Look for thisThe sauces should coat the pieces. Do not taste raw marinade or leave the bowl on a warm counter.
Slice the mushrooms and aromatics
Gently squeeze excess water from the fully softened mushrooms. Remove tough stems and slice the caps. Thinly slice the ginger, scallion whites and garlic. Bring the steamer water to a boil while you start the next step.
Look for thisA dried cap that still has a hard center needs more soaking before it goes into the dish.
Warm the aromatics in oil
Heat the cooking oil in a skillet or wok over medium-high heat. Add the ginger, scallion and garlic and stir for about 30 seconds, just until fragrant. Lower the heat if the garlic starts to darken.
Look for thisThe aromatics should sizzle gently rather than scorch.
Start cooking the chicken
Add the chicken and all its marinade. Stir and turn for about 3 minutes so the surfaces begin to set. This is only the first cooking stage: do not taste or serve the chicken yet.
Look for thisA change in surface color does not prove the centers are safely cooked.
Add the mushrooms and transfer
Fold in the sliced shiitake and stir-fry for about 1 minute. Immediately divide the chicken, mushrooms and juices between two shallow heatproof bowls, keeping the layer reasonably even. Do not cover the individual bowls with lids.
Look for thisMove directly from the pan to the hot steamer; do not partially cook the chicken and refrigerate it for later.
Steam, then measure the centers
Set the bowls on a rack above boiling water and cover the steamer. Maintain steady steam and begin checking at 20 minutes. Check several of the thickest chicken pieces with a clean digital thermometer: every checked center must reach at least 74°C (165°F). Continue steaming and recheck if needed. Keep the pot from boiling dry.
Look for thisThe pictured bowls are filled before steaming; the photo is not a doneness check. Bowl depth, meat size and steamer strength can all change the time.
Serve with rice and the sauce
Lift the hot bowls out with oven mitts or a plate lifter, opening the lid away from your face. Serve the chicken and mushrooms with plain rice, spooning over a little of the fully cooked sauce.
Look for thisIf a ginger slice is too fibrous to eat, leave it on the plate. No raw marinade should be added after cooking.
When it doesn’t go to plan
The mushrooms are rubbery or hard in the middle
They were not fully hydrated before cooking, or the tough stems were included. Soak according to the package until the thickest part bends easily, remove stems and slice the caps.
There is too much watery sauce
Drain and gently squeeze the soaked mushrooms, pat chicken dry and avoid adding mushroom soaking water. A deep bowl also retains more liquid. Some steaming juice is expected and is useful over rice.
The chicken looks cooked but the thermometer is low
Keep steaming. Color alone is not a safe endpoint; check several thick pieces and keep the probe away from the hot bowl. Wait for at least 74°C (165°F) in the center.
The dish tastes too salty
Use plain rice alongside and do not add extra salt. For the next batch, adjust the weighed light soy sauce to your brand’s saltiness; dark soy and oyster sauce also contain salt.
Small details, better cooking.
- This is a source-based editorial adaptation, not a Canto Hearth kitchen-tested recipe. The photographs belong to the credited source and show its original preparation.
- The original calls for four drumsticks, deboned. Here the meat is standardized to 500 g after deboning so North American packages of boneless thighs are easier to use. Sauce gram weights are retained; the serving count and shopping weights for ginger/scallion are editorial estimates.
- Brief stir-frying is part of this version. Skipping it changes the cooking process and steaming time, so do not use the same 20-minute instruction for a raw, densely filled bowl.
- Use shallow bowls with room for steam to circulate. Doubling the food calls for extra bowls or batches, not a deeper pile with the same timer.
- Refrigerate leftovers promptly in shallow containers; reheat to 74°C (165°F). Keep leftovers separate from any bowl or tool that handled raw chicken.
Working with what you have
Dried shiitake mushrooms
Fresh shiitake, stems removed and caps sliced
For the original three-serving batch, start with about 150 g fresh shiitake; adjust proportionally if changing the servings. Skip soaking. Fresh mushrooms have a milder aroma and release different amounts of water; this is an editorial substitution, not a tested equivalence.
Deboned drumstick meat
The same listed weight of boneless chicken thighs
Both are dark meat. Chicken breast cooks differently and is not the preferred direct swap for this schedule.
Oyster sauce
Labelled vegetarian mushroom stir-fry sauce
Start with the listed oyster-sauce weight but check its saltiness and allergens. It changes the flavor and does not make the chicken dish vegetarian.
Shaoxing wine
The same listed weight of water
An alcohol-free variation without the wine aroma. Cooking wine is not guaranteed to become alcohol-free just because it is heated.
Need a unit conversion? Open kitchen tools. For ingredients, visit the pantry.
Questions from the kitchen
Can I steam the chicken without frying it first?
There are Cantonese recipes that do that, but this version includes a short pan-cooking stage before steaming. Do not apply its 20-minute starting check unchanged to a deep bowl of raw chicken. In every case the centers must reach 74°C (165°F).
Are dried shiitake the same as Chinese dried mushrooms?
Dried shiitake are often sold as Chinese black mushrooms or dong gu. Check the product identity; dried wood ear is a different mushroom and not a direct replacement.
Do I need a bamboo steamer?
No. A metal steamer or a lidded pot with a stable rack can work. The heatproof bowls must sit above the water, the lid must close, and steam must be able to circulate around them.
Should I use light or dark soy sauce?
Both are used here in different amounts: light soy seasons the chicken, while the smaller dark-soy portion provides color. Neither label tells you that the product is low in sodium. Use the site’s soy-sauce finder if your bottle is unclear.
Can I make this gluten-free?
Only after checking every sauce label. Standard soy sauce and some oyster sauces contain wheat. Verified gluten-free sauces can be used as a variation, with seasoning adjusted; the original recipe is not automatically gluten-free.
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Sources & editorial notes
Independently written in English using the references below. Timing and ingredient adjustments still need home-kitchen validation. No source photographs or text are reproduced without permission.
- 我一直一直做的一道菜，怎么做都好吃 | 香菇蒸鸡 — 君之. Accessed 2026-09-27.
- Safe internal cooking temperatures — Health Canada. Accessed 2026-09-27.
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