Updated on June 24th, 2022
At nearly any buffet or take-out place, you can find General Tso’s Chicken. General Tso’s Chicken is a perfect combination of sweet and spicy flavors. It is a very popular dish throughout the United States and Canada. This is probably one of the best and easiest recipes around, you will be surprised at how little time it takes to prepare. I decided to get brave and use the boneless skinless chicken thighs, and I wasn’t disappointed. However, If you want to use chicken breasts that would work fine as well. The sauce keeps it nice and simple with only a few necessary ingredients to create the perfect general’s sauce. For the frying – it’s your choice if you want to use a deep fryer or wok. What I did was first deep fry the chicken and then fry it in the wok for a few minutes before adding the sauce. What this does is give the chicken bits a spicy flavor coming from the dried chilies that are fried in the oil. If you are looking for an amazing recipe for General Tso’s chicken give this one a try. Serve on top of white rice. Enjoy.
(Makes about 2 servings)
PrintGeneral Tso’s Chicken Recipe
Ingredients
- 1lb boneless skinless chicken thighs (cut into 1” chunks)
- 5 dried red chili peppers
- 3 green onions (sliced)
- 3 eggs (beaten)
- ½ cup cornstarch
- oil (for frying)
- Sauce-
- 1 ½ tablespoons rice vinegar
- 2 tablespoons of rice wine
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 3 tablespoons soy sauce
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl combine cornstarch and beaten eggs. Mix well to create a batter. Add chicken bits and coat thoroughly.
- To make the sauce- in a small bowl combine rice vinegar, rice wine, soy sauce, sugar, and cornstarch. Mix well and set aside.
- Heat deep fryer or wok to 375 degrees and deep fried chicken bits in batches. Drain on paper towels.
Add 1-2 tablespoons of oil to your work. Add dried chili peppers to your wok and stir fry for 30 seconds. Add chicken bits to the wok and stir fry for a couple minutes. - Add sauce mixture to the wok and cook stirring until the sauce becomes thickened and bubbly. Garnish with green onions and serve.
I am looking for the for a Chinese Buffet Recipe: Chicken in Coconut Sauce. I seen this in Chinese Buffets the chicken is friend in batter and then a nice white sweet coconut sauce is over it …. I have searched and searched and nothing yet… Can anyone help me find this … thanks
Deb- Sorry I have never heard of this dish. I do however have coconut shrimp on here if you are interested.
https://blogchef.net/chinese-coconut-shrimp-recipe/
Thanks Bobby for you help. Guess I’ll just keep searching lol have a great day!
Great stuff…. made it here the other day an wife kids loved it (made a mild edition for the kids)… highly recommended
I just tried it! I don’t have rice wine and dried red chili peppper so I just added more rice vinegar and fresh chili peppers dried crushed red pepper flakes. OMG it turns out to be soooo good! I can’t wait to try it again using the right ingredients. This is truly a keeper!
Thank you very much for sharing with us your delicious recipes. God bless you!
I just made it Ex like you have it and it turned out so good better then any else i tryed i only added broccoli and not the green onions. Thx!
I am trying the recipe today and I hope it turns out well! It will.
SOOOOO GOOD 🙂
This is awesome!!! My husbands favorite thing to order and he has gone back for thirds!! I can’t wait to try some more recipes!!
This is one of my favorite recipes on this site. I love general tso’s chicken. I’m so glad I can make it at home now.
I made this recipe, but the sauce to coat the chicken was not enough like when you buy it at the restaurant, or maybe because i used more than a pd of ck other wise it tasted ok, i added broccoli and green onions. thx
this is an excellent recipe!! thank you very much!!
Just finished making your recipe, it turned out great. My wife gets home in a few hours so I hope the chicken doesn’t get soggy like some people have said. If so I guess I’ll just make some more. I want to thank you for your recipe and for all the work that you have put into doing all of this. I will have to look up some of your other recipes. Thanks again.
This is so delicious. I paired it up with some cilantro-lime rice and it amazing.
this recipe is pure genius! I do need to add that I bought the general tso chicken sauce by ty ling naturals. omg there is a party in my mouth!!! im lovin it
Made this dish this evening, but substituted tofu for the chicken! I also didn’t have rice vinegar, so I used apple cider vinegar and I didn’t have rice wine, so I used sherry and it came out fabulously! I would agree with others to double or triple the recipe, maybe add some water if you want it saucy. Definitely as close as it can get to the original.
