Our Easy Asian Orange Chicken is the perfect faux takeout meal if you love takeout but can’t find a good takeout place near your house!
Creating This Homemade Orange Chicken Recipe
I love sauces. I love dipping sauces, marinating meats in sauces, and more. It’s just so delicious. A few weeks back, we hosted my brother-in-law’s birthday bash at our house. It was so much fun and there was so much good food.
His family has an Chinese orange chicken recipe that all of the kids just love, but it has nothing orange in it, so I decided to make a real orange chicken. We actually ended up loving both the pretend orange chicken and the real deal so both recipes were keepers!
Chinese Orange Chicken Ingredients
Don’t let the ingredients list intimidate you, this orange chicken recipe is incredibly easy to make! For the homemade orange chicken itself, you’ll need boneless skinless chicken breasts, all-purpose flour, an egg, salt and pepper, and oil for frying the chicken in.
Where this Chinese orange chicken gets all of its flavor is the orange chicken sauce. For the sauce, you’ll need orange juice and zest, rice vinegar, soy sauce, brown sugar, fresh ginger, garlic, red pepper flakes, cornstarch, and water.
The orange chicken sauce isn’t hard to make at all. It’s so saucy and goes so well with chicken. In fact, it’s so good I’m starting to think that salmon might be a great way to go as well. Has anyone tried that?
How to Make Orange Chicken
Although homemade orange chicken involves deep frying, it’s not complicated to make and takes less than an hour to finish. Here are the basic steps for making orange chicken at home:
- Dredge the diced chicken pieces in beaten egg, then seasoned flour.
- Deep fry the chicken in oil that’s 375ºF.
- In a small saucepan, combine all of the orange chicken sauce ingredients but the water and cornstarch and bring to a boil.
- Once boiling, create a cornstarch slurry and mix it into the orange chicken sauce to thicken it.
- Pour the sauce over the deep fried chicken pieces and enjoy!
Can You Bake Orange Chicken?
You can bake Asian orange chicken, but you’ll want to omit the flour breading since it doesn’t turn out as well when it’s baked instead of fried. Instead, if you want to bake our easy orange chicken just use the breading on our Sesame Chicken recipe and proceed with the orange chicken sauce as normal.
How to Reheat Orange Chicken
If you have leftover homemade orange chicken, do NOT reheat it in the microwave. That will make the chicken rubbery and the breading will lose its crispness. Instead, reheat the orange chicken in a skillet with a little olive or canola oil over medium heat. It won’t taste quite as good as when you first made it, but it’ll still be tasty!
Can You Freeze Orange Chicken?
If you’re using the baked recipe, you can freeze orange chicken. Make sure you freeze it in a single layer on a pan before putting it in a freezer-safe bag. As always, we really do prefer to use our Food Saver that we got off of Amazon with the starter kit. It sucks out all of the air and the food stays so fresh you can’t tell it was frozen.
When you’re ready to reheat, just defrost the chicken on a dish in the fridge with plastic wrap laid over the top, then bake with a little drizzle of oil over the tops of the chicken. Remember, this is just for the chicken, not the sauce.
To freeze the orange chicken sauce, let it cool completely before placing it in a freezer bag and pressing out any air. Lay it on a flat surface, not a surface with a wire rack, otherwise you need to use a pan under it as it will sink into the bars and then freeze making it super hard to remove from the freezer.
Can I Use a Skillet Instead of a Wok?
Also note that you don’t need a deep fryer or a wok to make this recipe. A regular skillet with tall sides will work too. To test when the oil is hot enough, stick the end of a wooden spoon into the oil; if tiny bubbles immediately form around the wood, the oil is the right temperature.
What to Serve With Orange Chicken
Don’t worry if you’re wondering what to serve your Chinese orange chicken with, I’ve got you covered! A few of our favorite sides to serve with this homemade orange chicken include:
- Ham Fried Rice
- White rice
- A simple side salad
- Garlic Roasted Veggies (minus the Parmesan)
Tips for Making the Best Orange Chicken
For the best flavor, I highly recommend using freshly squeezed orange juice for this orange chicken recipe. Since you’ll be using orange zest as well, you might as well buy a few extra oranges and use their juice for this Chinese chicken recipe.
If you really can’t be bothered to squeeze all the juice out by hand, a good alternative is Simply Orange Juice. It’s made with real fruit juice and contains no additional sweeteners.
Lastly, you may have extra orange chicken sauce (it really just depends on how saucy you like your chicken). If you wind up with leftover sauce, you can reuse it on baked chicken, seafood, and more! It’s really versatile and tastes good on almost any protein.
