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Honey Sesame Chicken is sweet, savory, and perfect for any night of the week. This is so good, it is even better than take out!
Serve this restaurant worthy meal on a bed of rice and with sides such as Wontons, Egg Rolls or Fried Rice for the complete take out from home.
Homemade Honey Sesame Chicken
There are recipes that I make that I hope that everyone tries. This is one of those recipes. It all began with my sweet and sour chicken that changed my life. It is actually possible to make the same quality Chinese food as P.F. Chang’s at home. Then came a spicy version of this delicious chicken, my firecracker chicken. I had died and gone to Chinese food heaven with these recipes. I didn’t think that it could get any better than this. Since I love Chinese food so much my life was complete. But then I created honey sesame chicken. Let me tell you this. This is the best of them all!
It first starts with the breading. The cornstarch and egg combo makes it taste straight from a restaurant. Then there is something about baking this chicken that makes the sauce thicken, the chicken brown and absolutely blow your mind. Seriously I could hardly believe how amazing this was while I was eating it. The sauce has a sweet honey flavor to it and is absolute honey sesame perfection. If you love Chinese and make one thing from my blog, make this!
Sesame Chicken Ingredients
These simple ingredients are probably sitting in your pantry right now. I love that this comes together so easily. You are going to love the luscious sauce.
- Chicken Breasts: About 4 chicken breasts
- Cornstarch: Needed for the breading
- Eggs: The binder
- Salt and Pepper: To taste
- Canola: Just enough to fry in
Honey Sesame Sauce
- Honey: The queen of the sauce
- Soy Sauce: Adds a bit of salty and flavor to the sweet
- Ketchup: Adds a good balance to the sweet
- Brown Sugar: Helps bring out the sweetness of the honey
- Rice Wine Vinegar: The zing to the sweet, you’ll want the tang to balance it
- Sesame Oil: Adds perfect sesame flavor
- Garlic: A necessity in asian food
- Cornstarch: This is the thickener for the sauce
How to Make Easy Honey Sesame Chicken
This could not be any easier. Remember you are just flash frying the chicken, it will finish cooking in the oven.
- Cut: Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Cut chicken into bite sized pieces and season with salt and pepper
- Bowls: In one bowl place the cornstarch. In the other bowl place the eggs and beat them slightly. Dip the chicken into the cornstarch first, then into the egg mixture.
- Flash Fry: In a skillet heat the oil over medium high heat. Cook the chicken till just golden brown on all sides. Place in a greased 9×13 pan.
- Mix: In a medium bowl mix all of the sauce ingredients till thoroughly combined. Pour over the chicken.
- Bake: Bake the chicken for 45 min stirring every 15 min to evenly coat the chicken.
Trust Me on these Pro Tips!
This is the same method as my Baked Sweet and Sour Chicken so it shares my same tips.
- Method to the Madness: Make sure you first coat your chicken in the cornstarch and then the egg. This method makes the perfect breading for the chicken. You can also use a large gallon ziplock bag to coat the chicken in the cornstarch.
- Fast: Do not cook the chicken all the way through before baking. You just want to get the chicken lightly brown on the outside, and then it bakes to perfection.
- Low and Slow: Baking the chicken at a low temperature will not over cook the chicken. This helps to cook the chicken all the way through and thicken up the sauce.
Tips for the Best Honey Sesame Chicken
Besides taking time to cook in the oven this baked honey chicken comes together really quickly. Cut your chicken when it is still partially frozen to make it easier to cut. But wait to bread and cook them till thawed.
- Chicken: You can use chicken thighs if you like. Just make sure your pieces of chicken are cut evenly so they cook at the same rate.
- Vinegar: If you don’t have rice wine vinegar you can easily substitute apple cider vinegar without ruining the taste.
- Vegetables: You can add in broccoli, peppers, mushrooms, zucchini or other vegetables to round out the meal a bit more.
- Serve: This is definitely delicious on its own but we love to serve it over rice. You can also try quinoa, brown rice or ramen noodles.
- Side Dishes: Serve this luscious dish alongside Air Fryer Egg Rolls, Grilled Pineapple, and Vegetable Stir Fry.
- Sauce: If you want more sauce, make a double batch of the sauce. Pour half over the chicken to bake and heat the other half in a small saucepan over medium heat till thickened. Pour the extra sauce over the chicken once done, or over individual portions. This will help it not get soggy while it cooks, but gives you extra sauce.
Storing Leftovers
Leftovers are some of the best. The sauce really melds into the chicken. The breaded chicken will lose a bit of its crispy tender outside, but the taste is still amazing.
- Fridge: Place leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3-4 days.