Have made this dish at least 10 times since I found the recipe! It is great! For a little more heat I add Sambal Olek, really kicks it up a bit. I usually make the sauce x’s 4 (without the cornstarch) and keep it in a glass jar in the fridge, its great for any stir fry! Just add the cornstarch when you make the dish~ Thanks so much for sharing!
This is the best dish ever !!! especially with french fries on the side oh and chinese sugered dumplings!!!!!!!!!! so good.
Bobby, This recipe looks delish! I would love to make it for my husband but I was wondering how I could make it a little more weightwatcher friendly for myself. Could I maybe use just cooking spray in a wok?? If not how much oil would I absolutely need for one serving of chicken? Thank you so much for sharing this!! I am sure my husband will be so thankful too. He loves this dish (he just doesn’t like paying for it) Which is the reason I am so thankful as I will get major points for this one !!;)
Lorrie – the oil is just for frying the chicken. You would drain it from the pan when you are finished, and drain the chicken good on paper towels. If you are looking for something a little healthier. Try coating the chicken with flour and baking it in the oven. You could also cut back on the sugar in the recipe a bit.
I’m making this for dinner tonight. General tso’s chicken is one of my favorites. I’m looking forward to this 🙂
Hi Bobby – first off, your site is amazing! There are so many Chinese dishes I want to try! There’s a couple things that maybe someone can clarify for me. Is there a difference between rice vinegar, rice wine vinegar, and rice wine? Are these 3 different things? Just want to make sure I’m buying the right ingredients!
I just made this tonight and really enjoyed it. I made everything exactly to what it said except for the rice wine and I do not own a wok so I just made it in a non stick pan. I went to three different grocery stores in my town and could not find rice wine so I substituted it with a pale dry sherry. It still worked out great. The sauce looks and seems to be very little before you add it to the chicken but in the end, it coats it perfectly. I now have all the ingredients to made it so for the next couple of times I make it, it should be a pretty cheap meal.
Hey Bobby and company,
Regarding the CRUNCH and the batter, from what I understand, restaurants will use rice flour in their batter before frying. Rice flour holds a heavy and thick consistency when deep fried, so it will bring a huge and thick crunch when you are finished. I’m going to make this tonight for my girlfriend, and I hope to deliver a few pictures.
Dang!… I did cook follow it up and everything.. It was great and taste so good. Um, yes, I’ll do it again. (smile)
Great recipe, thanks for sharing! I’ll be making this one tonight for sure.
Made this one last week, and it didn’t dissapoint! Thanks again for the great recipe!
I just made this today. The slurry was excellent, the chicken fried up very nicely!! The sauce was great too but I added a half a tablespoon of hoisin sauce and a tablespoon of garlic. It was perfect! i will be making this over and over!!
This was soo good I made this twice in 2 weeks! I used chicken breast and subbed the sugar with 6 packs of splenda egg beater for eggs. I just finished cooking this morning; made this for my lunch. Wish the nutritional info was posted with all the recipe. STILL LOVE IT! Thanks!
Oh my gosh, this was phenomenal! The only substitutions I made (due to not having the ingredients) were cooking sherry for the rice wine and regular yellow onion liberally sprinkled with crushed red pepper instead of the green onion and red hot peppers. I sauteed the onion with crushed red pepper in a little sesame oil with olive oil before adding the fried chicken back to the pan. Also, I made the chicken with a double batch of the sauce, and then in a separate saucepan made another double batch of the sauce for dipping/mixing with rice. And I seemed to have solved the problem of the batter falling off the chicken by dipping in the cornstarch/egg mix first and then coating in flour before pan frying. Perfection!
i do not know where to get rice wine. is it a cooking wine or a liquor?
Made Tso’s chicken today for me and my friends and they loved it! I had to quadruple the sauce ingredients ( doubled the chicken too). Nevertheless still too little sauce but perhaps it was my fault. Coated the chicken afterwards in flour before frying, good hint.
The recipe is great. Thank you!
Best wishes from Germany!
Made Tso’s chicken today for me and my friends and they loved it! I had to quadruple the sauce ingredients ( doubled the chicken too). Nevertheless still too little sauce but perhaps it was my fault. Coated the chicken afterwards in flour before frying, good hint.
The recipe is great. Thank you!
Best wishes from Germany!
Made this and was impressed. It was good, although I don’t have a wok. Cooked the chicken in peanut oil in cast iron. Finished the chicken off in the toaster over at 350 to make it crispy. I added a little more rice wine to knock the soy sauce back a bit… may substitute a 1/2 tsp of OJ next time for some of the soy sauce.
