Sweet and Sour Chicken (2024)

Homemade crispy sweet and sour chicken with a better-than-takeout sauce made from store cupboard ingredients!

What ingredients could possibly give sweet and sour chicken that tangy, sweet and well, sour flavour?

Actually quick a bizarre combination:

• Ketchup – and plenty of it – for a tanginess and colour. I don’t eat a lot of ketchup, but it’s a must for this dish.
• Malt vinegar – it’s the best type of vinegar I’ve found for getting the ‘right’ touch of sourness.
• Brown sugar – for rounded sweetness, and to counteract any bitterness in the vinegar.
• Pineapple chunks in pineapple juice – yep, rather than chopping up a fresh pineapple, I find pineapple chunks actually work better, and the juice is an all-important element to the sweet–tangy flavour of the sauce.

And of course we’re doing this sweet and sour chicken Hong Kong style – which means the chicken is chopped into bite-sized pieces, dredged in a flavourful coating then fried to crisp perfection, before being coated in that sweet and sour sauce.

Here’s a quick rundown of the recipe. You can get the detailed steps and quantities in the recipe card below.
We start by coating the chicken in cornflour (cornstarch), then egg and then seasoned flour. Then fry in oil until crispy. You can do this in two batches if your pan is on the small side. I can just about do it in one batch in my wok. Then remove the crispy chicken from the wok.

Check the chicken is fully cooked:

If you want to ensure the chicken is fully cooked, slice open one of the larger pieces you can find, and make sure it’s no longer pink in the middle. If it’s white with no pink areas, it’s cooked.

Now onto the sauce. We fry onions and peppers in a wok until very lightly softened (just a couple of minutes), then add garlic and ginger, followed by those all-important bizarre ingredients: ketchup, malt vinegar, brown sugar and tinned pineapple (including the juice). Bring it to the boil.

Let the sauce bubble for a few minutes, so it thickens slightly like this (it will thicken a little more when you add the chicken back in).

Then add in that crispy chicken and carefully toss in the sauce. So tasty!!

I love sweet and sour chicken from the takeaway, but there are a couple of things I don’t love:

• The sauce is too bright orange – like glow in the dark orange. I’ve heard they use food colouring to get it that vivid (does anyone know for sure? let me know in the comments). Mine’s very red (from the ketchup) but the colour is toned down by the addition of dark brown sugar.
• The crisp coating is often flavourless. It’s more there for crunch, rather than to add additional flavour. I add extra seasoning and spices into my coating, so even without the sauce, it tastes delicious.

Can bake the chicken instead of frying it?

Yep! I have a recipe for baked sweet and sour chicken on the blog too.

What to serve with sweet and sour chicken:

• Boiled rice – check out my full post on how to boil rice (the method I ALWAYS use)
• Special Fried Rice – masterclass post on getting it perfect!
• Just leave the chicken out of my Lo Mein recipe for a lovely noodle side dish.
• Maybe add a side of spare ribs? These are Asian style ribs topped with crispy onions, inspired by a restaurant we went to in China town in London.

Watch how to make it:

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