Food with My Dude #13: Orange Chicken Bowl

I made this recipe the first time a few months ago, which was a huge gamble took to make this dish. I actually found it on Tasty’s Facebook page. Also, it was a little challenging to follow since I had to pause after each frame to write down the ingredients and fudge the measurements.

This dish takes longer just because you have to marinate the chicken for about an hour or so and then additional frying time. But, I’d do it all again, so it’s not too difficult to make!

Homemade Orange Chicken Bowl

The reason why I didn’t follow the recipe exactly was because it starts off with like three pounds of chicken, and I just had four chicken breasts thawed out since it’s just Stephen and me, which is also why I made up the measurements. We still had a lot of nuggets left after the meal but here’s what I loosely followed and the meal turned out to be scrumptious.

Marinade mixture:

• 4 chicken breasts [or a pack of tenderloins]
• 1 cup of soy sauce
• 1/2 cup of brown sugar
• 1 1/2 tablespoon of sesame oil
• 4 garlic cloves
• 1/2 tablespoon of ground ginger [or 2 tbsp of fresh ginger]

Orange chicken sauce:

• 1 tbsp of garlic
• 1 tbsp of ginger
• 3 tbsp of soy sauce
• 3/4 cup of orange juice
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 tbsp of orange zest
• 1 tbsp water + 1 tbsp cornstarch

If you have a lot of chicken, I would double the recipe so you’ll have extra sauce remaining.

Price:

We have basically all the ingredients in our cabinet. Although, I did have to buy orange juice. If you have mainly all these ingredients, minus the sesame oil, chicken, and possibly orange juice, this recipe is super affordable. Plus, you can get a few meals out of this!

We omit the orange zest since it’s tangy and has a strong orange taste for my liking.

Dice up the chicken. I usually cut the tenderloins into three or four cubes. I place the chicken in a separate bowl from the marinade while I’m combining the ingredients.

First thing you do is mix all the sauce ingredients together in a bowl, which are:

• 1 cup of soy sauce
• 1/2 cup of brown sugar
• 1 1/2 tablespoon of sesame oil
• 4 garlic cloves
• 1/2 tablespoon of ground ginger [or 2 tbsp of fresh ginger]

From the video, I’m assuming that it was supposed to be enough marinade for the whole three pounds of chicken. So, this is the result from my made up measurements, and I still had more than enough marinade to coat the chicken.

Next, I poured the chicken in the marinade mix after the ingredients were well mixed. I covered it with Press’n Seal and placed it in the fridge for an hour.

After an hour of marinating, I coated the chicken with cornstarch. So in a separate bowl, to make it easier on yourself, pour a generous amount of cornstarch and place a few nuggs in the bowl to coat completely.

Then, the fun frying begins! I cranked up the heat to medium high, and I put a sacrificial nugget in the pot to test if the canola oil was hot enough. The key is you want to leave the nuggets in for about 5-7 minutes or so, depending on your heat level. When they’re done, they’ll turn a darker color.

Also to test it out, look for the largest piece you can find after the allotted frying time, then cut it down the middle to check in side. They should turn out like the ones in the bowl below!

Plus, you can see to the bottom right where I cut a piece to see if it was cooked thoroughly.

Honestly, I was so hungry and tempted to just eat these nuggets without the sauce. I did try a few without the orange chicken sauce, and they were pretty good! Definitely had an awesome soy sauce and ginger flavor to them.

Before I dumped all the nuggets in the sauce, I let Stephen try them beforehand. He wasn’t a fan of it and said that it was too orangey, so he ate the nuggets with the rice I made.

Making the Orange Chicken Sauce

While you’re waiting for the nuggets to fry, you can begin making the sauce. In a pan, heat up these ingredients:

• 1 tbsp of garlic
• 1 tbsp of ginger
• 3 tbsp of soy sauce

Then, mix in these ingredients once the ones above are hot and bubbly:

• 3/4 cup of orange juice
• 1/4 cup of brown sugar
• 2 tbsp of orange zest

Once you mix in almost everything, then mix 1 tbsp of cornstarch + 1 tbsp of water together before putting it in the boiling sauce. After a few seconds and stirring, the mixture will thicken. Thus, creating what you see below!

Since I always make way more chicken than we’ll eat in one sitting, I find it easier to just sauce the portion of chicken you’ll eat to avoid soggy leftovers.

So, this was my portion and I struggled to finish it. I did think it had an orangey taste, but it wasn’t overbearing. Just think, I even made the recipe without the orange zest! Good thing I didn’t have any, but I’m sure it would’ve tasted just as good with it. Besides, shouldn’t orange chicken be overly orangey? I’m not for sure since I haven’t ordered it in a restaurant, but I assumed it would be!

Here’s the final product! Honestly, I was so proud of this dish for turning out so well!

Taste: Including the consideration and the overly orange taste, I thought the dish was yummy and definitely a recipe that I will make again in the future! Plus, the chicken was super tender and juicy. The little chef in me is sorta proud of this meal, haha. It was time-consuming, but so worth it!

Rating:

Taking in Stephen’s opinion of the sauce, I’ll rate it a 4 star, but I’d give this meal a 5, personally.

Heat level:

0! Just tangy, orange chicken.

Although, I have considered using about 2/3 cup of orange juice, then 1/4 cup of sweet chili sauce to give it some more spice and tone back the orange flavor, but I haven’t tested that out, so those measurements may be way off.

Overall, this was such a fun recipe for me. I would honestly stand and fry food all day long, haha. Alexis says that this is one of her favorite meals, and even almost better than Chick-fil-A’s nuggs! [Not really, probably, but that’s sweet of her to say.] It’s great to have a home tome, right?

Maybe I’ll try other recipes from the video in the near future. I want to make a teriyaki beef one at some point, but I haven’t looked into recipes for one just yet. Plus, I need to have the meat cut thinly as you normally see.

Do you like orange chicken?

If you give this recipe a try, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!