Sweet & Sour Chicken

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I've found my favorite sweet and sour chicken!  I've tried several kinds with different sauces but this one wins.  Yea, it's kinda a pain to bread it, fry it and then bake it but it's totally worth it.

 

I made a double batch.  This makes a lot. I wanted leftovers. I also made a lot of sauce. I like sauce. I like to add it to my rice and broccoli. So feel free to halve the recipe below if you don't need this much food. 

 

 

 

I used splenda instead of sugar.  This sauce uses a lot of sugar. I like sweet sauces. We have it here in bulk and I've found that it tastes fine in dishes like this. You can use sugar, it's up to you. 

 

I also added pineapple to the recipe. Normally, I love pineapple in sweet and sour chicken so of course, I thought it could only make this better.  Wrong.  It wasn't bad but for some reason, it didn't add to it. I almost didn't like the sauce with the pineapple. Weird, huh.

 

I absolutely loved this sweet and sour chicken and I know I'll be making it again. 

 

Sweet & Sour Chicken
Adapted from Finding Joy in My Kitchen

3 lbs. chicken, cut into bite sized chunks
1 1/2 cups cornstarch
2 eggs + 1 tbsp. water
2 tbsp. olive oil

3 1/2 cups sugar (I used splenda)
1 1/2 cups ketchup
3 cups cider vinegar
1/2 cup soy sauce
2 tbsp. minced garlic

2 red peppers
1 can (20 oz) pineapple chunks

If you're making as much as I did here, you'll want to use 2 pans to cook your chicken if you're able to. It will go much faster.  Heat 1 tbsp. per pan. 

Set up a bowl with the egg and water.  Set up another bowl with your cornstarch.  Dip the chicken into the egg, then the cornstarch.  Then drop it into the pan.  I made my daughter bread all the chicken first and then I cooked it.  Better her young fingers get messy than mine. 

As the chicken browns, put it into a 12 x 15 in. baking pan. If you aren't privileged enough to have one of these big pans, you can use 2 - 9 x 13 in. pans.  You're not cooking the chicken entirely, you're just trying to get a nice crust on it.

Combine the sugar (splenda), ketchup, vinegar, soy sauce and minced garlic into a big bowl.  I know this seems like a lot of sauce but you have a lot of chicken to coat plus you know you're going to want more sauce for the rice and veggies, right? 

When chicken is done browning, pour sauce over the chicken.  Stir and stick it into the oven for 1 hour at 350.  Stir like every 15 minutes.  After about 30 minutes, add your peppers and pineapple.  At this point you'll be so overcome by the amazing smell that you will want to taste a piece of chicken.  Go ahead, it's okay, I know it's amazing.


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