This Easy Sesame Chicken recipe is seriously so easy that you’ll be tempted to toss those take-out menus. The deliciously sweet and savory sauce takes only a few ingredients, all of which you can keep on hand indefinitely (keep your ginger in the freezer). You know, just in case you need some sesame chicken like, now. Oh, and this take-out fake-out sesame chicken works great for your weekly meal prep, too!
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What is Sesame Chicken?
If you’re unfamiliar with this Chinese-American fast food classic, sesame chicken is small pieces of tender chicken that have been coated in an egg and cornstarch, deep-fried until crispy, and then coated in a deliciously sweet, salty, and tangy sauce. The sauce also has a light but toasty flavor thanks to sesame seeds. You’ll find this dish at most Chinese-inspired takeout restaurants across America.
Ingredients for Sesame Chicken
Here’s what you’ll need to make this easy sesame chicken recipe:
- Chicken Thighs: We use chicken thighs for this recipe because they stay juicy and super tender without fear of drying out, and they’re very budget-friendly. You can use chicken breast, if preferred, just be careful to not overcook the chicken.
- Cornstarch and Egg: The combination of cornstarch and egg coats the chicken, keeping it tender and providing something for the sauce to grab onto. This technique of coating meat in a cornstarch mixture is called “velveting.”
- Soy Sauce: The base for the sauce is soy sauce, which provides plenty of salt and umami flavor.
- Toasted Sesame Oil: Toasted sesame oil gives the sauce a deliciously nutty flavor. Make sure to get toasted oil, which has a deep amber color and a much more pronounced flavor.
- Brown Sugar: Brown sugar provides sweetness to balance the salt of the soy sauce and the acidity of the vinegar. Brown sugar has a deep flavor, compared to the more one-dimensional flavor of white sugar. You can also use honey in place of the brown sugar.
- Rice Vinegar: Rice vinegar gives the sauce a nice tangy flavor. Rice vinegar is milder than other vinegar types, which keeps the sauce in balance and not too harsh.
- Fresh Ginger: Ginger gives the sauce zing! Be sure to use fresh ginger, not dried ginger, as it has a much more peppery flavor. Keep fresh ginger in your freezer to always have it on hand without it going bad.
- Garlic: Garlic provides a nice savory base flavor for the sauce.
- Sesame Seeds: Sesame seeds add even more sesame flavor to the sauce and a delicious visual appeal.
- Cornstarch: Cornstarch thickens the sauce into a nice glaze with a translucent, glossy finish.
- Rice and Green Onions: Serve your sesame chicken over a bed of rice with sliced green onions on top for a well rounded meal.
No Deep Frying Required
I specifically wrote this recipe for those of you out there who hate deep frying as much as I do. This recipe uses a very small amount of oil to cook the chicken and because of that, you don’t get super crispy edges as you would with a deep fry, but the trade-off is well worth it in my opinion. No leftover oil to deal with, no cooking oil smell filling your house, and no splattering oil trying to kill you. So worth sacrificing crispy edges.
What to Serve with Sesame Chicken
I like to pair my Easy Sesame Chicken with jasmine rice and a little steamed broccoli. It’s a super simple meal that is very satisfying, and stores well for meal prep! It also goes great with Crunchy Cabbage Salad, Sesame Cucumber Salad, Easy Egg Drop Soup, Savory Coconut Rice.
Easy Sesame Chicken
Servings 4Ingredients
Chicken
- 1 large egg ($0.23)
- 2 Tbsp cornstarch ($0.06)
- 1 pinch each salt and pepper ($0.05)
- 1 lb boneless skinless chicken thighs ($3.23)
- 2 Tbsp cooking oil ($0.08)
Sauce
- 1/4 cup soy sauce ($0.24)
- 2 Tbsp water ($0.00)
- 1 Tbsp toasted sesame oil ($0.33)
- 3 Tbsp brown sugar ($0.12)
- 1 Tbsp rice vinegar ($0.12)
- 1 tsp grated fresh ginger ($0.10)
- 2 cloves garlic, minced ($0.16)
- 1 Tbsp sesame seeds ($0.8)
- 1/2 Tbsp cornstarch ($0.02)
For Serving
- 4 cups cooked jasmine rice ($0.70)
- 2 whole green onions ($0.22)
Instructions
- First, prepare the sauce. In a small bowl stir together the soy sauce, water, sesame oil, brown sugar, rice vinegar, fresh ginger, minced garlic, cornstarch, and sesame seeds. (Grate the ginger with a small-holed cheese grater). Set the sauce aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the egg, 2 Tbsp cornstarch, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Trim any excess fat from the chicken thighs, then cut them into small 1 inch pieces. Toss the chicken in the egg and cornstarch mixture.
- Add the cooking oil to a large skillet and heat it over medium flame. Wait until the skillet is very hot, then swirl the skillet to make sure the oil coats the entire surface. Add the batter coated chicken and spread it out into a single layer over the surface of the skillet.
- Allow the chicken pieces to cook, undisturbed, until golden brown on the bottom. Then, carefully flip the chicken, breaking up the pieces into smaller clumps as you flip. Continue to cook the chicken until golden brown on the other side. Stir the chicken as little as possible to avoid breaking the egg coating from the surface of the chicken.
