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A Healthy option for those of us who love Chinese Sweet and Sour Chicken Takeaway. This Blood Orange Chicken made with freshly squeezed orange, a little honey and oven baked until sticky perfection is achieved. Hmmm mm mmm.
Blood Orange Chicken
If you’ve had this dish from your local Chinese Takeaway, you will know two things: It’s delicious (good) and it’s FULL of added sugar (bad), which is the thing that makes it so addictively moorish.
If this is a dilemma you find yourself facing a little too regularly, then you are going to love me. This remake is just as tasty but way healthier, uses Real food ingredients, and lets you dig in guilt free!
To keep that sweetness taste, I use the freshly squeezed juice of a Blood Orange instead of sugar. Try and find a really, really ripe orange. The sweeter the orange, the sweeter the dish will be at the end. If your orange is a little sour, then you can add a some honey to sweeten it up.
You can make this recipe work in a number of ways:
- Cut the chicken into little cubes (like they do at the Chinese takeaway)
- Slice some chicken breasts and pop on a stick (like I did in this recipe)
- Or use whole chicken pieces (because you’re in a bit of a rush).
Ultimately, it’ doesn’t matter whole lot how you serve this blood orange chicken, and it’ll probably depend on who you’re serving it to. I find little kids like this on a stick as I’ve done here, and this way is also great for parties and if you have a crowd to feed.
The skewers I like to use are these ones. They have a little ‘handle’ part to them and little fingers can hold them easily. I was always a little paranoid when the kids were really little and would break the skewers to make them really short and then break the pointy tip off.
Blood Oranges
I use blood oranges for this recipe as they’re sweeter than regular ones. The main difference between a blood orange and a regular one is that they’re sweeter, compared to regular oranges, they taste slightly less less acidic.
If I’m cooking this recipe with blood oranges, I rarely need to use honey to sweeten the whole thing up. That said, if you can’t easily get blood oranges or they’re super expensive, just use the regular ones and add a little honey if you need to.
Orange Chicken Sides
When I make this as a dinner dish at home, I normally serve with some brown rice or rice noodles and a quick side of stir fried vegetables. Here’s some ideas you can put with this Blood Orange Chicken:
- Clean eating fried rice
- Healthy Chinese fried rice
- Broccoli fried rice
- Parmentier potatoes
- Green salad
- Steamed Broccoli
More Chicken Dinner Recipes
- Oven baked Italian chicken
- Sheet pan Caprese chicken
- Healthy chicken stroganoff
- Chicken Piccata
- Quick chicken and mushroom curry
- Honey and ginger chicken
How To make Blood Orange Chicken
Ingredients
- 4 Medium Chicken Breasts Sliced into ½ inch slices
- 5 tbsp Flour
- 1 Egg Lightly beaten
- 1 Blood Orange Juiced
- 1 tbsp Apple Cider
- 1 tbsp Honey optional, as needed
- 1 tsp Tomato paste For the orange colour
- tbsp Olive oil
Instructions
- Heat oven to 400F / 190C
- STEP 1: Flour and Fry
- Heat up a pan on the stove. Add a little oil.
- Put the chicken on your kebab stick before cooking. Dip the chicken in the egg and then flour.
- Fry each side until golden.
- STEP 2: Mix Sauce and Bake
- Mix together – blood orange juice, honey, apple cider, tomato paste
- Pout over the chicken and place in oven.
- Bake for 10 – 12 minutes until sauce is sticky and thick and chicken cooked through
- Season with salt
Recipe
Blood Orange Chicken
Ingredients
- 4 Medium Chicken Breasts Sliced into ½ inch slices
- 5 tbsp Flour
- 1 Egg Lightly beaten
- 1 Blood Orange Juiced
- 1 tbsp Apple Cider
- 1 tbsp Honey optional, as needed
- 1 tsp Tomato paste For the orange colour
- tbsp Olive oil
Instructions
- Heat oven to 400F / 190C
- STEP 1: Flour and Fry
- Heat up a pan on the stove. Add a little oil.
- Put the chicken on your kebab stick before cooking. Dip the chicken in the egg and then flour.
- Fry each side until golden.
- STEP 2: Mix Sauce and Bake
- Mix together – blood orange juice, honey, apple cider, tomato paste
- Pout over the chicken and place in oven.
- Bake for 10 – 12 minutes until sauce is sticky and thick and chicken cooked through
- Season with salt