This delicious, saucy, homemade Sweet and Sour chicken is easy, better-than-takeout, with no food coloring, and is made from simple pantry ingredients!
Cooking fake-outs at home is literally the best thing I’ve done for my health, and my family’s, of course. This way, I can control my ingredients, use quality products, and eat delicious food without the guilt! Being able to whip up authentic P.F. Chang’s Dynamite Shrimp or Nando’s Peri Peri Chicken Livers at home has been a game-changer!
Jump to:
Saucy Sweet and Sour Chicken
Sweet ‘n Sour chicken is a classic restaurant-style Asian main. The chicken is lightly coated and tossed into a classic sweet and tangy sauce along with some veggies to balance the flavors.
This homemade version has the best of both worlds! We get the same great restaurant test minus all the unhealthy factors. We are skipping the MSG (Chinese Salt), artificial food coloring, and fresh chicken! Plus, you can always control the method of cooking, oil source, and sauce brands!
Ingredients
Here’s what you’ll need to make the perfect Saucy Sweet n Sour chicken:
- Veggies – Bell Peppers and onions are non-negotiable, guys! sorry! And yellow bell pepper is even better! You can ADD pineapples and delete carrots if you want, but the onions and bell peppers balance the flavors, so no way are you skipping that, ok?
- Boneless Chicken – This is a saucy recipe, so you can use breast pieces or thigh pieces, no preference.
- Sauces – Oyster sauce, Soy sauce, and Sriracha Sauce. Opt for your favorite brands.
- Dark Brown sugar – Brown sugar brings out a slight bitterness along with sweetness in the recipe. Don’t you dare use white sugar for this recipe! Use honey instead if you need to.
- Cornstarch – You will need this to coat the chicken and to thicken the sauce. I’ve experimented with all kinds of coatings for this recipe, and the cornstarch and egg coating works the best. It’s light and holds well whether baked or fried.
- Egg – You will need this for coating the chicken.
- Garlic and Ginger – Lifelong flavor enhancers, need I say more? You can also use galangal instead of ginger.
- Seasoning – Your usual salt and black pepper
- Garnish – I use the usual scallions (green onions) and sesame seeds to garnish this recipe. But I also use the bulb or the white portion of the green onion in the gravy.
Substitutions
- Eggs – Some of you have mentioned time and again on my IG, that you avoid eggs due to dietary restrictions. If you can’t add eggs, skip it altogether. Eggs add a slight binding element to the batter, but you can do without them if you need to.
- Tomato Paste – You can totally use regular ketchup instead of tomato paste in this recipe
- Sauces – You can use hot sauce (half quantity) instead of Sriracha and a dash of BBQ sauce instead of Oyster sauce.
See the recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities
Instructions
Here’s a simple rundown of all the steps you’ll come across while cooking, so that there are no surprises!
Step 1: Marinate boneless chicken cubes in egg, spices, vinegar, and cornflour for 10 mins.
Step 2: Deep fry in oil until golden brown.
Step 3: Remove the fried chicken from the oil.
Step 4: Set the fried chicken chunks aside.
Step 5: Mix all the sauces in the recipe with cornflour and set aside.
Step 6: Sauté garlic, ginger, and the white bulb of green onions in oil.
Step 7: After it turns golden, add tomato paste with a splash of water and some sugar.
Step 8: Add water and vegetables to your tomato garlic base. Allow it to boil and then drop in the cornflour sauce mix.
NOTE: Tomato paste sputters when added to oil; Add about 1/4 cup of water before adding the paste to avoid excessive sputtering.
Step 9: Add the fried chicken to the gravy. Cook for 2 minutes.
Step 10: Give your corn flour time to thicken up (around 3 minutes). Adjust the sauce thickness by adding more water if needed.
Serve your sweet and sour chicken hot, garnished with sesame seeds and green onions. Pair it with fried rice or plain rice, or just plain garlic noodles!
Expert Tips
- Keep everything chopped and prepared before starting to work on the sauce. Things happen very quickly once you start prepping the sauce, so it’s best that you have everything ready by your side.
- While frying, make sure your wok or pan is wide enough to allow the chicken pieces to fry separately.
- Use good-quality tomato paste!
- For dinners or parties, you can prepare the chicken a day in advance and prepare the sauce on the day of the event.
