You can’t go wrong with Chinese food. Nope, never! It’s one of my families favorite things to have for dinner and it’s something that everyone is my house will actually eat! While not a healthy choice for sure, every now and then a trip to Panda Express, PF Chang’s or China Dragon is a must!  Yesterday I had chicken in my fridge yet had not decided what exactly to do with it. While standing in my pantry staring at my staples for ideas, the lite soy sauce was staring back at me and I decided to make my first Chinese meat dish ever.  How hard can it really be? Not hard at all actually and let me tell you, the sauce I made tasted exactly like it does in a Chinese restaurant and probably had half the calories (still not good in the calorie dept, but better than take out!) and non of the MSG and preservatives they add so often in restaurants. My notes for this recipe that I wrote down as I went along are disastrous, which is why if I don’t get this on the blog now, I will forget and not be able to read half of my writing and add ins and I cannot let this recipe leave us now that I have tasted it! I left the chicken breasts whole instead of cutting into large chunks and it was so good. Next time I may cut into chunks and see how that goes, but either way, I promise you will like this chicken dish if you try it!

 

Ingredients: (For Chicken)

7 chicken breast (you can do less, like always, I wanted to have leftovers for the hubs lunch!)

1 3/4 cups flour

3 large eggs, beaten

1/2 cup vegetable oil

 

Ingredients: (For Sweet and Sour Orange Sauce)

1 cup of sugar

1/4 cup ketchup

1/4 cup honey

2 tbsp lite soy sauce

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

the juice of 2 clementines (oranges would be great, I only had clementines on hand)

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 tbsp onion powder

2 tbsp crushed red pepper (less if you don’t like spicy)

4 cloves of garlic, minced

 

Directions:

Heat the vegetable oil in a skillet on medium heat. Put the flour on a large plate and beat the eggs in a medium size bowl.

When you have washed and prepped the chicken, coat each piece of chicken with the egg mixture, then coat with the flour mixture, making sure the chicken breasts are each coated well. Add to the hot skillet and brown on each side approx. 2 minutes, then place them in a baking dish. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl mix the sugar all of the sauce ingredients together until well mixed and sugar is dissolved. Pour the mixture over the chicken evenly, covering each chicken breast well. I had to use 2 baking dishes so if you do the same, divide the mix evenly. Bake at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes or until chicken is fully cooked. Let it set for about 5 minutes or so, it sets the sauce up nicely!

I served this with brown rice so if you want to do the same make sure to prep the rice while the chicken is baking. This sauce is so incredibly good and there is a lot of it left in the baking dish and it goes great over the rice. If you try this, let me know how you like it! It has such a nice citrus flavor along with the sweet and the sour flavors, a really nice mix!