Flashback Friday: Orange Peel Chicken

This has been a looonggg week. And not in a good way. Last weekend, the A/C in my car decided to break…in July…in the desert. And apparently I have to replace the whole thing. Yeah, not good. I’m one of those people that HATES to be hot so I can’t even deal with it. My sweet husband has let me steal his car this week until we can get more estimates.

And now that the kiddos are back in school here, things are ramping up at work as we get ready to start a big project and have to prep to test a bazillion kids. It’s been one of those weeks where I just feel like I have been running around like mad and have had no rest. Wahhh wahhh wahhhh. Ok, I’ll stop whining.

I hope you guys are enjoying Flashback Fridays. I’m loving that I get to look through old posts and make some recipes that I haven’t made in a long time! This orange peel chicken is one of them. I got this recipe from a friend of mine and it is supposedly a copycat recipe of P.F. Chang’s Orange Peel Chicken. It’s been a while since I had theirs so I can’t really tell you for sure that this is a good match. I will tell you that is quite yummy though!

To lighten it up, instead of pan frying the chicken, I bake it and use whole wheat flour and panko bread crumbs. This recipe is a little more work compared to most of the other recipes I post as you have to coat each tiny piece of chicken in the breading mixture. To cut down on some time, I like to combine the dry ingredients in a large ziploc bag and then all you have to do is coat each piece in the egg mixture and then dump and shake ’em all up in the bag.

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Yield: serves 3-4

Orange Peel Chicken

Prep Time 30 minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes

Total Time 45 minutes

P.F. Chang's Orange Peel Chicken - lightened up! This take-out favorite gets a healthier makeover for a delicious dinner!

Ingredients

For the chicken:

• 4 chicken breasts, cleaned and trimmed and cut into bite-size pieces
• 1 cup panko bread crumbs
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 egg
• 1 cup milk
• cooking spray
• Peel from 1/4 of a large orange, julienned into 1/8-inch strips
• 1 cup sugar snap peas

For the sauce:

• 1 tbs. vegetable oil
• 2 tbs. garlic, minced
• 2 green onions, sliced
• 1 cup tomato sauce
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 1/2-2 tbs. oriental chili-garlic sauce
• 1 tbs. soy sauce

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Combine panko and flour together in a pie dish or bowl. Whisk together milk and eggs. Spray a wire rack with non-stick cooking spray and place the rack onto a baking sheet lined with foil. Dip chicken pieces into milk and egg mixture and then into the flour and bread crumb mixture. Place chicken onto wire rack. Once all your chicken pieces are breaded. Spray them with more cooking spray and bake in the oven for approximately 10 minutes. Gently turn the chicken over, spray with more spray and cook for another 5 minutes or until the chicken has browned and the chicken is cooked thoroughly. Set cooked chicken aside.
2. Heat vegetable oil in a medium sauce pan over medium heat. Add garlic and green onion. Cook for 1 minute. Add tomato sauce, water, sugar, chili garlic sauce, and soy sauce. Bring to a boil. Simmer sauce for 5-6 minutes or until sauce thickens.
3. Heat a large pan or wok on medium high heat, add chicken and orange peel. Heat for 30 seconds, stirring gently. Add the sugar snap peas and the sauce to the pan. Gently toss chicken (you don’t want to knock off the breading) into the sauce and cook for 2 minutes. Serve with rice or additional veggies!

Notes

If you don’t want to add so much sugar to the sauce, you can try cutting it down, however keep in mind that the sugar is also what helps the sauce thicken up. You can try using a different thickening agent such as corn starch, but I have not tried this and cannot attest to the results.

Nutrition Information:

Yield:

4

Serving Size:

1
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 407Total Fat: 9gSaturated Fat: 2gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 6gCholesterol: 59mgSodium: 979mgCarbohydrates: 68gFiber: 7gSugar: 20gProtein: 17g

Old Post:Orange Peel Chicken

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