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Better than take out Orange Chicken that is baked to perfection and will blow your mind!
There is one thing that is rough about being here this summer in North Carolina. My car is back in Utah and we only have one car here to share. My hubby usually takes it to work, so we are usually stuck here. I have had to get pretty creative with activities and luckily we have a pool here. But I am sure counting down the days until we get back to Utah. We are starting to go stir crazy! I was craving chinese food for lunch. Luckily I could make something at home that is WAY better than takeout!
Every single time I make this chicken I die. And I wanted to make an Orange Chicken Version of it. My collection of better than take out recipes just wouldn’t be complete without it. I wanted the orange flavor to pull through and taste just like it would at a restaurant. It sure did. And I honestly was in heaven eating this. The thoughts that came to my mind were, “Holy cow I am eating PF Changs right in my house!” and “Oh man, this is way better than take out!”
I mean just look at it! Doesn’t it look amazing!?
I love all of my baked chinese recipes. The sweet and sour, the firecracker, and baked honey sesame chicken. There is something about baking this and how the chicken browns in the oven and is so tender! The sauce is given time to thicken up and you have a big pan to feed a crowd! This is one of my favorite things to serve people because of their reaction of how amazing it is and how it tastes better than takeout! I have perfected the technique and could probably make it now with my eyes closed. They are all amazing just with different flavors.
If there is one thing you make from my blog. Make this with a side of fried rice. You will never go back to take out!
I have created a video for you with Ashlee Marie of the cooking process! You can skip to the Orange Chicken sauce at 2:19 or straight to the baked chicken technique at 6:52!
More Better than Takeout Recipes:
- Baked Honey Sesame Chicken
- Baked Sweet and Sour Chicken
- Baked Firecracker Chicken
- Better than Takeout Chicken Fried Rice
- Better than Takeout Ham Fried Rice
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Baked Orange Chicken
Ingredients
- 3-4 chicken breasts boneless, skinless chicken breasts
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1½ cup cornstarch
- 3 eggs beaten
- ¼ cup canola oil
Orange Chicken Sauce Ingredients:
- 2/3 cup brown sugar
- 2/3 cup orange juice
- 1/4 cup low sodium soy sauce
- 2 teaspoons sriracha
- 3 Tablespoons White Vinegar
- 3 Tablespoons Apple Cider VInegar
- 1 teaspoon garlic salt
- 1 Tablespoon Grated Orange Peel
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch
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. (yes you dip the chicken first in the cornstarch. I promise this method is amazing.)
- 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, whisk together brown sugar, orange juice, sriracha, apple cider vinegar, grated orange peel, white vinegar, soy sauce, garlic salt, and cornstarch. Pour over chicken and bake for 1 hour.
- I stir the chicken every 15 minutes so that it coated them in the sauce.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I have been wanting to try homemade Orange chicken because my kids love it. Trying to get away from outside type foods. This was a big hit!! I did not need to cook it for an hour in my convection oven. It was probably close to 30-40 min. And it was perfect!! I also used less brown sugar (tasted the liquid sauce as I added the sugar to the sweetness I wanted).
Thank you for a great recipe!!
I made this and it tasted great! My only problem is that when I cooked the chicken I the pan, a lot of the egg came off and stuck in the pan. What did I do wrong?? I use stainless steel pans.
I just have to say that your chinese recipes are OUTSTANDING!! Chinese food is my boyfriends all time favorite food. This guy could eat it everyday if I’d let him. Now with this healthier recipe, I wouldn’t mind eating it close to everyday as well! Although this does take a good amount of time, it is WAY worth it. Not only for the amazing taste, but the awesome brownie points you get for serving such an awesome dinner that they can’t believe YOU made. These recipes will definitely be a regular in our house! 🙂 Thanks!
I have made orange chicken before, and although I deep fried the first time that ended up being a lot easier than this. I pan fried it all together this time but the coating came mostly off all the pieces, and left me with a lot of scrambled eggs in the pan. I would actually recommend just using 4 egg whites instead of 3 whole eggs. Also it is difficult to cook the chicken as you coat it, so I would recommend having a helper to coat the chicken while you do the cooking/browning so you may add the pieces as they are coated and remove them once they are browned. Other than that it still turned out well! The sauce is much better than the other one I made.
I have a question on the orange peel do u literAly peel a orange peel
Just use a grater and finely grate the outside of an orange to get your orange peel shavings.
Thank u very much
This was very good! However, I would double or triple the sauce. Thanks for the recipe!
My family loves this recipe! I made it last week and had no leftovers. Am making it again tonight per their request.
And the fried rice is amazing, too.
Thank you,
your newest fan.
I made this tonight along with the fried rice recipe you posted last year. My family absolutely loved it. Mind you I am not someone whi can just cook. I really need to follow a recipe and this was easy to follow and quite superb! Thanks for sharing!!!
Do you think you could substitute coconut oil for canola oil to make it healthier?
I just made this and your easy fried rice for dinner…what a success!!!!
Instead of corn starch, I used arrowroot powder and it turned out great.
Thank you so much for sharing your delicious recipes! My family really enjoyed their dinner tonight!!
Hi can i ask that is Sriracha and there i can buy it?
At any grocery store in the chinese food section by the soy sauce.
Oh my… looking for OJ right now.. got to make this NOW! Yum!
This looks great- going to make it tonight for dinner. Do I just brown the chicken in the pan and finish it while it bakes? I don’t cook it all the way through in the pan, right?
No you don’t need to cook them all of the way through. Just lightly brown the outside.
Baking for one hour results in overcooked, dry chicken – had to throw it out…whole chicken breasts don’t even take one hour to cook!…. must have been a bad typo
It is baked at a low enough temperature. If it is cooking faster because oven temps vary, take it out sooner.
I think what happened also was that it all depends how long you brown it on the pan too! I wanted it extra crispy so kept it on the pan longer, cooked for 30 minutes at the recommended temperature, took out one of the pieces to taste (tasted and felt ready), transferred the chicken pieces to another pan (to leave the sauce behind since I made extra), and broiled in high for 5 minutes and then broiled it in low for another 10. I served the extra sauce on the side and the chicken was nice and crispy and had dipping sauce to add more sauce to taste:) AMAZING! I also cooed the chicken in coconut oil since it is the oil I use.
Sorry, so what I meant to say is that maybe you cooked the chicken longer in the pan like I did? So it should have been ready by 30 minutes or so:)
I love making Chinese food at home, it’s way easier than it appears to be! This looks great, can’t wait to try it 🙂
I love Chinese food, but almost every single time I order it out, I get sick afterwards. I’m going to try making this because it would be so much better for me than the stuff they serve in the restaurants.
You and your chinese food! It’s all so amazing looking! My roommate in college made something similar to this, and I still dream of it. I will definitely need to make this ASAP— we LOVE chinese take out, but that stuff comes with a heaping side of guilt that I don’t like so much! 😉 This is way better.
Made for first time tonite..followed the recipe..partner couldnt rave enough about the chicken..made your fried rice too. Teased i could get a job in a chinese restaraunt it was soooooo good. Thank you!