- Once the chicken is cooked through and golden brown on all sides, pour the sauce over top. Toss the chicken to coat in the sauce. As the sauce comes up to a simmer, it will begin to thicken. Continue to gently stir the chicken in the sauce until it has thickened, then turn off the heat.
- Serve the chicken over a bed of rice and sprinkle the sliced green onions over top.
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Nutrition
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How to Make Sesame Chicken
Make the sauce first, so it’s ready to go when you need it. In a bowl, stir together 1/4 cup soy sauce, 2 Tbsp water, 1 Tbsp toasted sesame oil, 3 Tbsp brown sugar, 1 Tbsp rice vinegar, 1 tsp grated fresh ginger, 2 minced cloves of garlic, ½ Tbsp cornstarch, and 1 Tbsp sesame seeds.
Let’s just talk about this toasted sesame oil for a second. You must get the kind that is toasted to get the super vibrant nutty flavor that you want in your sesame chicken. Not all brands actually say “toasted” on the bottle, but you can recognize the toasted variety by its deep brown color. Regular sesame oil will be the color of straw, like vegetable oil. You want the brown stuff. ;) It’s usually in the international foods aisle, instead of the baking aisle with the other oils.
Next, trim any extra fat off of one pound of boneless, skinless chicken thighs, then cut them into small one inch cubes. One pound for me was about three chicken thighs.
Add 1 large egg, 2 Tbsp cornstarch, and a pinch of salt and pepper to a medium bowl.
Whisk the egg and cornstarch together until it is light and frothy. It may seem thick at first, but as the cornstarch dissolves in the egg, it will thin out and get nice and frothy.
Add the cubed chicken thighs and stir them to coat in the egg mixture.
Add 2 Tbsp cooking oil to a large skillet and heat it over medium. Wait until it is very hot. This is VERY important. The skillet must be very hot! Once very hot, swirl the skillet to make sure the oil coats the entire surface, add the chicken, and make sure it’s spread out into a single layer. Let the chicken cook, undisturbed, until golden brown on the bottom. It will kind of cook into a single round pancake, but don’t worry, we’ll break up the pieces next.
Then carefully flip the chicken pieces, breaking up them up slightly into smaller pieces as you flip. Cook on the other side until browned and cooked through. Make sure to not stir them too much, or you can cause the egg to come off the chicken. You can see that some of the chicken pieces are still kind of stuck together at this point. That’s okay. Just do not over stir.
Finally, add the prepared sauce and stir to coat. Continue to carefully stir the chicken as the sauce beings to simmer and thicken. Once it’s thickened, turn off the heat.
Sprinkle some sliced green onions over top and serve with warm rice. :) Doesn’t get better than this.
Easy Sesame Chicken – done in about 30 minutes, and NO DELIVERY FEE! :D
Could I simply saute the chicken in the oil without the coating and then add the sauce to the pan? I don’t care for breaded anything. I know it won’t have the crispy texture that the breading will create.
Also, any suggestions for reducing the Sodium in this recipe? Each person only gets 1 Tbsp of soy sauce at 880 mg of Sodium per serving. What else is so high in sodium in this recipe to make it 1518 mg per person? Not the rice or chicken. I know we could use low Sodium soy sauce (510 mg of Sodium in a Tbsp. )
Adults shouldn’t have more than 2300 mg per day as per American Heart Assn.
Those sodium numbers were calculated by hand by a dietitian and it’s possible she made an error or the database of ingredients she used wasn’t accurate. I recalculated using the automatic calculator that we use now and it’s showing about 900mg sodium per serving. That being said, all nutrition facts for recipes found online should be taken with a grain of salt (pun intended) because they use ingredient databases that may or may not be the same as the ingredients you actually use. They’re a broad estimate, at best. Oh, and meat actually does contain a decent amount of sodium. :) The database we use is showing about 400mg for the chicken in this recipe (for the total amount, not per serving).
It look delicious.I will try it soon
Beth, you are a genius! Was craving takeout and made this instead and it was delicious. Only tweak I made was white pepper (instead of black) in the egg slurry, since I had it on hand and seemed to go better with the asian flavors. Thank you!
I haven’t made this.
It looks gorgeous and sounds incredibly delicious.
But I need much simpler recipes and hands,off cooking. I’m a very slow cook, and looking to get dinner on the table much more easily and quickly.
I re-write all chicken recipes to bake them as a sauce over chicken in the oven.
I use bone-on, skin-on thighs, and don’t do any trimming or chopping.
Not chopping food, especially meat or chicken, she’s loads of time.
Why chop food in advance, when I can cut it up on my dinner plate at the table, and chew it?
It saves time to just make whole cuts of meat, or bone-in, skin-on thighs (skinned and degreased as described below.)
Here is my strategy for making the fastest, simplest, safest, low-packaging, skinless, bone-in, low-fat chicken I have found.
I buy ground meat in a chub for affordability, and to reduce plastic and Styrofoam for environmental reasons; or bake whole cuts of meat or bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs. Then I can lift whole thighs from the package to the pan, with the skin still on, with a fork, for food safety and minimal cleanup – just a fork to wash.
