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Sweet and sour chicken is a popular Chinese recipe. This healthy and crispy sweet and sour chicken recipe is so delicious with sweet and sour sauce. It's better than takeout!
Sweet And Sour Chicken Recipe
Sweet and sour chicken is one of the most popular Chinese recipes.
Chinese sweet and sour is a cooking style that is easy, delicious and everyone’s favorite.
The dish comes complete with crispy fried chicken cubes with mouthwatering sweet and sour sauce. It goes well with steamed rice, fried rice or chow mein.
Sweet And Sour Sauce
How do you make sweet and sour chicken sauce?
You will need the following simple ingredients to make the sauce:
- Ketchup.
- Chili sauce.
- Plum sauce.
- Lea and Perrins Worcestershire sauce.
- Chinese rice vinegar.
- Sugar.
See the recipe card for full information on ingredients.
My recipe is healthy with no red food coloring in the sauce.
You can make the sweet sour sauce in advance, store in an air-tight container and keep in the refrigerator.
How To Make Sweet And Sour Chicken
The recipe is easy and simple. First, cut the chicken into bite-sized cubes.
Then make the sweet and sour chicken batter and coat the chicken with the batter.
Next, deep fry the chicken and stir fry with the sweet sour sauce.
Cooking Tips
For the best sweet and sour chicken, please following my cooking tips below:
- The combination of plum sauce, Lea and Perrins Worcestershire sauce and Chinese rice vinegar make the sauce tastes like the best Chinese restaurants.
- DO NOT double the sauce. The sauce should lightly coat the chicken cubes so the chicken remain crispy and not soggy.
- Use baking powder in the batter. The baking powder makes the batter light and airy and the chicken will be extra crispy and crunchy.
- DO not use red coloring in the sauce.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, you sure can. Just opt out the tomatoes in the recipe and replace with pineapple.
You may use fresh pineapple or canned pineapple with syrup. If you use canned pineapple, remember to discard the syrup before cooking.
Cut the pineapple into bite-sizes pieces before cooking.
Yes, you can use air fryer. Just lightly coat the chicken with the batter and air fry in an air fryer.
This recipe is only 162 calories per serving.
What To Serve With Sweet And Sour Chicken
Serve this dish with steamed rice or other rice and noodle dishes. For a wholesome meal and easy weeknight dinner, I recommend the following recipes.
I hope you enjoy this post as much as I do. If you try my recipe, please leave a comment and consider giving it a 5-star rating. For more easy and delicious recipes, explore my Recipe Index, and stay updated by subscribing to my newsletter and following me on Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram for new updates.
Other Recipes You Might Like
Sweet and Sour Chicken
Ingredients
- 8 oz. (230g) boneless and skinless chicken breast, cut into bite-size cubes
- 1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine, optional
- 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 1 green bell pepper, seeded and cut into squares
- 1 small tomato, cut into wedges, optional
- 1 stalk scallion, cut into 2-inch (5cm) lengths
- oil, for deep frying
Batter:
- 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 4 tablespoons corn starch
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
Sweet and Sour Sauce:
- 3 tablespoons ketchup
- 2 tablespoons Lingham brand hot sauce or other chili sauce
- 1 teaspoon plum sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon Lea and Perrins Worcestershire sauce
- 1/4 teaspoon Chinese rice vinegar
- 1/2 teaspoon oyster sauce
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 3 tablespoons water
- 1/2 teaspoon corn starch
- 3 dashes white pepper powder
Instructions
- Cut the chicken breast meat into bite-size cubes and marinate with 1 tablespoon of wine for 10 minutes. Mix the batter in a bowl and add the chicken cubes into the batter. Mix the Sweet and Sour sauce in a small bowl and set aside.
- Heat up cooking oil in a wok and deep fry the chicken cubes. (Shake off the extra batter before frying). Transfer the chicken out on a plate lined with paper towels to soak up the excess oil. Transfer the cooking oil out and leave only 2 tablespoons oil in the wok.
- Add garlic and saute the garlic until light brown and then follow by the green bell peppers. Stir-fry until you smell the aroma. Add the sweet and sour sauce into the wok and bring it to boil.
- Toss in the chicken, tomatoes and add the chopped scallions, do a few quick stirs, dish out and serve immediately with steamed white rice.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
How to make more thiner sauce?
How to thin sauce ?
Delicous, surprised at how well it tasted as I substituted the plum sauce and chili sauce for a sweet chilli sauce.The chicken batter was nice and crunchy and sauce was better than any chinese restuarant i’ve tasted! Got great feed back from family!
Hi Sam, great to know that your family enjoy my sweet and sour chicken recipe.
Hi! May I know what brand of plum sauce do you use? Will Lee Kum Kee brand be okay? Or any other substitutes you can recommend. Thanks a lot!
Yes Lee Kum Kee is fine.
Hi Bee, did you retake the photos? They look so good and much better than the last set… Was planning to make sweet sour chicken but with your pork recipe based on the picture alone but I’ve changed my mind… I’ll use this recipe instead!
I have tried this raciept, but at the end chicken pieces are too hard to chew. Can you please tell what i have made a mistake?
That’s strange I think you fried too long.
Wonderful and easy to follow recipe for a dinner for two! :) The only two questions I had was:
1) The Chinese restaurants seem to use more batter?
2) Do the restaurants use more than two tablespoons of oil?
Apart from that, everything else tasted great.
Yes Chinese restaurants have thicker batter and more greasy and oil used.
I made this dish yesterday and it was a hit. My hubby loved it and said that it’s even better than restaurant sweet and sour chicken. A couple of questions, if I want more sauce, do i just double the sauce recipe? Also, I couldn’t find shaoxing wine. Any idea where to get it in KL? Also, I used rice vinegar (white) as I couldn’t find Chinese rice vinegar. Does that make a difference to the dish?
Yes you can double the sauce. Rice vinegar is fine. Shaoxing wine any supermarket has it.
What Chinese rice vinegar you use in that recipe? Black Chinkiang vinegar or perhaps red or white vinegar?
White vinegar.
Today I made my first recipe from your website. It took me a month to find all the ingredients in Greece. Sweet & Sour Chicken – absolutely delicious!!!
Hi Tracey, wow, thanks so much for trying the recipe.