- Freezer: This can be frozen too. Just place in a freezer safe container or bag and freeze for up to 3 months.
- Reheat: Sweet and Sour Chicken is best reheated on the stove. Reheating it in the microwave can make the chicken rubbery and overcooked. Place leftovers in pan on the stove top and heat on medium heat, stirring often, till heated through.
More Asian Inspiration for Dinner
Asian food is a staple around here at our house. We love to make our favorites at home, instead of getting take out. It always tastes ten times better and when making it at home you can customize it to your tastes. Cooking these take out favorites is actually easier than you think too. I have plenty of tried and true favorites here on the blog, but these favorites are a good place to start.
- Slow Cooker Honey Garlic Chicken
- Skillet Sesame Chicken and Broccoli
- Sesame Orange Chicken
- Honey Lemon Ginger Chicken
- Slow Cooker Honey Teriyaki Chicken
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Baked Honey Sesame Chicken
Ingredients
- 4 chicken breasts
- 1 cup cornstarch
- 3 large eggs
- salt and pepper
- 1/4 cup canola oil
Sauce:
- 3/4 cup honey
- 3/4 cup soy sauce
- 1/2 cup ketchup
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup rice wine vinegar
- 1 teaspoons sesame oil
- 1 teaspoons minced garlic
- 1 Tablespoons cornstarch
- additional sesame seeds for garnish
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Cut chicken breasts into bite-sized pieces and season with salt and pepper.
- In separate bowls, place cornstarch and slightly beaten eggs. Dip chicken into cornstarch then coat in egg mixture then back into the cornstarch. I have also found that you can put the chicken pieces in a gallon size bag and shake to coat.
- Heat canola oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat and cook chicken until browned. Place the chicken in a 9 x 13 greased baking dish.
- In a medium sized mixing bowl, combine honey, soy sauce, ketchup, brown sugar, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, minced garlic, and 1 T cornstarch. Pour over chicken and bake for 45 minutes or until chicken is cooked through.
- I stirred the chicken every 15 minutes so that it coated them in the sauce.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I am making this tonight so I will let you know how it turns out.
Made Baked Honey Sesame Chicken twice now. Love it and kids love it too. It’s really delicious. Thanks for sharing.
In the ingredients it says sauce which type of sauce? Other than ketchup.
That just means that underneath are the ‘sauce’ ingredients.
Thanks for sharing – this sounds delicious!
This sounds delicious Alyssa; we love Chinese food and I can’t wait to try some of your others as well!
We had this for dinner, and it was really popular. While pouring the sauce over the chicken, I was just certain it was too much sauce, but it is perfect!
Gotta try this! Sounds delicious! Thank you for sharing 🙂
Sesame Chicken is my FAVE!! This looks fantastic, Alyssa!
What a great recipe! I try many new recipes and I can’t say that many really impress me. This was absolutely fantastic! My two year old sons also enjoyed it. Thank you!
Have this in the oven right now! Smells amazing. So excited to eat it!
do you use toasted/dark sesame oil?
make sure you don’t buy seasoned rice vinegar – it adds too much sugar
Making this tonight
I just used regular sesame oil. Let me know how it turns out. 🙂
Wonderful dish. I used the toasted sesame oil and I really enjoyed the aroma and the flavor. I should try this with reg sesame oil,, but I don’t think I will 🙂
The sauce did come out a little thin for my liking.I removed chicken from sauce, added a cornstarch/water slurry of 1 and 1 to the sauce and brought it to a boil on the stove top.
My wife likes it and that’s a huge compliment.
Hi!
Thanks so much for sharing! I made the Baked Honey Sesame Chicken tonight (with some tweaks) for supper tonight and it was delish!!!! I substituted sugar free “honey” and Splenda to make it lower carb to fit our diet and it was awesome like that. I can only imagine how good it must be with the real stuff! 🙂
I shared on facebook and Pinterest so you might be getting some new hits today. I have lots of followers/friends. 🙂
Thanks again!
Hugs,
True 🙂
Do you use light or dark brown sugar?
I used light. 🙂
I’m allergic to tomatoes. Do you think there’s something I could sub for it?
Could I use granulated sugar instead of brown? Will it taste different?
If you search for my baked sweet and sour chicken it uses granulated sugar and they are both excellent. I am sure it would be ok??
I made this recipe for dinner last night, and it was very good! The sauce didn’t thicken as much as I wanted it to. Maybe I should have just let it bake a bit longer, but I was impatient.
The first time I made this recipe I added a tablespoon of cornstarch to the sauce and it was a little too thick. I liked it a little thinner to put over the rice. Try adding maybe a teaspoon of cornstarch next time. 🙂