Restaurant style Sweet and Sour Chicken is made with baked chicken, bell peppers, onion, pineapple, and a quick and easy Sweet and Sour Sauce. It’s easy to make and even your pickiest eaters will be going back for more.
I love to serve sweet and sour chicken with steamed rice, chow mein or Ham Fried Rice. Make sure to check out our other easy Chinese food recipes!
Who doesn’t love sweet and sour chicken, am I right?! It’s one of my favorite things to order at a good Chinese restaurant—but I’ll put emphasis on the “GOOD restaurant” part of that statement. If you’ve ever ordered sweet and sour chicken from a mediocre Chinese restaurant, it could completely ruin the dish for you.
It’s just one of those dishes that I’m picky about I guess. It’s easy to tell if it was made using a bottled sauce, or a homemade sauce; there’s a huge difference in taste!
This homemade sweet and sour sauce is a total winner. I can’t tell you how many recipes for sweet and sour chicken I’ve tried over the last few years and most were to ketchup-y and others were too vinegar-y. This sweet and sour sauce has the perfect blend of flavors and seasoning for the chicken.
How to make baked Sweet and Sour Chicken:
- Coat in cornstarch: cut the chicken into one inch chunks and season it with salt and pepper. Add it and cornstarch to a large ziplock bag and shake to coat each piece evenly.
2. Dip in eggs: In a small bowl, beat the eggs. Dip the chicken pieces in the eggs and place them carefully in a hot skillet. Once they are golden brown on the outside (but still raw inside), place them on a large baking sheet.
3. Bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes or until cooked through.
4. Sauté veggies: In the meantime, add bell peppers and onion to the skillet and cook them for a few minutes. Add the pineapple.
5. Add sauce: In a small bowl, mix all the the sauce ingredients for the sweet and sour sauce. Pour the sauce over the veggies and cook until the sauce is thickened.
6. Toss everything together including chicken on the sheet pan until evenly coated.
Serve immediately with hot cooked white rice, brown rice, or even a side of fried rice!
How to make Sweet and Sour Sauce:
In a small bowl, mix all of the ingredients for the sweet and sour sauce together (sugar, ketchup, apple cider vinegar, soy sauce, garlic salt, and cornstarch). Stir to combine. I like to pour the sweet and sour sauce over bell peppers, onions, and pineapple and serve it with hot baked chicken as sweet and sour chicken.
Make ahead instructions:
Thaw and cut the chicken ahead of time and store it in a ziplock in the refrigerator until ready to add the cornstarch. Make the sauce 1-2 days a head of time and store it in the fridge. You can also cut up the veggies ahead of time to make this a supper fast meal!
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Recipe
Sweet and Sour Chicken
Equipment
Ingredients
- 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts , cut into 1 inch chunks
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1 cup cornstarch
- 3 large eggs , beaten
- 1/4 cup oil , vegetable or coconut oil
- 2 bell peppers , red and green, chopped
- 1/2 sweet onion , chopped
- 1 cup pineapple chunks
- Cooked white rice hot, to serve with
For the sweet and sour sauce:
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup ketchup
- 1 cup apple cider vinegar or rice vinegar
- 2 Tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
- 2 teaspoons garlic salt
- 1 1/2 Tablespoons cornstarch
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
- Cut the chicken breasts into 1-inch chunks and season with salt and pepper. Place the cornstarch in a large ziplock bag; add the chicken pieces and toss to coat the chicken evenly.
- In a shallow bowl beat the eggs together. Heat the oil in a large skillet over high heat.
- Dip the chicken pieces in the beaten eggs and place them carefully in the hot skillet (you will need to coat and cook the chicken in batches), and cook for just about one minute on each side, until golden and crispy, but not cooked through.
- Add the chicken to a large rimmed baking dish. Bake at 400 degrees F for 12-17 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.
- Meanwhile, add the bell peppers and onion to the skillet and saute for 2-3 minutes. Add pineapple.
- Mix the sauce ingredients together in a bowl and pour into the skillet with the veggies. Cook, stirring, until thickened.
- Remove chicken from oven and pour sauce and veggies over the top. Toss to coat. Serve immediately with hot steamed white or brown rice.
Notes
Nutrition
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*I originally shared this recipe August 2014. Updated January 2019.
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I thought the recipe was great, except it’s too vinegar-y. I saw the note about not enough egg and oil in the comment below, and I agree. But it was very easy to add both of those. The recipe came out looking lovely, again just too vinegary. I would love to know what to replace it with.
Yikes! Not good instructions. Ran out of oil and the chicken is all eggy. Needless to say I smoked out my home using a high heat to fry