Chinese Honey Chicken Recipe
Until now I have only tried honey chicken at the local Chinese buffets here in Michigan. Most of the honey chicken at the buffets I find a little too sweet for my liking. I decided I wanted to give it a try at home and came across a recipe that looked pretty good, and indeed it was. Basically this is no different than any other Chinese chicken recipe. The chicken is first battered, deep fried and then coated with a thick sauce. You can use a wok but I really recommend deep frying the chicken bits when using a batter like this. The sauce is a delicious mixture of honey, garlic, and ginger and rice vinegar. Serve with white rice. Enjoy.
Ingredients:
1 ½ lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts (cut into 1” chunks)
Oil (for deep frying)
Batter-
4 tablespoons cornstarch
¼ cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ cup water
½ teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 egg white
Sauce-
1 ½ tablespoons oil
2 teaspoon ginger (minced)
3 tablespoons garlic (minced)
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon rice wine vinegar
½ cup water
1 teaspoon cornstarch (mixed with 1 teaspoon water)
Sesame seeds (for garnish)
Cooking Instructions:
Step 1: In a large bowl mix all batter ingredients together until smooth. Cover and allow the batter to site for at least 30 minutes. Add the chicken to the batter tossing to coat.
Step 2: Heat a deep fryer to 350 degrees. Fry chicken bits in patches for 2 minutes or until batter becomes firm. Drain on paper towels.
Step 3: To make the sauce. Heat 1 ½ tablespoons of oil in your wok. Add garlic and ginger and stir fry for 30 seconds. Add salt, honey, vinegar, and water. Mix well. Combine 1 teaspoon of water with 1 teaspoon of cornstarch. Add to the sauce and Simmer for 2 minutes.
Step 4: Coat chicken with the sauce and garnish with sesame seeds. Serve with white rice.
(Makes 4 servings)
Oooh this looks yummy! I will have to give this recipe a go …reminds me of PF Chang’s Crispy Honey Chicken. Thanks again for the recipe!
YUM! This looks incredible! As much as I love Chinese food I really should start trying to make it at home. This looks like a wonderful dish to try!
Yum, another of your delicious chicken recipes. Happy New Year Bobby.
I absolutely love honey sesame chicken. I’ll have to try this recipe out. Happy New Year!
That turned out beautiful. I never make Chinese at home and you have me wanting to now.
Reminds me of sticky Lemon Chicken, which is the best thing in the history of everything.
I could be wrong though, honey is pretty sweet too (pardon the pun!)
Definitely adding this one to the recipe box. Thanks!
Yum, I love honey chicken. Yours looks great!
I tried something like this a little while ago, my husband loved it but the kids thought it was too spicy, it had sweet chili in it. I think they’d love this one. Thank You!!
That chicken looks and sounds really good!
This was good.
I found your blog by mistake searching for a Chinese recipe.
Since then my life are richer. I love your recipes, the General Tso is fantastic, and I can’t wait to make this dish..
Thank you from my friend and husband here in Israel
Hello! I came across your site from the link on Melanie’s (mykitchencafe.blogspot.com) food blog. I am soooooooooooo elated! I have a list a mile long of the recipes I wanting to make! This just might be my first recipe to try. Although I about had a heart attack when I saw you had a recipe for Mexican Pizza!!!!!!!!! Not to mention: I am so jelous of your photography skills. They are so clear and beautiful!
Hello, I came acrossed your recipe by accident. I decided to give it a try and It was awesome it tasted better then any other honey chicken I have ever had anywhere else.. My family loved it.. I will be adding this recipe to my menu.. Thank you.. Cindy
What is rice wine vinegar? I tried to find it in the store but I can’t. Is there something else I can use? I bought white cooking wine…Can I use that instead?
laynie - You can replace rice vinegar with white wine vinegar or white vinegar. I hope this helps.
Yes Bobby this helps. And this site is awesome!
hi Bobby, love the photos and composition. makes the dishes look great. cant wait to try the honey chicken for chinese new year reunion dinner, cheers christine from singapore
Loooove Honey Chicken. So glad I found your site!
Bobby,
I just made this tonight and I must say it ROCKED!! My kids ate it up! We absolutely love asian food and are always looking for new ones! Keep up the awesome work! This one is definitely a keeper in our house!!
I used this recipe as a base then I added to it. First, I omitted the corn starch from the batter and replaced it with all flour and baking powder. Also, I used two whole eggs. The batter came out perfect. Oh, I followed the rest of the batter recipe as it is shown here.
The sauce recipe is where I strayed mainly because I didn’t have fresh garlic on hand. I made a ginger honey sauce. Instead of using rice wine vinegar which I’m sure is good I used apple cider vinegar and sweetened it with some brown sugar. I also added some worchestershire sauce and doubled the honey amount. Last difference in mine I added some hot pepper flakes. Overall I don’t think it was that different from this recipe, just a slightly different flavor. Next time I will add some orange peal and chilis for a more orange chicken flavor. Thanks for the awesome recipe!
These look delicious - I’ll definitely have to give these a go.
On the Chinese Food Chicken topic, you wouldnt happen to know a great orange version of this? Ive yet to find one!
Stephie- http://blogchef.net/orange-chicken-recipe/
thats all I got.
this looks beautiful…
what a pitty where i live we dont actually have cornstarch or rice wine vinigar on sale..
do you have any ideas what else i could use
Angela - look for corn flour or if you cant find that just use flour. I wouldn’t think you should have a problem finding cornstarch.The rice wine vinigar is a different story though. You can try using normal white vinegar, or apple cider vinegar.
We made this yesterday and its very tasty. The sauce is very very sweet, but the rice helped to offset that some.
I think this would be good with julienned carrots in it and perhaps some onion.
Delicious!
Flickr’d here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cutsie/3301145167/in/set-72157608359226116/
I tried this tonight, along with your recipes for General Tso’s Chicken and Crab Rangoon. By far the best, closest-to-buffet-tasting Chinese food I’ve made at home. I can’t even tell you how many rangoons I ate. At least six, but (hopefully) not more than 10! Can’t wait to try more of your recipes!
Hi there can you use the batter from the lemon chicken recipe as its so easy or is it to thin??thanks
talei - Yes you can. The batters are actually very similiar.
Hi - this looks great! Just a couple of Q’s … is cornflour the same as cornstarch (and can I use it instead)? And if I’m using white vinegar instead of rice wine vinegar should I sweeten it a little (with sugar)? Thanks heaps. Hoping to double this for a dinner party on the weekend.
elissa - That really depends, cornflour is different by country. What you are looking for is white powder. Normal cornflour would have a yellowish color and look like finely ground cornmeal. What you want is the white powder.
Yes, you could add a little sugar to the vinegar if you want.
Thanks heaps! I’m from Australia and checking the stores, we only have what is labeled “corn flour” but it is white so it must be what you would call “corn starch”.
Oh .. and is it definitely 3 tablespoons of garlic, not 3 teaspoons? Seems like a lot :).
i made this in our home ecconomics class and everybody LOVED IT! it tasted soo good =) i want some more hehe
I have made this and your General Tso’s recipe. Both are delicious, but I liked the batter on the General Tso’s better. It seemed crispier. Any reason why you use a different batter for this?
Thanks for the delicious recipes!
jessica - honey chicken is generally prepared with a softer coating but you could use a crispy coating such as the general tso’s if you want. I am glad you enjoyed the recipes.
i cooked this recipe tonight, i found it to be quite lovely. though a little to much garlic as it over powered the taste. otherwise a great dish!