I am new to cooking chicken, having been vegetarian for most of my adult life. One of my issues with marinating chicken is the issue of the marinade itself. When pan fried, I don’t feel confident with the balance of cooking the chicken through vs burning the marinade. So, for this low FODMAP sweet and sticky chicken, we’re baking it in the oven!

As a chicken novice, I much prefer baking it in the oven. I don’t love touching it and I get scared I have undercooked the chicken when there’s a lot of sauce. My new favourite way to make a marinated, flavourful low FODMAP chicken recipe is to bang it in the oven, marinade and all.

This recipe is basically a copy of my low FODMAP sweet and sticky tofu recipe. I love that dish for an easy weeknight dinner, so I wanted to develop a chicken version. Shall we get straight into it?

The marinade is made from a generous quantity of fresh grated ginger, freshly cracked pepper, Tamari, maple syrup, toasted sesame oil and rice wine vinegar. I also use some chopped spring onion greens and chopped fresh red chilli.

You can marinate the chicken for an hour, four hours or even 24 hours. I generally aim for about 4, but I realise that doesn’t work for everyone’s schedule. You could marinate the chicken in the morning and throw it straight in the oven in the evening. Easy!

A close up macro image of a bowl of ginger and maple glazed chicken with Asian greens and a rice mix in a white bowl atop a white stone bench

FODMAP notes

These FODMAP thresholds are current as of November 2026. They will be periodically reviewed to ensure they remain up to date with Monash research.
This recipe uses chicken thighs which do not contain FODMAPs.
Tamari is low FODMAP in serves of up to 488g per person, after which it contains moderate mannitol. We are using substantially less than this (80ml divided between 4 people).
Maple syrup, according to Monash, is low FODMAP in serves of up to 55g per person. FODMAP Friendly is more generous – a maximum serve of 1000ml per person. We are using 40ml divided by 4, so it remains a low FODMAP serve either way.
Rice wine vinegar is low FODMAP in serves of up to 500g per person.
Monash only lists ginger as low FODMAP in 5g serves without an upper threshold. FODMAP Friendly says it is FODMAP free.
Spring onion greens are low FODMAP in serves of up to 97g per Monash. In larger serves, they contain moderate fructose. I generally use 2-3 pieces in this dish – far less than a low FODMAP serve even for one person.
Fresh red chilli is low FODMAP in up to 33g serves (around 2 medium chilli) per person. I used 1 chilli for the whole dish (spice wimp here).

Dietary notes

For a vegetarian option, you can find my low FODMAP sweet and sticky tofu here.
For a sesame free option, use a neutral oil instead.
For a nut free sesame free option, use vegetable or avocado oil as opposed to subbing in peanut oil.
Tamari is naturally gluten free. You can also use gluten free soy sauce, but not dark soy sauce as it will be way too intense in this quantity.
This is not a low histamine recipe due to the Tamari, rice vinegar and chilli. Sesame oil is a SIGHI 1 as well. Stay tuned for some chicken recipes that are low histamine – my low FODMAP chicken soup is a good place to start.
If you cannot use corn starch, I recommend sticky rice flour instead (also called mochiko or glutinous rice flour). Is a gluten free flour made from a sticky type of rice grain and it thickens sauces beautifully.

An aerial image of a baking dish filled with sweet and sticky oven baked chicken thighs. The dish sits on a white marble table and a bowl filled with rice and greens sits to the bottom right of the dish

Adjusting the spice level

If you’re a spice fiend on a low FODMAP diet, things can be a little limited. However, I do have a few easy suggestions for you.

Firstly, you can use as many fresh red chilli as you can tolerate/as the diet allows. That is 33g red chilli per person. For my appetite, this recipe serves 4 people. So you can add quite a lot of red chilli, but you will need to serve the dish with low or no fructan containing ingredients.

Adding a lot of ginger and freshly cracked black pepper helps here as well. They add a good amount of ‘spice’ without the FODMAPs.

Two more options: pickled chillies (Monash says that pickled jalapeño are low FODMAP in up to 500g) or dried chilli. Different styles of dried chilli have different FODMAP thresholds – I would recommend choosing a very spicy one to get bang for your buck.

What to serve with your low FODMAP sweet and sticky chicken

This is a fairly low FODMAP dish but I like to keep it simple because stacking various FODMAPs can get tricky and confusing. Generally, I like to serve this dish with rice and some Asian greens pan fried with more grated ginger.

As you can see in the photos, I also sometimes serve it with a 4 grain rice I have been enjoying of late. The greens of choice on the day I photographed this were bok choi, green beans, asparagus and edamame. This might have been a bit too elaborate to eat on a daily basis. Personally (for ease) I’d recommend choy sum (low FODMAP in up to 500g serves per person) with some defrosted edamame beans if you’d like some extra protein and fibre). Frozen and defrosted shelled edamame beans are low FODMAP in serves of up to 195g per person as of November 2026.

You could also serve this dish alongside any Asian flavour profile style of dish.

An aerial image of a bowl of sweet and sticky glazed chicken, asian greens and a rice mix on a white marble table. A white baking dish with the chicken sits in the top left of the image.

More low FODMAP chicken recipes

Low FODMAP chicken soup
More to come