This looks absolutely like the Chinese Restaurants versions. I have another recipe that I did years ago for a Pot Luck for Russell Stover Candies Corporate HQ; I was a Buyer in Purchasing there. The recipe was “Okay,” but I was dissapointed in the sauce; it was too light in color as they asked for quite a bit of cornstarch in the sauce.
However, this sauce looks simple, rich, and just like what you would order. I’m definitely trying this! Thank you! I’m a HUGE General Tso’s Fan too!
I am now living in the Philippines. It is impossible to find General Tso’s here. So, when I saw you recipe, I figured I would give it a try. I made this last night for my wife and kids for dinner. The only thing that I did differently was added a teaspoon and a half of tomato paste to the sauce mix. It was delicious. It was also very easy to make.
It’s a very good recipe, but when i pour the sauce over the chicken and chili peppers it becomes very clumpy, and does not coat the chicken like it does in your picture. I think it’s the corn starch…how do i get the sauce to not clump up?
LD- try adding a little water to thin out the sauce. I have not had this problem.
Hi! Thank you for the recipe!
We just made it for dinner, although we had to improvise a little. We couldn’t find rice wine anywhere, so we substituted with dry white wine. We also didn’t have dried chili peppers (although we did have fresh) so we used red pepper flakes instead. It was alright, but I wouldn’t call it spicy.
1 lb of chicken is actually 4 servings, so we have leftovers 🙂 Next time though, I think I’m going to double the amount of sauce.
The only other problem we had was when deep frying, the chicken became stuck to the pan and part of the coating broke off as we tried to get them out. Did anyone else have this problem?
i am goin to try this for my school project looks really good asin food here i come and A
Hello there, l came back (to Denmark) 7 years ago and l have missed Gen Tso´s chicken alot.
The recipe looks great and l can´t wait to try it. One question: lsn´t nescesarry to cook the chicken-nuggets before you put in the wok? That´s what my chinese friend in US told me.
Thanks again for the recipe
Mikael- I am not sure what you are asking. If you are asking if you could just cook the chicken bits in the wok instead of the deep fryer, yes. Make sure they are cooked to an internal tempurature of 165 degrees F.
I didn’t have rice wine, so I used cooking sherry. I’ve heard that it tends to be salty, so to compensate, I used reduced sodium soy sauce. I found that the key is you have to fry in small batches as directed. I was in a hurry the first time I made it, and overcrowded the pan, resulting in chicken that didn’t crisp up, so once I added the sauce, it soaked into the batter, pulling it off the chicken. Tonight I took my time and it looked saucy and delicious, just like the picture!
I’m sorry, but I made this recipe. It looks FABULOUS, BUT it is WAY too “Eggy” tasting. I bit into one of the chicken pieces, and nearly got sick. 3 Eggs is WAY TOO MANY. Plus, I would discard the egg yolk and use the egg white ONLY. You only need 1 egg white for 1 to 1-1/2lbs of chicken. I am known from friends and family as an Excellent cook and bake my own breads. I’ve catered weddings, and I have been told I should go into my own business. I make my own Crab Rangoon, Sweet & Sour Sauce, Fried Rice, Chicken Low Mein, and Lemon Chicken. This recipe LOOKS good, but is not what it seems. Very disappointed in this recipe. I’ve made another recipe that is FANTASTIC!
I made this tonight but subbed the rice wine with white cooking wine. And i added a little sesame oil at the end. It was good but was to strong oil tasting or something was. It was like a peanut butter taste. Thanks for the recipe i will try again.
Made your recipe and it was great ! Thank you. Posted a picture on my website.
https://willsononline.com/bbq/tso4.jpg
This recipe sounds good. I have been wary of using egg in batters, but I think it will work here , since the chicken isn’t fried very long…probably won’t get too pungent like it usually does. Gonna try it tomorrow.
the recipe was so delicious but I put 8 chilis and it wasn’t as spicy as I expected, but still delicious.
Made it tonight and it was fantastic. I just found that there was not enough sauce for 2 lbs of chicken. I will make double sauce next time. Thanks for sharing 🙂
Made these today and was surprised that it made about 8 servings. I kept trying to make enough sauce but I just couldn’t seem to do that. It tasted exactly how I thought it would and loved it. I tried coating the chicken with cornstarch and didn’t like the way it looked so I just added an extra 1/2 cup of starch to the eggs and it came out excellent.