Chef Sheldon Simeon’s Best Potluck Recipes
Don’t be that guy who brings potato chips.
Top Chef alum Sheldon Simeon isn’t mad when two people bring the same dish to a potluck. An accidental showdown, he says, can actually be fun.
“We’re usually good sports,” he says, when a little competition arises and it turns out that everyone gets to judge “whose spaghetti or whose adobo is better when it comes to the table.”
And bringing a duplicate of a homemade dish is far better than grabbing a bag of pretzels at the supermarket. At potlucks, Sheldon tells me, “A little bit of effort goes a long way to showing how much of a friend you are to your peers and family.”
Sheldon recommends a move for a warm-weather potluck that I don’t think I’ve heard before: He likes to cover any chilled dishes and pop them in the freezer briefly before heading out, so they’ll stay cool a bit longer. You don’t want to leave your dish chilling “to the point where it gets icy,” he says, but you do want that mac salad to be “deeply cold before you’re ready for travel.”
I love a potluck dish that actually improves if you make it ahead, and for that, Sheldon’s pick is the shoyu chicken recipe you’ll find if you scroll down the page. It’s excerpted from his new cookbook, Ohana Style, which shares the meals the chef actually cooks at home for his family and friends.
“If I had to think of one potluck dish or a crowd dish that is Hawaii, it’s shoyu chicken,” he says. “You literally put everything in the pot and turn it on and simmer.” The chicken thighs get tender, soaking up the flavors of soy sauce, garlic, and ginger. At minimum, he recommends “letting it sit a few hours just so all of those flavors get soaked up into the chicken.”
Leftover sauce can turn into a second meal, dressing noodles and vegetables; any remaining chicken can be popped into a sandwich with pickled veg and fresh herbs, reminiscent of a bánh mì. “I’m always thinking of recipes that I can turn into two or three dishes down the line,” Sheldon says.
Catch the rest of this week’s conversation, including Sheldon’s tips for making something truly delicious out of frozen fish sticks, on the podcast here.
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In this book, you’ll find Sheldon’s family favorites, including chicken adobo fried rice, “take along” hibachi shrimp, crispy chili-garlic cauliflower, and mandarin mochi that you make in the microwave.
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Sheldon mentioned:
Pinkabet Ilocano (Curious Flavors)
Chuck Cruz’s Crab Lumpia
Sheldon’s Mac Salad (Food + Wine)
Sam Choi’s beef stew with celery leaves
Alan Wong’s The Blue Tomato Cookbook (Thriftbooks here)
Alex Talbot and Aki Kamozawa’s Ideas in Food (Thriftbooks here)
Angie Rito and Scott Tacinelli’s Italian American (Bookshop here)
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Maggie mentioned:
The Dinner Plan’s cookbook recommendation list
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Shoyu Chicken
Reprinted with permission from Ohana Style: Food from Hawai’i, for Your Family by Sheldon Simeon; with Garrett Snyder, copyright © 2026. Published by Clarkson Potter Publishers, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
Shoyu chicken is the king of the Hawai‘i potluck. As they say in fantasy football, it’s got a high floor as a dish—and I’d say a high ceiling, too. No one will ever complain if you bring even mediocre shoyu chicken to a party, but if you show up with this succulent version that makes everyone mop their plate and go back for thirds, you’re guaranteed high praise.
An easy way to think of shoyu chicken is as a slowly simmered, almost poached, version of teriyaki—there are some differences, of course, but the combination of flavors is similar. And since I believe it’s easier to simmer something than grill it, this is the can’t-mess-up chicken recipe I would give first to any burgeoning home cook. You can even use a slow cooker to set it and forget it.
Serves 6
1 cup shoyu (soy sauce)
1 cup packed light brown sugar
2-inch piece fresh ginger, sliced and crushed with the butt of a knife
4 cloves garlic, smashed and peeled
2 scallions, roughly chopped, plus more for garnish
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
4 pounds bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 cup low-sodium chicken broth or water
2 tablespoons cornstarch
Cooked white rice (or scallion rice), for serving
In a 10-inch saucepan, combine the shoyu, brown sugar, ginger, garlic, scallions, and sesame oil. Stir over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved. Just as the mixture starts to boil, remove from the heat.
Once the mixture has cooled, place the chicken thighs into a large resealable plastic bag and pour the marinade over the chicken. Seal and marinate in the fridge for 2 hours, or overnight for the best flavor.
In a large pot or Dutch oven, combine the chicken (with marinade), pepper, and chicken broth and stir to combine. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and cook at a bare simmer until the chicken is tender and cooked through, 35 to 45 minutes, flipping the thighs in the sauce every 10 minutes or so. (If you’re using a slow cooker, cook on the low setting for 4 to 5 hours, until it’s thoroughly cooked but not falling apart into strands.)
Remove the chicken from the pot and set aside. If you like, you can remove and discard the chunks of ginger, garlic, and scallion with a slotted spoon or spider strainer. Raise the heat and bring the sauce to a boil. In a small bowl, whisk the cornstarch with 2 tablespoons cold water to form a slurry, then slowly stir into the boiling sauce. Continue stirring until the sauce has thickened, 1 to 2 minutes.
Remove from the heat, return the chicken to the pot, and serve warm with rice.
I made the shoyu chicken last night and it was fantastic, a big hit. Marinated the chicken about six hours. So easy. I turned the pieces over while they cooked like the recipe says. Will be on my rotation for every couple weeks!
excited to listen ahead of a trip to the big island!