One way to mitigate that is to make sure you don't crowd the pan too much. If you're using a lot of chicken for the size of the pan, water will be trapped inside the pan. Using a wider skillet will help. If the problem persists, reduce the sauce before adding it to the chicken.

My chicken ended up releasing a ton of water as I was simmering it in the sauce, so I ended up raising the heat after cooking to evaporate some of the water and thicken the sauce, which resulted in slightly over cooked chicken.

Any suggestions on dealing with the water released from the chicken? Perhaps high heat after adding the chicken but before the sauce? Worried about potential burning in that case though.

I see, so, it will work, yes, but that sugar tastes quite different from the Thai/Viet palm sugar. In this recipe, I think it's fine, but I would not use it in other recipes that don't require caramelizing the sugar as you'll get quite a different flavour.

Thanks for your response! Good to know.
Well if you're curious what I have is a box of granulated dry coconut sugar: https://www.amazon.com/BetterBody-Foods-Organic-Coconut-Unrefined/dp/B00PRGU6BA

Hi Aaron, both sugars will get to the same darkness if you caramelize them long enough, so I think you just need to push the colour a little further. "Organic coconut palm sugar", even though there's no way for me to tell what it is actually (Because that description doesn't tell me how the sugar is processed), it should also work!

I can't find anything but organic coconut palm sugar though, which is apparently very different from Thai palm sugar. At that point should I still try caramelizing with the organic coconut palm sugar or just use white sugar?

I used white sugar this first time and was wondering if it's normal that the color doesn't get as dark as palm sugar or if I just didn't caramelize and reduce it long enough?

Out of curiosity, I searched the web for the original recipe from The Slanted Door restaurant in San Francisco. Stick to the Pai version and watch her video. Same recipe (except dark brown sugar vs. palm sugar), but so much better explained by Pai.