Tips to make this recipe lighter or healthier
- Use low-sodium Soy sauce instead of regular soy sauce.
- Use fresh organic tomato paste.
- Bake the chicken instead of frying.
- Use tapioca flour instead of cornflour.
- You can also use Pink salt instead of regular table salt.
- Use fresh organic chicken for the recipe.
Frequently Asked Questions
Totally! You can use tofu or cauliflower florets instead of chicken.
Of course! Sweet ‘n Sour Fish would turn out amazing! You can follow the same instructions for fish. In case of beef, if you are using flank meat, then you can use the same steps. If you are using a tougher cut of the meat, boil it for 20 minutes in salt, black pepper, and garlic. Then proceed with the recipe as is.
Yes! Most cornflour-based gravies tend to clump when they are kept in the fridge. But this recipe has enough water content to prevent that from happening. So yes, go ahead and heat it in the microwave.
Since this recipe has fresh vegetables, I wouldn’t keep it for very long in the fridge. Consume within 2 to 3 days.
More Pan-Asian Recipes
I love recreating recipes. Here are some restaurant-style Asian remakes:
Do you have any questions? I’m happy to help! And of course, If you try this recipe, I’d loveeeee to see it or simply hear about it! Hit me up in the comment section below and I’ll get back to asap! Happy Cooking!
Sweet And Sour Chicken
Ingredients
Chicken Marinade
- 400 gm boneless chicken breast cut up in 1/2 inch cubes
- 3 tbsp cornstarch
- 1 pinch of baking soda see notes
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tsp black pepper powder
- 3 tbsp vinegar
- Oil as needed or frying or to grease for baking
Sweet ‘n Sour Gravy
- 3 cloves of garlic finely chopped
- 1 White end of green onion sliced
- 1/2 inch piece of ginger finely chopped
- 3 tbsp Soy sauce
- 2 tbsp Oyster Sauce
- 1 tsp salt
- 4 tbsp brown sugar
- 3 tbsp Sriracha Sauce
- 1/3 cup tomato paste
- 5 tbsp Vinegar
- 2 cups water
- 2 tbsp cornstarch see notes
- 1 cup bell peppers cut in 1/2 inch squares
- 1/2 cup shallots cut in 1/2 inch squares
- 1/2 a carrot thinly sliced
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- sesame seeds for garnish
- chopped green onion for garnish
Instructions
- In a bowl, add all the ingredients for the chicken marinade. Mix everything together and coat the chicken well. Set aside for 10 mins
- Cook the chicken by frying or baking. To fry, add the chicken in hot vegetable oil and fry until golden brown. Remove from oil and set aside. Make sure to have a large enough frying pan so that the chicken pieces don’t stick together. To bake, preheat the oven to 220°C (430 F). Grease a large baking tray and place your chicken pieces on to the tray, making sure the pieces don’t touch. Spray with an oil spray and bake for 20 mins, flipping the chicken pieces after 10 mins. Set the baked/fried chicken aside
- In a bowl, mix vinegar, soy sauce, oyster sauce, sriracha sauce and cornstarch. Set aside.
- In a wok or a large deep pan, add oil, chopped garlic and ginger and sliced white end of the green onion. Saute at medium flame until the ginger garlic turns light golden brown.
- Add a splash of water, tomato paste, brown sugar and salt. Stir for 2 mins to allow tomato paste to cook for a bit. Add more water if the paste splatters a lot.
- Drop in all your vegetables and saute for another minute.
- Add 2 cups of water and allow the the water to come to a boil.
- After the water boil, add the cornstarch sauce mix and the fried/baked chicken.
- Cook for another 2 to 3 minutes or until gravy thickens.
- Turn off flame and sprinkle sesame seeds and green onions for garnish
- Serve with fried rice.
Notes
- You can use regular tomato ketchup instead of tomato paste
- You can also add more cornstarch if you feel you need a thicker gravy.
- You can prepare the chicken a day in advance and keep in the refrigerator and just bring it out on the day of assembly. Just give it 2 3 extra minutes to cook so that it heats up.
- You can use any veggies that you like. Fruits like pineapple or apples both go very well in this recipe.
Sana says
Turned out incredibly delicious ????
Zilehuma Malik says
I tried and it turned out delicious
Wajiha says
yay!! so happy to hear that!