Sweet and Sour Chicken

Sweet and sour chicken is a perfect combination of sweet and tangy flavour sauce with bite-size chicken pieces. One of the most popular Chinese takeout favourite and you can find this dish in the menu of every Oriental restaurants.

One can barely resist this lightly battered deep fried chicken pieces cooked in delightful homemade sweet and sour sauce. In this recipe, we will show you how to make better than takeout sweet and sour chicken with simple instructions. You will astonished by how simple and easy to make at home with everyday ingredients.

You can serve over a bowl of steamed rice, fried rice or stir-fry noodle and make it a perfect dinner meal. Here is few of my favourite fried rice and noodles recipes :
– Garlic Fried Rice
– Chicken Fried Rice
– Singapore Noodle

How To Make Perfect Sweet and Sour Chicken :

• Chicken : I use boneless chicken thigh in this recipe and tenderize the chicken pieces with a bit of baking soda. Its totally fine to use chicken breast meat and you can tenderize with same method. Chicken pieces will still moist and tender when you cook in high heat. You can substitute chicken with prawn, tofu or any of your favourite tender meat cut.
• Coating : To achieve the crispy coating texture use corn or potato starch instead of regular flour. You can find corn/potato starch in most Oriental/Chinese supermarkets or Amazon online.
• Sauce : You need 4 simple ingredients and water to make the perfect sweet and tangy sauce. Mix the sugar, white vinegar, pineapple juice, ketchup and water in mixing bowl. That’s it! Customize the sweetness level by adding less or more sugar, according to your taste. Sugar can be substitute with honey. If you don’t have pineapple juice in hand, you can use orange or lemon juice instead. ( Tips: You can make extra sweet and sour sauce and keep it in a airtight jar to use for busy days. It last for up to one week in fridge. )
• Vegetables : I add small dices of onions, bell peppers, pineapples and carrot slices. You can add extra vegetables like courgettes or bamboo shoots or any of your favourite vegetables.

Step By Step Photo Instructions :

Cut chicken into small medium bite size pieces. Marinate with baking soda, sesame oil and light soy sauce for 10-15 minutes.

Prepare the vegetables by cut the onions and sweet pepper into small dices. Cut carrot and peppers into thin slices.

Coat the chicken pieces well with potato/corn flour and toss the excess flour out before frying.

Heat the oil into high heat about 350° F. Add the coated chicken pieces and deep fry for 2-3 mins until chicken turn into crispy light brown colour. Remove from oil and set aside.

Heat the wok add water, vinegar, sugar, pineapple juice, ketchup bring it to boil with medium high heat. ( Or you can mix the sauce ingredients in a bowl and pour into wok. )

When the sauce reduce to half, add the carrot and onions and stir for few seconds. Then follow with the peppers and fried chicken pieces. Stir well with medium heat to 1 to 2 minutes.

Add corn/potato flour and water mixture in the sauce and stir. Add pineapple pieces in final step and mix it well. (You can add some salt according to your taste.)

Delicious Sweet and Sour Chicken is ready! Serve immediately with a bowl of steamed rice or a stir-fry noodle.