Huli Huli Chicken Exists Thanks To A Farmers Gathering

While some Hawaiian dishes like poke have made their way into people's hearts around the world, there's likely plenty of delicious Hawaiian food you haven't tried yet, and huli huli chicken might be in that category. The dish has humble origins. A man named Ernest Morgado, who co-founded a company called Pacific Poultry, set out to feed a group of hungry farmers who had gathered for a meeting. So Morgado grilled some chicken that had been marinating in his take on a classic teriyaki sauce. To cook it, he essentially positioned the meat between two grates, which he flipped. The farmers loved the dish, and Morgado realized he had a hit on his hands.

As long as you have a recipe for the special sauce and some grilling know-how, you can easily whip up your own huli huli chicken at home. Just make sure to avoid some of the biggest grilling mistakes people make, like not letting your meat rest before cutting. However, the most relevant misstep for this particular recipe is not flipping your meat enough. Turning it over is important because it'll help you capture the spirit of huli huli chicken as it was first prepared. That's actually where the beloved dish gets its name — "huli" means "to turn" in Hawaiian.

Ernest Morgado's dish soon took on a life of its own. In 1958, just a few years after he whipped up that first batch of huli huli chicken, he trademarked the name in Hawaii. He followed that up by trademarking it federally in 1965. In order to help spread the signature huli huli flavor — typically, a mix of flavors like ginger and soy sauce paired with an element of sweetness like honey, ketchup, or in some cases, pineapple juice — Morgado also began bottling and selling his original version of the sauce in 1986.

While Morgado definitely had some success with huli huli chicken, his hit dish also did some good in the world. It has become one of the staple fundraising foods in Hawaii. Various sports teams and schools have used the beloved recipe for that purpose. Morgado's stepson (who is also the vice president of marketing at Pacific Poultry, Morgado's company) estimated that cooking up batches of the signature chicken has allowed organizations to raise millions of dollars over the years.