I then bake the chicken thighs at 350 degrees for 30-40 min., til the skin comes off quickly, easily, and safely with a clean fork, and put the skin and drain the fat into a re-used can, to cool, freeze, put in a reused bread bag, and toss on garbage day. This is the fastest, cleanest, easiest, most affordable way I’ve found to get skinless chicken without getting my hands greasy and taking extra time to pull raw chicken skin off of thighs. I also don’t have to spend extra time washing the sink and cutting board and knife right to immediately remove raw chicken juices, because the chicken is only handled with a fork before it is fully cooked. Huge time-saver!
With the now-skinned, partially baked, bone-in, whole chicken thighs that are still in the pan, already baked for 30-40 minutes, I then pour my sauce over, and bake an additional 10-15 min. Served with brown rice ànd a steamed veg.
I make enough chicken (6 thighs for 1 person) and rice (3 cups raw) to last for 3 meals for the week. I put the cooled pan of chicken in a reused plastic bag or covered with foil directly into the fridge for the next two meals, so I only have to clean the pan once for the week. I then alternate this chicken meal with one other dinner for the week, such as tomato-meat sauce with cooked whole-grain penne pasta stirred in.
This provides simplicity, affordability, and a little variety by alternating two meals for the week.
I will use your delicious sounding sauce to pour over chicken baked this way. Thank you for the gorgeous recipe!
I share this cooking method a) to keep it real. – I know I will never get around to making your beautiful recipe as described, and b) in hopes you will create a section of your site for sauces to pour over hands-off, skinless bone-in baked chicken, for affordability, speed, and practicality, for those of us who want to keep hands-on time in the kitchen to the bare minimum, at low cost and good nutrition.
I like what you’re saying. You’ve given me food for though. I cook for three. I get home around 7pm and spend way to much time in prep and clean up.
Thank you
You have outdone yourself with this one. I kept yelling THIS IS SO GOOD as my husband and I devoured this dish. I threw some cut up red peppers in, which were also delicious. Thank you for always posting such awesome recipes.
could you make this in an air fryer?
Anything with a wet batter should be kept out of an air-fryer.
Does the calorie count at the bottom included the rice? Are you about to suggest a serving size, for example half cup rice and 4 ounces of cooked chicken ?
Yes, the calorie count includes the rice. The recipe card says there are 4 servings and calls for 4 cups of rice. So it would be 1 cup of rice per serving. And yes, it would be 4 oz of chicken or one thigh.
Very good and easy to make thank you
It was delicious!
Had no problem with the coating- everything went just as described.
I made for dinner and this was SO tasty! I used b/s breasts (on hand) cut into chunks. Had doubts about the amount of egg mixture but it was enough for the two breasts. Maybe next time I’d add another egg. Practiced my patience and did not rush the chicken browning…after flipping it was all ‘game on’ good & looked legit. I added a splash more soy to the sauce because we were serving over yakisoba noodles (soooo good) in a noodle bowl. Definitely making again….significant other raved about it!
Now that eggs aren’t as affordable, are there any alternates to use for the chicken coating? Very very good and easy!
We haven’t tested this recipe with any egg substitutes, so I’m hesitant to give you any specific suggestions that might not be successful. However, you could try thinning out the cornstarch with warm water or milk until it reaches the same consistency as the slurry you see in the step-by-step process photos. ~Marion :)
I made it with ground chicken and skipped the whole egg/cornstarch batter part! Just brown the ground chicken and once its cooked, add the sauce and follow the rest of the recipe. Very easy this way and I found it still super tasty!
I prefer to dredge the chicken pieces in cornstarch then fry in a bit of oil – makes them nice and crispy – before adding sauce. :)
Man I was bad at the chicken part, and I was really worried it wouldn’t come out well because it looked like I made an egg pancake. Fellow at-home-chefs, stick with it! It’s okay even if it looks weird!
It turned out delish. I made a double batch of sauce because I had 1.7 lb of chicken thighs ($5 at Aldi, can’t beat it). I then steamed some carrots “chips” that were on sale from Publix to add in with it – I originally wanted broccoli but the carrots were on sale and they turned out to be the best choice! Served over brown rice and it was phenom. It took me longer than the “prescribed” time table in the recipe (maybe closer to 45 min) but I will 100% make it again!
My family enjoys this dinner a lot, we have it about once a month. I love that it’s really easy to throw together and neither kid will complain about it. :)
I’m sure it’s something I did, but the egg and corn starch mixture just slid off the chicken. So one side even up totally breaded, while the other was just bare chicken. It then dissolved into my sauce. Like I said, I’m sure it was me, but beware.
Hey Jordan, I haven’t made this before and I don’t know if it will help with this recipe but I’ve had similar experience with other breaded chicken recipes. Make sure the chicken is dry first (pat with a paper towel) then coat it lightly in flour and shake off the excess before putting it in the egg bath. Then just make sure your oil is very hot like the recipe says.
I made this last night and my family loved it! I used chicken breasts because it’s all I had. I think it would be even better with thighs!