Best Sweet and Sour Chicken Recipe (or Sweet and Sour Pork)

This is so easy to do and tastes really good! I saw James Martin make this on his Saturday Morning programme (ITV) a few weeks ago and thought I’d give it a go. A few things appealed to me: it didn’t look bright orange like the sweet and sour you get from a Chinese takeaway; the guests on the show all said how delicious it was; it looked really simple to make and also if the chicken is cooked for a short amount of time it is going to be so soft and tender, exactly as it should be cooked. For me personally when cooking with chicken there is nothing worse than spoiling it by cooking it too long, it goes all tough and dry. Cook it as the recipe says and I defy you not to love it and want it to be your ‘go-to’ sweet and sour chicken recipe. (Saying that, I made it with pork this weekend.)

It really doesn’t take long at all to prepare or cook and tastes so much nicer than the orange gloopy sweet and sour sauce you get in a jar or that some recipes aim for.

The ingredients for four people are:

600g of chicken breasts, cut into 5cm strips
30ml soy sauce
30ml rice wine vinegar
15ml sesame oil
10g cornflour
50g sugar (I used brown)
25ml vegetable oil
1 large onion, peeled and diced
3 large garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
200g fresh pineapple, chopped (I used tinned)
1 small bunch coriander, chopped (I didn’t use because I forgot to buy some and actually personally I hate fresh raw coriander 😝)

As I said, I tried it with pork but either works. I also added some sliced red pepper and a handful of bean sprouts, just because I wanted to.

To make: (This is so easy!)

Mix the soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, cornflour and sugar in a bowl, add the chicken and make sure it is all coated.

Add the vegetable oil to a large frying pan and place over a medium heat. When the oil is hot add the onions and garlic and cook for a couple of minutes. Next add the chicken and fry for 3 to 4 minutes, followed by the pineapple. Cook for another minute then sprinkle with coriander.

JOB DONE. Serve and enjoy!

James made a lovely egg fried rice with his on the programme and you can find the recipe for that on the ITV website. We just had some stir fry mixed veg and noodles today.

Note: I added the pineapple juice out the tin and it made a bit too much liquid so don’t make my mistake, anyway fresh pineapple is probably better.

Actually I’ll be kind and give it to you here as it’s so tasty and goes well with the chicken.

For the rice:

2 beaten eggs
15ml sesame oil
15 ml vegetable oil
400g long grain rice, cooked and chilled
4 spring onions, chopped

Heat the sesame and vegetable oils in a large frying pan over a high heat. Add the rice then quickly stir through the egg and spring onions. Cook for 2 minutes, stirring continuously until the egg is dry.

Make sure you cook the rice before hand because this gorgeous food is so quick and easy to cook and you’ll end up over cooking and spoiling something, also it will help to keep the grains nice and separated and not go stodgy.

What a delicious, quick and easy dinner, perfect for a Friday or Saturday night, or any other night for that matter. It’s also really healthy (although I know it has sugar in.)

I hope you enjoy it as much as me!