Every weekend Kelly, Cliff and myself have a big cooking fest. Usually we end up with the most random selection of food. Often times we end up with 5 different desserts and no lunch or dinner. Two weekends ago we really had our act together though!
We made three Chinese restaurant style recipes which we posted this week. Crab rangoon, eggrolls, and now sweet and sour chicken. Now you are ready to make the whole meal! We really love Chinese food, but we tend to order things like orange chicken or lemon chicken.
Both of which are usually fried. In other words, not so healthy! I am not going to claim that this recipe is healthy. But it is healthier than the fried version. We also added vegetables in lieu of rice so that should add some nutrition.
When Kelly first suggested this recipe I immediately said no because Cliff will not go near anything that has ketchup in it. We decided to go ahead and do it anyway and just hope he didn’t notice the big bottle of ketchup in our “here is what you’ll need” picture.
He is surprisingly observant though. At first he refused to eat it, but eventually he gave it a try. And he liked it!! We like extra sauce so we doubled the sauce portion of the recipe. The only thing we didn’t like was that the vinegar flavor was very strong. Next time we will not double the vinegar portion.
I have reflected that in my ingredients below. Other than that we loved this chicken!! It was even better than the sweet and sour chicken you get at Chinese restaurants. This chicken has a nice crispy texture but is not fried, and the sauce goes great with the chicken and the vegetables.
How to Make Sweet & Sour Chicken
- Cut the chicken in bite sized pieces and then sprinkle with salt and pepper
- Whisk the egg
- Coat the chicken in egg
- Dredge the chicken in corn starch
- Brown the chicken in a little bit of oil
- Begin the sauce with sugar
- Add ketchup
- Soy Sauce
- Vinegar
- And garlic powder
- Mix well
- Transfer the browned chicken to a baking sheet and coat with half of the sauce
- Cook the chicken for about 45 minutes flipping every 15
- Meanwhile, saute the vegetables
- Simmer the remaining sauce in a pot for about 8 minutes until thickened, then coat the vegetables with the sauce
- Add the cooked chicken to the vegetables and mix
Better than take out? I think so.
Sweet & Sour Chicken
Ingredients
Chicken
- 3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
- Salt and pepper
- 1 cup cornstarch
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 1/4 cup canola oil
Sauce
- 1 1/2 cup sugar
- 8 tbsp ketchup
- 1/2 cup cider vinegar
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 2 tbsp garlic powder
Vegetables
- broccoli
- carrots
- pea-pods
- water chestnuts
- baby corn
- canola oil
Instructions
- Cut boneless chicken breasts into bite sized pieces; season with salt and pepper. Dredge the chicken in egg and then in cornstarch. Fry in a little oil until brown. The chicken does not need to be cooked through at this point. Place in a single layer on a baking sheet. Mix sauce ingredients together and pour ½ over chicken. Bake for about 45 minutes at 325 degrees. Turn chicken every 15 minutes so it is evenly coated with the sauce. While the chicken is cooking begin sautéing the vegetables with a little oil. Depending on what kind of vegetables you use it will take about 10 minutes. Bring the remaining sauce to a simmer in a small pot and let thicken about 8 minutes. Pour the sauce over the vegetables. You can then mix the vegetables with the chicken or serve them separately.