Sweet, spicy and flavorful – this makeover Asian Orange Chicken is a lighter and healthier alternative to the popular Chinese fast food take-out dish and it’s quick and easy to make!
Orange Chicken Makeover
Orange Chicken MakeoverI love taking popular American-Chinese fast food dishes and making them over! You have so much more control of what you’re consuming when you cook your own food. A few favorite fast food makeovers are Chicken and Broccoli, General Tsos Chicken and Pepper Steak.
Orange Chicken is usually battered and deep fried. To be honest, this is not a dish I would order because I’m not a fan of battered sweet Chinese dishes, but I was happy to tackle a lighter version. My solution was to skip all that frying, and make a flavorful orange sauce. The outcome was great, and my husband even gave it two thumbs up!
Asian orange sauce is super easy and simple to make. It’s certainly a healthier option than using a bottled orange sauce with unknown ingredients and higher sugar content. To make this Asian orange sauce you’ll need fresh squeezed orange juice, chicken broth, soy sauce, a bit of sugar, rice wine, rice vinegar, sriracha, corn starch and some white pepper. You can even put this sauce over a white fish like Tilapia or over some sauteed veggies.
I served this over Cauliflower “Fried Rice” but you could even saute some bell peppers, snow peas, broccoli or asparagus and add them at the end.
Orange Chicken Makeover
Ingredients
For the Orange Sauce:
- 1/3 cup freshly-squeezed orange juice
- 1/4 cup reduced sodium chicken broth
- 2 tbsp soy sauce, Tamari for gluten-free
- 2 tbsp raw sugar
- 1 tbsp Chinese rice wine
- 1 tbsp sriracha, or more to taste
- 1 tbsp rice vinegar
- 1/4 teaspoon white pepper
- 2 teaspoons corn starch
For the chicken:
- 20 oz skinless, boneless chicken breast, cut into small cubes
- kosher salt, to taste
- 1 1/2 tbsp corn starch
- 1 tbsp sesame oil
- 4 cloves minced garlic
- 1- inch grated ginger
- 1 teaspoon grated orange zest
- 2 tbsp chopped scallions
- 1/2 tsp sesame seeds, for garnish
Instructions
- Mix the orange sauce ingredients and set aside.
- Season the chicken lightly with salt and coat evenly with corn starch, set aside.
- Heat a wok on high heat, add 1 teaspoon of sesame oil and add half of the chicken. Cook 2 to 3 minutes on each side until well browned, set aside.
- Add 1 teaspoon of oil and chicken and repeat cooking 2 to 3 minutes on each side. Set aside with the rest of the chicken.
- Add remaining teaspoon of oil and quickly stir-fry the minced garlic and ginger until fragrant, about 1 minute.
- Add the orange zest then return the chicken to the pan.
- Quickly stir the chicken then add the orange sauce and cook until the sauce thickens,about 1 to 2 minutes.
- Divide between 4 plates and garnish with the scallion and sesame seeds.
Last Step:
Please leave a rating and comment letting us know how you liked this recipe! This helps our business to thrive and continue providing free, high-quality recipes for you.Nutrition
Categories:
Awesome recipe Gina,
I have made it multiple times and always wonderful. It is fantastic to enjoy a
lightened version without the cost of a restaurant meal.
Please consider adding an addendum to your recipe. This time I cooked the chicken breasts (cut in halves) coated in cornstarch in the airfryer. This really cut back on the time. I mixed the sauce, fixed the cauliflower rice while the chicken cooked. I cut is up after
Thank you
Brilliant!
I’ve been hunting for an actually-tasty but healthier Chinese food recipe and you nailed it! Thanks! It turned out great.
Orange chicken was so good and easy to make. We ate it with rice and broccoli. I didn’t have mirin, but it was still delicious.
This dish is sooo yummy even my picky kids love it!! But question- can you make the chicken ahead and let it sit abs reheat in the sauce right before you serve it?
I was thinking the same question. Has anyone tried this?
Orange chicken is my sons favorite meal. I usually just make the frozen kind from Trader Joe’s. It’s a win win because it’s easy as heck and everyone loves it. But I knew I would t make it out to TJs this week so when he asked for orange chicken I decided to look up a recipe. This was fairly simple to make and turned out great. I doubled the sauce and added broccoli and served over rice. Halfway through prepping the chicken I ran out of corn starch and finished up with arrowroot powder. Worked just fine. I also used honey in place of the sugar. I’ll definitely make again when I can’t get to TD for theirs.
Hubby and I loved it! I made it a little hotter than it should have been–I was out of siracha and used gojujang in place of it. Not bad, all things considered!
Does anyone know if it works with lemon?
My family DEVOURS this recipe and have no clue it’s good for them. This is a staple dish now. Thank you for your amazing recipes and for sharing them!!
Tbh this was bomb
Awesome. During this pandemic time for our country, we are limiting meat meals. As with other recipes recently, I substituted cauliflower florets for the chicken and as you recommended, added stir fried broccoli, celery, carrots, pepper and onions. Served over rice! Will definitely make again.
Great!
SO delicious! I did not use the Chinese rice wine because I did not have any in the pantry. The flavour was still amazing! I took the advice to stir fry veggies: one head of broccoli, two stalks celery, two medium carrots, one red pepper, one orange pepper, and two cups sugar snap peas. Delicious flavour and lots for leftovers, perfect family pleaser meal!
We loved it!
Thank you for the cauliflower fried rice recipe. It wwas delicious Next time I make it I will double the recipe so that I can freeze some Doesn’t taste like cauliflower (though I like cauliflower)
Excellent…..I would recommend doubling the sauce – it’s so good!!
This is one of my favorites. A lot of flavor and you’d never know you were eating something meant to be a “healthier” version!
A new favorite! We make it weekly as stir fry with carrots, broccoli and red pepper (double sauce!)
Ok yes this ended up being delicious, but I just have to point out…. sesame oil is not intended for high heat cooking! The first time I tried this recipe my wok went up in flames when I added the oil!! Very scary. Not sure how this hasn’t happened to More people.
My family basically licked their plates dry! We all loved this!
Yay!!!
Some reason mine end up being super spicy! Don’t know what I could have done wrong…
Could I make this in the air fryer instead? Could I lightly coat it in the one teaspoon of sesame oil?
My foodie family loved this! The only thing we changed was to grill the chicken (becasue its Spring!) then we reduced the sauce in a pan and drizzled it over chicken, broccoli and sugar snap peas! Extraordinary. Awesome because I am on WW and they are not – so excited to have a great meal that we all loved! (I just had a 1/3 C of brown rice with mine). Thanks!
Do you know how much saturated and unsaturated fat is in this recipe per serving?
Could you use something in place of the corn starch? maybe coconut or almond flour?
Arrowroot is an alternate thickening agent
Thanks for the great recipe! Been making it regularly for a while but needed to print it out again so I figured I’d comment. 🙂
Thanks!