More Easy Asian Recipes:
- 15-Minute Chicken Stir Fry
- Simple Asian Shrimp Noodles
- Asian Chicken Skewers with Honey Garlic Sauce
- Pork Dumplings
- Easy Cashew Chicken
- Teriyaki Chicken Noodles
- Sweet and Spicy Orange Salmon
- Grilled Sweet and Sour Chicken
- Peanut Sauce Noodles with Chicken
- …All of Our Asian Recipes!
Easy Asian Orange Chicken
Description
Ingredients
- 2 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-1/2” cubes
- 1 ½ cups all purpose flour
- 1 egg, beaten
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon pepper
- oil, for frying
Orange Sauce
- 1 ½ cups orange juice and zest from one orange
- 1/3 cup rice vinegar
- 2 ½ tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 cup packed brown sugar
- ½ teaspoon ginger root, minced
- ½ teaspoon garlic, minced
- ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 3 tablespoons cornstarch
- 2 tablespoons water
Instructions
- Combine flour, salt, and pepper.
- Dip chicken in egg mixture and shake in flour mixture to coat.
- Deep fry chicken in batches at 375 degrees in a deep fryer (or use a wok) until completely cooked.
- Meanwhile, in a large saucepan combine orange juice, rice vinegar, and soy sauce.
- Blend well over medium heat for a few minutes.
- Stir in brown sugar, orange zest, ginger and garlic. Bring to a boil.
- Combine 3 tablespoons of cornstarch with 1/4 cup of water and mix thoroughly.
- Slowly stir cornstarch mixture into sauce until it thickens.
- Pour sauce over breaded chicken, and if desired add red pepper flakes.
Bonnie
Thank you so much for yet another wonderful recipe. You have become “my go to” in cooking. And… you make it easy! I’ll be making this one for sure. Keep up the good work and we all will continue to gratefully appreciate all of your efforts!! 😉
Sweet Basil
Thank you Bonnie! The support of readers like you means everything to us!
JSR Group
Best Recipe for orange chicken.
Sweet Basil
Thank you!!
Medatdoorstep
Great Post. Thanks for sharing your information with us.
Sweet Basil
Thank you!
Saumya
It is strange how the citrus flavours blend so well with chicken. The video you have shared makes it easy to understand the recipe. I am going to try this recipe for my next kitty party. Keep sharing such innovative posts and videos. Looking forward to more such interesting posts. Great share!
Sweet Basil
Thank you so much!
Princess
I’m confused is this recipe for 1 person?
Sweet Basil
No, it’s for 4-6 people, usually 4 if it’s all adults
Kimberly@FoodTalko
Yumm … The recipe sounds delicious! I will make it for a family Saturday dinner. Thanks so much!
Debbie
Is this information correct for 1 serving? Nutrition Information
Yield: 1 recipe, Serving Size: 1
•Amount Per Serving: ,
•Calories: 2927 Calories,
•Total Fat: 30.4g,
•Cholesterol: 822.2mg,
•Carbohydrates: 417.4g,
•Fiber: 12.7g,
•Sugar: 239.9g,
•Protein: 235.5g,
Almost 3000 calories for 1 serving? Seems like so much for the ingredient list or for frying in a wok or oil. Love orange chicken thanks for the sauce recipe and with salmon sounds great.
Sweet Basil
It seems to be pulling nutritional information for a whole lot of chicken. We are looking into it. And yes, sooo good with salmon
elaine
I am only interested in pressure cooker recipes…at this stage in my life, I only do quick, easy, simple!!!!
Sweet Basil
We are posting more and more:)
Natalie
I really like the orange sauce and I really did it !! However, instead of chicken I used the sauce for my breakfast salad xD it was so NEW to my salad and I love it.
I will try with chicken oneday!
Sweet Basil
No way!! What a great idea!
Natalie
Isn’t it? xD
Amanda
Oh my goodness, this looks so good!! I love making Asian inspired food at home. It’s so much better than any takeout I can get in my community. This is definitely going on my meal plan for next week.
Sweet Basil
It’s so much more fresh and delicious!
Linda G. Green
Wonderful, Delicious Way To Have Chinese Cooking. Thank You For Sharing!
Neha Agarwal
Very Nice article…
Sharon T.
I would like receive for the rice. I am new so I have few receives. Thank you. Love you article
Kassi Chapman
This looks so good! Unfortunately I don’t have a wok or deep fryer. Do you think I could bake the chicken first to make sure it’s done, coat it in the egg mix, and then fry it?
Sweet Basil
Hi Kassi, You can just use a regular deep sided skillet. 🙂 I probably wouldn’t bake it first.
salon in delhi
its a very nice blog
Jay
First off, this was delicious, and I will definitely make it again.
