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.
See how we calculate recipe costs here.
Equipment
- Non Stick Cookware
- Grater
- Color Cutting Boards
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
Super easy and ridiculously delicious!
Yummy fast! Repeat!
Damn Good! Just made this for the first time and it’s a hit! I had to use basmati rice, but will be sure to have jasmine rice for next time.
Had to make a change of dinner plans and needed something quick. This recipe is great. Quick, easy, and plenty of flavor.
I love this, but for the prices I wish in the future you could instead of the price of the amount being used for each ingredient, that you could give a general price of a good but budget-saving brands of the ingredients. Because otherwise, I will not be paying only $5 something in making this. It’ll equate to about 15 dollars depending on what someone has and what they need. Paying .10 for some cornstarch or whatever is kind of out there. no one can pay only that amount. So the pricing on making this is a little misleading. Good recipe but a little misleading on the cost of making it and what sort of brands work better.
This is the way that restaurants and food service establishments calculate recipe costs. The reason it doesn’t make sense to include the total package cost is that you wouldn’t need to buy a whole new package of cornstarch (or whatever ingredient) every time you make a recipe with it and it’s not necessarily “free” when you use it after the first time. So the remaining costs after the $0.10 are accounted for in the other recipes where it’s used. It’s not perfect either way, for sure, but I find this way to be a little more accurate for displaying the ratio of costs for ingredients within a recipe. Once you build up to a stocked kitchen it might become more applicable to you as well.
This is easy and fast – great for a college student. It tastes wonderful! Like others have said I would probably suggest doubling the sauce.
Thank you :)
This was spectacular! I didn’t have ginger so I used 2tsp ground ginger instead and I tripled the sauce which made just enough. I toasted the sesame seeds in a pan before adding them to the sauce. I’ll probably use less sesame seeds next time because it was a little overwhelming but we will definitely make this again. Thanks!
I would suggest using toasted sesame seeds, as these are the only ones that actually have a flavor. They are nutty and have a little crunch for added texture. Actually, I would never use untoasted sesame seeds in ANY recipe. They are tasteless. I also would recommend adding them last, after the chicken was sauced. A much better result for flavor and texture. Since ginger always dies a slow, dessicating death at my house, I keep what we call “tube o” ginger in my fridge and use that. Thanks for the easy recipe!
This is a great recipe and step by step guide was helpful! I’ve made it twice now and loved it. The second time i doubled the egg/cornstarch mixture as well as the sauce and it was even tastier to have the extra sauce seep into the rice. Will become a staple meal in my household. Thank you!
I am going to try this but am on Weight Watchers. Do you have the nutritional infor I need to calculate points/ need fiber, calories and fat especially.
No, unfortunately I don’t have the nutritional information.
there’s a website i stumbled upon called myfitnesspal that you can input the url intro to get the nutritional information. You have to make an account to input the url, but you can just log in with facebook. After you make an account, click on recipes and you can paste the url into the box at the top. I hope this helps :)
I can’t thank you enough for this recipe! The recipe itself is fantastic!
But even better, you’ve shown me a new, simple and easy way to cook the chicken with egg and cornstarch that doesn’t require me to turn my sailboat into a deep fat fryer. No more deep frying for me! I’ve already adapted your chicken cooking technique to make a Hoisin sauce version. Tonight I’m going to adapt it for a version of General Tso’s chicken. And, I’m already planning to try Orange Chicken too!!
I wish I could give it a 6 star rating!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
I have made this recipe 4 times now, and I have to say, it is GLORIOUS! Instead of toasted sesame oil (couldn’t find it the first time I made the recipe), I toasted sesame seeds in some vegetable oil and it still tastes amazing. It’s my go-to recipe! :)
Hello.Can I use sesame oil instead of toasted sesame oil
You definitely want to use toasted sesame oil because it has a much stronger sesame flavor than regular sesame oil. Sometimes they don’t specify “toasted” on the label, though, so look at the color of the oil. If it’s a deep brown color it is toasted. If it is a light straw color, it is not toasted.
What an amazing recipe! Quick to prepare, and on the table even quicker, so have the rice or veggies ready to go. I have seen other Sesame Chicken recipes, which required more ingredients and more time. I was hesitant to try this one because of that, however it will now be in regular rotation. I used chicken thighs. I doubled the sauce, like so many had said. However, I think it might have been too much sauce for me, and I will try it next time with the sauce amount that is recommended. Once I put the chicken pieces in the skillet, I waited about 4 minutes to turn them over, because I wanted the coating to stick. I might have waited too long, because once I turned them over, I got the omelette effect. However, the coating stayed on the chicken and through stirring the chicken, the omelette effect broke up and disappeared. The chicken was crispy at this time, however once I added the sauce, the chicken was no longer crispy. I did lower the heat to Low before I put in the sauce. Everything turned out wonderful, and it actually looked like the picture. Thank you!!
Loved the recipe…. So easy and super quick….. Turned out great….. Just added a bit of extra water to the sauce for gravy…. The entire family loved it.