Chinese
Sweet and Sour Chicken
Sweet and Sour Chicken is Chinese home cooking, eaten at dinner. On the plate it is the dish at the centre. Below is what usually sits beside it, what it does and does not contain, and what else to cook once you have made it.
Ingredients
- 1.5 lb chicken breasts
- 1/2 cup cornstarch
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 large egg
- 1/3 cup ketchup
- 1/3 cup rice vinegar
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 1.5 cups pineapple chunks
- 2 bell peppers
- 1 onion
- 3 cups neutral oil for frying
- 1/2 tsp salt
How to cook it
- Cut the chicken into 1-inch pieces and season with the salt.
- Whisk the egg with the flour, cornstarch, and 1/3 cup water into a batter, then coat the chicken.
- Heat the frying oil to 350F and fry the chicken in batches until golden and crisp, about 5 minutes, then drain.
- Whisk the ketchup, rice vinegar, sugar, and soy sauce with 1/4 cup water in a clean skillet and simmer until glossy, about 3 minutes.
- Add the bell peppers, onion, and pineapple and cook until just tender, about 4 minutes.
- Fold in the fried chicken to coat and serve immediately over rice.
Serve it with
A Chinese dinner is a plate rather than a single dish. These are the courses that normally sit beside Sweet and Sour Chicken, read from the same composition Dinejot builds a real meal from.
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Something to sip
Safe at your table
Dinejot tracks ten allergens and tags every one of them by hand, so the absences below are as deliberate as the presences. Sweet and Sour Chicken carries gluten, eggs, and soy. It is free of the remaining 7 allergens on that list.
| Allergen | In this dish | Cook this instead |
|---|---|---|
| Peanuts | No | |
| Tree nuts | No | |
| Dairy | No | |
| Gluten | Yes | Turkey Lettuce Wraps |
| Shellfish | No | |
| Eggs | Yes | Beef and Broccoli |
| Soy | Yes | Nothing comparable without it yet |
| Fish | No | |
| Sesame | No | |
| Coconut | No |
These tags are set by a person rather than inferred from an ingredient list, and they describe the recipe as written here. Read the labels on whatever you actually buy.
What it brings to the plate
Bands, not numbers. Dinejot does not weigh anybody's food, so it says light, moderate or hearty and stops there. This dish was read and set by hand.
- Calorie band
- Hearty
- Protein
- High
- Protein quality
- Complete
- Food groups it covers
- Grains, Vegetables, Meat or fish, and Fruit
- How this was set
- Hand audited
When to cook it
Sweet and Sour Chicken takes about 45 minutes from a cold stove to the table, and the cooking itself is a proper project. It is eaten at dinner. Nothing in the calendar rules it out, so it is a year round dish.
More to cook
Cooked from the same things
Other dishes built on chicken, pineapple, and bell pepper.
From the same kitchens
More cooking from the United States.
Cook this with your whole family
Dinejot plans breakfast, lunch and dinner as whole plates, built around the cooking you call home and filtered for the allergies at your table.
Meal suggestions support your goals. They are not medical advice. Please ask your doctor about your family's health needs.