Thursday, March 12, 2009

Best Sweet and Sour Chicken Recipe I Have Found

So, I like to try out new recipes to keep us from going out to eat.

I often talk about how much we LOVE Happy Chinese Resturaunt in Idaho Falls. Seriously you guys, best food ever. Plus, whenever I go in the owner calls me by name, talks to the kids and occasionally takes our kids into the kitchen. We love it there.

But, my current goal is to not eat out. We've done excellent as of February 1st, when we officially decided to see how long we could go without eating out.

*Quick side note. We did eat out last month, but it was 2 Quizno's subs that I had free coupons for, and 2 Arby's roast burgers that I had coupons for--- but I did buy 2 drinks so it cost us $3.69. Plus, yesterday I had to take a kid to the doctor for a checkup and after the drama I rewarded my kids for behaving for 1 whole hour with slushes at Sonic during happy hour so $2 there too. I am barely counting those*

Anyhow, even the kids can't resist Happys so we had to figure something out. My friend Melanie B. gave me a recipe for sweet and sour chicken that she swore was amazing. I was nervous because another friend had given me a sweet and sour recipe a year or so ago and it was disgusting. But, I decided to try it out.

It. Was. Awesome. So good in fact, that we are dubbing Thursday "Ethnic Food Night" here at case de la Tower just so we can eat it all the time.

LMK if you like it.

Friggin' Amazing Sweet and Sour Chicken

A bunch of chicken breasts

for the chicken:
1-2 eggs all beaten and whatnot (I used dehydrated eggs because that is what I had)
a bunch of cornstarch and/or flour
garlic salt
oil

Here is what I did because I am lazy. I put the chicken in the crockpot all day until it was at the "fork fall apart" phase. I took a fork and picked out chunks which I put into a plastic baggie that I had put all the flour/starch/salt stuff. (for the record, I dump a cup of flour in, a cup of starch and just pour in the garlic salt. Then I shake that stuff up in the bag before I toss the chicken in.)
Once I have all the chicken in and I've shaken it I toss it into my frying pan which has some cooking oil in the bottom and is already pretty hot.

At the same time I am boiling the following mixture:

3tbs soy
12 tbs ketchup (which is about 3/4 of a cup)
2 1/4 cup sugar
1 cup vinegar (I have used white and apple cider, both rock)
1 can pineapple (I only used 1/2 can) liquid NOT drained

Cook all that to boil

When your chicken is all fried up and crispy (which didn't take much time at all for me since it was already cooked) dump it into a 9x13 glass pan and pour the sauce over it.
Bake in the old oven for about 30 min or so at 350

Make some rice (if you need a recipe for rice you need to not make this, m'kay?)

Eat. A lot.

There you go. Now, I had ALL of these items in my storage, so this meal was cheap for me, easily less than $5. I'm going to try pork one of these days too.

Enjoy!

7 comments:

One Particular Kitchen said...

Kimber that looks GOOD! I made something similar here -- was great with red pepper flakes added for a little heat:
http://oneparticularkitchen.wordpress.com/2009/03/06/sweet-and-sour-chicken/

lishajeanne said...

We are relatively new to IF and we discovered Happy Chinese a couple months ago. LOVE IT!!! I will for sure be trying this recipe. Looks great--thanks for sharing.

Jenni said...

Yowsa! This stuff is good. I haven't even baked it yet and I can't keep my fork out of it. I used 5 chicken breast halves, 1/2 c. flour, 1/2 c. cornstarch, skipped the eggs (it works) and 2/3 the sauce recipe. I had crushed pineapple, so used that. MMM

KT said...

Seriously, it is crazy good. Totally caught me by surprise. I am now working on making just the sauce in bulk, then using my foodsaver to seal it in family size portions and then freeze it. That will make it even easier!

Jenni said...

Okay, the s&s sauce and chicken got baked. I think I liked it better not baked--a lot more juicy. MMM great sauce

Kiama Dawson said...

super good recipie Kimber!!!! thanks for sharing! I made it with pork, and it turned out spectacular too!

Unknown said...

What a great recipe. This does sound delicious. I love chicken, will try it out soon. Thanks so much for sharing.

Thanks

Sam
My site