Vietnamese Lemongrass Grilled Chicken (Bún Gà Nướng) — Easy & Filled With Flavor

What's on the stove today? This is Bun Ga Nu, which is the chicken version of my Bun Thit Nu. It's fresh, it's vibrant, and it can be ready in under 30 minutes. So today, I'm going to show you how to get the perfect grill marks, bouncy noodles, and fresh vegetables to make yourself a really healthy chicken vermicelli bowl. What kind of cut of chicken are we using today? I'm using boneless, skinless chicken thighs. I know you're not a big fan of chicken breast, so this is a really good option because it stays really juicy and moist. Let's start by marinating our chicken. We're going to be using soy sauce, sesame oil, some fish sauce, oyster sauce, a little bit of annatto seed oil, sweetened condensed milk, chicken bouillon, five-spice powder, chopped garlic, chopped shallots, and chopped lemongrass. So how often do you like making this? Maybe once a month because I find it's so easy to make. Once you have most of the staple ingredients like the pickles and the fish sauce, it's really just about getting the proteins ready, right? And boiling the noodles, which doesn't take long to do. And it's healthy. I didn't appreciate this dish until my 20s. I guess when I was young, I didn't really like the vegetables. In my early 20s, I was very image conscious. You know, you got to watch your waistline, right? So I used to always get this. But what I would do is I would ask for less noodles and more veggies. I mean, that's a pretty lean meal, right? I didn't know they would do that. Less noodle, more veggies. That's a good hack. They'd be happy to do that to give you just bean sprouts. That's like two cents. One thing I will point out is that this grilled chicken, if you don't like vermicelli, which I know you're not the biggest fan of vermicelli, you can eat it over rice, right? That would be good. So just like in the cơm tấm video that I made, make everything else the same, but just replace the protein with this lemongrass chicken. That would be bomb.com. So the next thing we're going to do is boil our vermicelli. So you want to be really careful to look for packaging that says bún. It's Vietnamese for rice noodles. So the noodles were cooking for around nine minutes. I've drained it and I'm going to let it sit to cool down a little bit. It's very, very important for you to let it drain really well. Otherwise, it's going to be very soggy. And when you pour the fish sauce all over the noodles, it won't cling onto the noodles and you're not going to get any of that delicious taste. So be patient. Vietnamese people actually don't eat these noodles super piping hot. We like the noodles to be maybe slightly warm or even room temperature sometimes. What's going to be hot in the noodle bowls is the protein. So I've oiled the pan and it's reached the right temperature. So we're going to be putting the chicken in. I'm using a grill pan, but you can use an air fryer as well. Air fry each side for about 12 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. And in the last two or three minutes, crank it up to around 385 to 390 to get a nice crust to form. Once the chicken finishes cooking, let it rest for about five minutes. This is going to stop all the juice from gushing out and it's going to leave you with more tender and moist chicken. So in front of me, I have this beautiful platter of vegetables and herbs. These are the accoutrements that come with this dish. I have some chopped lettuce, some cilantro, bean sprouts, cucumber, and some very essential Vietnamese garnishes. Scallion oil, pickled daikon and carrots, and crushed peanuts. If you want to know how to make these, you can refer to my Vietnamese essentials video, which I'll link right here. So now that our chicken's all prepared and cut up into bite-sized pieces, we're going to assemble our bowl. So I have some vermicelli in a bowl here, and let's head over here, load it up with some nice veggies and herbs. So we'll start with some chopped up lettuce, some bean sprouts, cucumber. For herbs, we have mint here. There's a lot of different Vietnamese herbs that can be used, but the one that you cannot miss is mint. You can eat it like this and just tear it up, or you can have it kind of chopped up into small ribbons as well. It's up to you. Let's put our chicken on. Chicken looks so moist. It's so delicious. Chicken thigh is like the way to go, eh? Yeah, it's fatty. It's a lot of flavor. We've added some pickled daikon and carrots. Let's ladle a little bit of this beautiful scallion oil on top of our chicken. Last but not least, peanuts. Voila! There you have it. Beautiful, colorful, vibrant, fresh. Well, we made it. Yeah, looks so good. Let's dig in. This chicken is so moist. I love how balanced this is. It's so fresh. Is this something that you would order at a restaurant? For a while, it was all I ordered because I was trying to watch my weight. I think I ordered this a lot before I knew how to make it. And here's my take, too. Sometimes when I go to a new, novel Vietnamese restaurant that I haven't been to, and I don't trust their broths yet, I'll order this. This is a good gateway dish. It's safe. You know with broths, right? It's a hit or a miss. But with this, it's boiled noodles, it's vegetables, and it's marinated meat. I hope you don't get that wrong. On a hot day, like in the summer, if I just want something a little bit lighter, this would be a good go-to dish. This is considered street food in Vietnam, right? Everything's prepared ahead of time. All the vegetables, all the noodles. And really, the only thing that has to be made is the grilled meat. Vendors would carry around a portable charcoal grill and just make it on the go. Do you see what I mean when I say Vietnamese food is just different building blocks put together? You know, one piece in here, one piece in there. But you have the foundation. Just put them all together. This could even be more up-leveled with spring rolls, shredded pork skin, shrimp, sausages. Where does it end? So that's one of the nice things about this dish. Like, you can even make this for a barbecue. Imagine, just prepare everything, grill the meat, right? And there you go. I mean, I'd rather eat this than a hot dog. That's for sure. We hope you enjoyed that and that you see how easy this is to make at home. Hope you get a chance to try it. See ya.