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
It was so Good.
May I omit sesame oil since I don’t have any?
If you do it will be closer to a teriyaki chicken than a sesame chicken. The toasted sesame oil gives the dish that nice nutty flavor.
I don’t usually comment on website recipes but I found myself keep coming back to your page. I just love everything about it! I love how well instructed and easy your recipes are and I really appreciate your effort for always including step by step photos. It makes everything so much better and convenient so thank you! :) oh and I loooveee this sesame chicken recipe. I always make them!
Amazingly simple recipe! And oh, so delicious.
Next time I will double the sauce, as I like sauce mixed into my rice. I loved someone else’s idea about adding some stir-fried broccoli, so I’ll try that too.
Some of my coating came off, and it was a little hard to get it all to brown without burning some bits – next time I’ll use a bigger frypan to make sure all the chicken is in one layer so that I can let it brown without disturbing it.
I can see this becoming a regular treat in our house! Thanks for a great recipe. :-)
Very tasty. Only issue was when I tripled the batch. There still wasnt enough to feed my family of 9. I thought tripling it would have been enough. Also, the rice, not a fan of the jasmine rice. Regular rice or instant rice could have been substituted. If the recipe would have stated that option, I would have chosen that instead. I do not like jasmine rice, I have found out. The chicken was awesome in taste.
Horrible. Just horrible, it didnt work
Just made this and its fantastic! Sesame chicken has been a favorite all my life and I never had the nerve to try making it. This recipe has now given me confidence that I can. Note, I live in UK and could not find cornstarch but Jaime Oliver said that you can use semolina flour, I was skeptical but it works great! Thanks so much!
If you ever find yourself looking for cornstarch for a recipe again, I believe it is known as ‘cornflour’ in the UK. It’s often used in place of eggs to thicken puddings/custards.
Sesame chicken turned out great.
Gaw. I wish I had read all the way to the end of the comments. This was a disaster. Your recipe is misleading and inaccurate based on the pictures. I hate the internet. People lie just to get “likes”. Please remove this recipe out of fairness.
Seriously? Because YOU didn’t like it, the recipe should be removed and everyone who liked it is lying?
Wow…. just wow…..
That’s ridiculous. I made it tonight and it came out perfect and was delicious. People who can’t cook should not comment on recipes.
Made this for dinner tonight! We all loved it. Was easy to make, will be adding this to my recipe box! Thank you!
Made this last night. I found the sauce get thick and sticky really quickly and so didn’t cover all the chicken. It might have been because I added some brocolli to the the dish so maybe I’ll add a little more water next time. It was delicious though.
Awesome! Hope you don’t mind if I share your site
I am trying to eat gluten free and this fit the bill perfectly. The only substitutes I had to do were rice vermicelli noodles instead of rice and ground ginger instead of fresh due to availibility
This receipt was sooooo easy! Thank you for sharing. I had everything in the kitchen already except ginger, the only thing I had to buy. I precut the chicken the night before to cut down time. Being a mom who works full time and has two kids under 5; I don’t have a lot of time. My kids and husband loved it. This cooked faster than the rice, we ended up sitting around until the rice was done cooking :p Definately will be making this again!
Made this last night for my family and parents–they all asked me where I bought it from! They loved it so much, they asked me to send them the recipe. Am a follower of yours from now on :)
Loved it! I didn’t follow the recipe exactly, I always double the sauce because I know myself and that’s my favorite part, and instead of serving it over rice I served it over broccoli (steamed in salt and pepper water and added the sesame sauce to it too) and I it’s a really simple delicious meal.