Everybody loves a little Chinese takeout, yeah? I feel like most Orange Chicken you get at places is sugary-sweet, gloppy, dried out pieces of mostly-breading-and-a-little-chicken. After spending months perfecting this (because lesbehonest, you can't eat orange chicken every day), I've done away with the typical take-out fare and replaced it with some serious Asian zing.
   
{Does anyone else's stomach do a number on them after some Panda Express? I've sworn off the stuff. My stomach isn't as young as it used to be.}
So I'm growing a little peanut in my belly right now, which pretty much gives me a free card. If I want my chicken fried, I'll fry my chicken. You can easily make this recipe slightly more healthy and gluten-free by skipping this part. If you'd rather not batter and fry your chicken, you can simply cook it in a little oil.
Make your sauce, steam some broccoli, let your juicy, little fried chickens  rest on a cooling rack for a couple of minutes, then gently mix them together until the broccoli and chickens are nice and saucy.
Take that, Panda Express!
Orange Chicken
Ingredients
Chicken
- 3 chicken breasts diced
- 2 c flour
- 2 Tablespoon salt
- 2 Tablespoon black pepper
- 2 Tablespoon garlic powder
- 2 egg
- ¼ c milk
- peanut oil or canola oil for frying
Orange Sauce
- 1 Tablespoon minced garlic
- 1 Tablespoon fresh ginger
- 1 Tablespoon sesame oil canola works just as well
- 2 ½ c orange juice
- 2 Tablespoon soy sauce
- 1 scant cup brown sugar
- 1 Tablespoon rice vinegar
- 1 Tablespoon sriracha sauce hot sauce
- 2 Tablespoon cornstarch dissolved in 2 T cold water
- 6 green onions chopped
- 1 head broccoli chopped
- rice for serving
Instructions
- Mix flour, salt, pepper, and garlic powder in bowl.
- Whisk egg and milk in second bowl.
- Heat enough oil in large frying pan to cover the bottom of the pan about ½" deep on medium heat, or until water sizzles when flicked into pan.
- Dredge chicken in flour mixture, then egg mixture, then flour mixture again.
- Space chicken apart in pan and fry until golden brown on bottoms/side, flipping once, in batches. Don't crowd the pan. Place chicken on cooling rack. Repeat process with remaining chicken.
- While second batch of chicken is frying, make sauce: saute garlic and ginger in sesame oil until fragrant.
- Add orange juice, soy sauce, sugar, vinegar, and sriracha. Stir on med until it has reached a low simmer until slightly thickened.
- Add cornstarch dissolved in water, whisk until desired consistency is reached.
- Steam broccoli until crisp-tender.
- Cook enough rice for 5 servings.
- Combine fried chicken and sauce, serve over rice and broccoli, garnish with green onions.
Erin V says
tastes so much better homemade-- thanks for this scrumptiousness