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Happy New Year’s, everyone!
I hope that your 2014 is off to a terrific start. And hopefully, a delicious and healthy start!
So for all of you new years resolution folks who are out there scanning the world wide webosphere looking for lighter recipes after a holiday season full of sweets, you’ve come to the right place. Because I am dedicating theentire month of January this year to sharing healthy recipes with you. And I am stoked to kick things off with a lightened-up Chinese food classic — Skinny Orange Chicken.
This version packs all of the amazing sweet and savory orange flavor of the restaurant-style version, but with only a fraction of the calories and fat. And it is naturally sweetened with honey. And it can be served over rice or (my favorite) quinoa. And it can be made in just 20 minutes from start to finish.
Interested? You should be. :)
The main key to lightening up this restaurant classic is that we simply saute the chicken instead of fry it. The chicken is sauteed until golden and drenched in an orange chicken sauce anyway, so I guarantee you won’t even miss the frying! Plus, it saves us lots of unnecessary fat and calories in an already delicious dish.
And as I said, this skinny orange chicken recipe can literally be made in about 20 minutes. So here’s what you need to make it happen.
First, begin by cutting your chicken breasts into bite-sized pieces. Mine were roughly 1-inch cubed. Then season them with lots of salt and pepper for extra flavor.
Next, we make the rockstar of this recipe — the orange chickensauce. This sauce really could not be simpler. Simply whisk all of the ingredients together along with some cornstarch (for thickening), and you’re ready to go.
Next, saute the chicken in some olive oil until it is nearly cooked through. Be sure to let it rest in the pan a bit while cooking so that the sides can get nice and browned.
Then pour in the sauce, which should come to a boil within a minute or so. Let it boil for about 1-2 minutes, or until it’s nice and thickened.
Then top the chicken with some extra orange zest, green onions and toasted sesame seeds, and you’re good to go!
If you want to go the traditional route, you can serve this orange chicken recipe over rice. But I’m a big fan of eating stir-fry recipes with quinoa. So I whipped up a quick batch for this recipe, made (as always) with chicken broth for extra flavor.
I mean, really, just look at that gorgeous dish!
So much great flavor, and so little unnecessary fat and calories from frying the chicken. I’m pretty positive that even your friends or family members who usually prefer the fried version will go “poco loco” over this dish. :)
Stay tuned for more healthy recipes to come this month on Gimme Some Oven. And cheers to a great 2014 ahead!
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Skinny Orange Chicken
5 Stars4 Stars3 Stars2 Stars1 Star4.9 from 54 reviews
This homemade orange chicken recipe comes together in just 20 minutes, and is a crazy delicious! (And healthier than the restaurant version!)
Ingredients
Scale
Orange Chicken Ingredients:
2 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
salt and pepper
2 Tbsp. olive oil
orange chicken sauce (ingredients below)
toppings: thinly-sliced green onions, toasted sesame seeds, orange zest
Orange Chicken Sauce Ingredients:
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup honey
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
3 Tbsp. cornstarch
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. white pepper
zest of one orange
pinch of crushed red pepper flakes
(Optional: Quinoa Ingredients)
1 cup dry quinoa
2 cups chicken broth
Instructions
To Make The Orange Chicken:
Season chicken generously with salt and pepper.
Heat oil in a large saute pan over medium-high heat. Add chicken and saute for about 4-6 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the chicken is browned and nearly cooked through.
Pour in the orange chicken sauce, and stir to combine. Let the sauce come to a boil, then boil for an additional minute or two until thickened. Remove from heat and serve immediately over quinoa or rice. Garnish with green onions, sesame seeds and additional orange zest.
To Make The Orange Chicken Sauce:
Whisk all ingredients together until combined. If you would like the sauce to be even sweeter, add an extra 2-4 tablespoons of honey.
To Make The Quinoa:
You can see my step-by-step photo tutorial for how to cook quinoa here http://www.gimmesomeoven.com/how-to-cook-quinoa-recipe/.