But…
A recipe that involves deep frying isn’t “Easy”, pretty much by definition. Not that deep frying is difficult, but it requires a thermometer to know when the oil is hot enough, it’s messy because of spatter, and there’s a lot of oil to dispose of afterwards. Not to mention that cooking in batches increases cooking time and you have to do something with the first batch to keep it warm while the second is frying.
Also, the way this is written would be a TON of sauce for 2 lbs of chicken. I used about 3.5 lbs of chicken, made the sauce recipe as written (almost) and have sauce left over. And with a full cup of sugar this would be way too sweet, for me at least. I halved it and it was plenty sweet enough.
Third, the way that the recipe lists “1 ½ cups orange juice and zest from one orange” is confusing. At first I was like, “where on earth are you getting oranges that have a cup and a half of juice in them?” Then I realized you meant that the orange juice and zest are separate ingredients — they really should be listed separately. I ended up juicing four oranges to get 1.5 cups of juice, and I put in the zest from all of them. 🙂 I used two tbsp of cornstarch rather than three and the sauce was quick thick.
The sauce was terrific in the end, and the chicken (I used thighs instead of breasts by the way) was great, juicy inside and crispy outside.
Bonita
One easy way to tell when your oil is ready, is to put the handle of a wooden spoon into the oil and if it bubbles around it, the oil is hot enough.
Sweet Basil
Yes, that’s just what my mother taught me!
Neha Agarwal
I really love blogs…. Thanks for sharing with us.
Jan
What is the serving size on this recipe please. I am trying to work out the nutritional information. Thanks so much.
Sweet Basil
Hi Jan, the serving size would be about 5.5 or 5.6 ounces.
Teysha
This looks really good and I love Orange Chicken! Do you have any nutritional information on this recipe? I have to watch my calories and salt/sugar intake.
Sweet Basil
Hi Teysha, I don’t know the nutritional information, but I’m sure there is an online calculator.
Laura
This is the best orange chicken I’ve ever had!! I will never order takeout again. I reduced the brown sugar to half and it still was delish.
Sweet Basil
I’m so glad!! We love it too but sometimes I get so caught up in creating recipes I forget to go back to the basics. Thanks for the reminder to make this asap!
Melissa
I made this yesterday and it is soooooooooo delicious! I havn’t had orange chicken in years and now i can make a yummy version anytime i want. Thanks for this recipe!
Sweet Basil
I’m so happy to hear that! I’m working on a few other faux takeout recipes I’m excited about too!
Jeanine
Made this tonight for dinner tonight and it was AMAZING!!! Followed the instructions to the dot except I pan fried the chicken, came out great!!
Sweet Basil
Oh, I bet pan fried chicken was delicious too! I’ll try that next time. Thanks Jeanine!
Michelle de Hoyos
In the recipe it calls for 1 1/2 cups orange juice, and then in the instructions it says to add 1 1/2 cups water to the orange juice, soy sauce etc. are you diluting the Orange juice even more?
Sweet Basil
Hi Michelle, that’s an error from the old recipe. I’ve removed it and thank you for double checking.
Sally
Thanks for your great sounding Oriental recipes. I will be making them soon.
Sally
I found your delicious sounding recipes for Chinese Food. Thanks for sharing. I will make these recipes soon.
Sweet Basil
Thanks so much Sally!
Olivia
When you say 1.5 cups of orange juice do you mean actual orange juice that you drink or the juice squeezed from an orange? (or maybe it doesnt matter)
Sweet Basil
We usually fresh squeeze ours, but lately I’ve been using Simply Orange orange juice from the store and it was great.
Beth G
How much lemon juice and orange zest are to be used? They’re both listed in the instructions but not on the ingredient list…
Sweet Basil
Thank you for catching that! There is no lemon juice and the zest from 1 orange. 🙂
Diana
Since the Honey Chicken was such a hit last night and I have leftover chicken, this is going to be tonight’s meal.
Will let you know reactions of the food critics tonight. Lol. Tough crowd here…. 🙂
Thanks for your hard work and for sharing this gastronomic amazingness!
Sweet Basil
Thanks Diana! I haven’t had this orange chicken in forever so thanks for the reminder to make it! (And take new photos, yeash!) haha
Karine
Your chicken sounds amazing! I should definitively try the combo orange-chicken 🙂
Cara
Mmm! I love orange chicken! Definitely bookmarking this one!
Aggie
I've been making a lot more asian inspired meals lately…seems like the kids are liking them too! This looks like a great recipe!! Thanks for sharing!
Norah
Yummy! We love Chinese food in this house.
Corn
I was just saying to my husband how I am craving Chinese food and then you post this recipe. Thanks, great timing. I will definitely try making it this weekend 🙂