Once you sear all the chicken pieces, it's best to let the chicken cool off for 2 to 3 minutes first. The crust will crisp up a bit more during this time. And the crust will hold up to the sauce better without turning soggy immediately after you add the liquid ingredients.
Sauce is like gravy in that if it's not thickening as much as you want after you've added the cornstarch, turn the heat up a little and continue to cook. Keep an eye on it though, as it can thicken quickly.
microwave those frozen packages and then add some orange zest.the juice of an orange and half a cup of soy sauce. this is just a way to elevate the orange flavor in the orange chicken. mix it all together and bring it over to the cooking chicken & vegetables and mix that in.
My not-so-secret tip to the best fried chicken is a combination of FLOUR, CORNSTARCH, and BAKING POWDER. When mixed with the flour, the cornstarch makes the flour coating crispier and gives it that golden brown color!
The chicken is then air-dried for 10 to 12 hours before being flash-fried, then oil-poached. The skin gets its signature crispiness from 10 to 12 minutes of basting with scalding hot oil right before serving.
Arrowroot powder: Arrowroot powder is a fine, gluten-free powder you can use in place of cornstarch as a thickening agent because it has a similar thickening power. Substitute arrowroot powder one-to-one for cornstarch.
The most readily available sauce-thickener is flour. For a too-thin sauce, try adding a slurry (equal parts flour and water, whisked together) or beurre manie (equal parts softened butter and flour, kneaded together to form a paste)—both are ideal thickeners for rich and creamy sauces, such as steak sauce recipes.
While cornstarch is used in China, many Chinese cooks also cook with tapioca starch. In the West, cornstarch is more readily available and generally preferred. The reason why cornstarch is so common is that it adds that perfectly silky texture to stir fries, soups, and sauces synonymous with great Chinese food.
By the fall of 2022, Panda Express fans had something new to clamor about at all of its 2,300 locations with the national launch of Beyond the Original Orange Orange Chicken (BTOOC), a plant-based take on its most popular dish made together with vegan company Beyond Meat.
How to make the orange chicken sauce. The orange sauce is made from a mixture of the orange juice and zest, sugar, soy sauce, garlic, ginger and rice vinegar. This is bubbled up in the wok until slightly thickened. The chicken is then added back in, and tossed in the sauce until fully coated.
Although they're both made with an orange-based sauce, mandarin chicken and orange chicken are different dishes. Mandarin chicken is typically sweeter because it uses more dark brown sugar than orange chicken. The sauce for mandarin chicken also tends to be thicker and much stickier.
Whether you need to whip up dinner fast or just want to quickly add flavorful chicken to your meal, each $17.99 box of this new Costco addition is “fully cooked, family size” and ready to “heat and serve.”
For conventional oven: preheat oven to 400°F and thaw unopened sauce pouch in a bowl of hot water. Empty 1 bag of chicken onto a baking sheet and cook for 10 minutes, if desired, turn chicken halfway through cooking for even browning. Then either drizzle sauce over finished chicken or use as a dipping sauce.
Place the chicken skin in a single layer, skin-side down, on top of stainless steel wire rack on a foil-lined rimmed baking sheet. Pop the tray in the oven and bake for 10 minutes. Then, flip the chicken skins skin-side up and bake for 10 more minutes or until golden and crispy.
In a large skillet, drizzle a little oil and warm it up on medium heat. Place the orange chicken in the pan and cook for 2-3 minutes. Flip each piece over and cook for an additional 2-3 minutes. Take the chicken off the hot pan and let it cool for 1 minute on a plate before eating.
Whether Orange Chicken is baked or fried, it can get soggy if left to sit for too long once combined. To prevent soggy chicken, serve immediately or store the chicken and sauce separately, then combine when reheating.
Hobby: Flower arranging, Yo-yoing, Tai chi, Rowing, Macrame, Urban exploration, Knife making
Introduction: My name is Madonna Wisozk, I am a attractive, healthy, thoughtful, faithful, open, vivacious, zany person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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