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
Loved this! I love seasame chicken but it’s so expensive to order and I haven’t found a good homemade recipe. This was perfect. Not quite as sweet as most takeout places, but still really good, and pretty easy. Definitely will make again
Added in some broccoli to make myself feel like I was eating healthy and bam this dish is amazing! Really good, easy weeknight meal!
My husband and I loved it! We gave it five stars! Thanks for the recipe! :)
I don’t know what happened with mine, but mine literally stunk up the kitchen and turned inedible and disgusting! Maybe something was off with the eggs? Or with the chicken? Or doubling the recipe? I don’t know. We had to throw the whole thing out and are trying to figure out what to eat for dinner :(
Made this tonight and it turned out great, and the family loved it. My only problem is the corn starch/egg batter didn’t stick to the chicken very well and ended up only covering the first side that was cooked.
I’ll definitely be making this again.
This. Is. The. Best. Ever.
So delicious. Amazing.
i just made the cheapest lazy version of this ever. i made the sauce in the microwave, used long grain rice, and deep fried some of a 5 pound for 6 dollars frozen breaded chicken breast from a local special. it was basically a $2 dish before i added bell pepper and broccoli. mine ended up too salty from all the soy sauce. i didn’t get the sauce thick enough on the first try, and added more corn starch slurry, which made it too thick. Beth totally inspires me to experiment, and it’s a ton of fun.
I love it when people experiment, too! :)
If you are concerned about cornstarch seizing up in cooking or with its dull finish, you might wish to try the use of arrowroot. It’s a tad more expensive ($6.29 for 3/4 cup at Penzeys) but gives a crystal-clear finish primarily used in fruit pies but still great for general use.
Hey Beth, do you think this recipe would still be good with chicken breasts, or too tough? I literally have all these ingredients and frozen chicken breasts on hand always, so wondering if it might work. I also LOVE your tofu version of this. Thanks!
this is budget bytes. thighs are cheap and work best, but of course breasts would work. this recipe would be good even with cubed spam. breast just cooks faster. maybe just experiment with one breast without all the sauce and stuff, and then roll it in a tortilla with lettuce and tomato and salad dressing to test it.
I made it with breasts because they were on sale and it worked out great.
Hey Beth, do you think this recipe would still be good with chicken breasts, or too touch? I literally have all these ingredients and frozen chicken breasts on hand always, so wondering if it might work. I also LOVE your tofu version of this. Thanks!
Tried the old recipe twice and this one once. I’ve come to accept that there really isn’t any way to keep the batter from falling off the chicken, even with ridiculously high heat, so I just end up with eggy lumps among my cooked chicken. Shelving this one, sorry.
Do you have a vegetable recipe on your blog that would go with us
I wish I had pais attention to your links at the top. The Asian slaw looks great. Next time. Getting ready to cook the chicken now!
This was really good. I subbed Bragg’s Liquid Aminos for the soy sauce and I couldn’t tell the difference. Even my 20 month old liked the chicken and that’s saying something. I will definitely make this again.
Is there a reason my sauce comes out lighter in color, compared to what you have?
I’ve had a couple people mention this and the only thing I can think is that perhaps the brand of soy sauce you’re using is not as dark as the one I use. I’ve been using the 365 brand (it’s inexpensive and really good!).
walmart has some wonderful pearl river bridge soy sauce for extra cheap too. it’s very dark and thick.
Where’s the spice? I thought Sesame Chicken was a Hunan dish when I first tasted it in the late 1980s. It included lots of chili peppers, wasn’t particularly sweet, and took the top of my head with spice–I loved it. Everything I see online now declares it an American invention and variation of General Tso’s Chicken which only dates back to about 1972 0r 3, and which was also a spicy dish. Five years later, the Hunanese restaurant where I first ate sesame chicken had removed the chilis saying that customers wanted a toned down version. Thanks for this recipe which tones down the sugar to a level more like my memory of the original–which wasn’t gluey with cornstarch, either. This is a nice recipe–to get real heat under a wok, a gas flame works best. With only a Jenn-Aire in my kitchen, I often use the wok on my gas grill, directly seated on the lava stones. PS–I added chilis
Just like language, food and recipes morph and change with changing culture. :) If you do want to make this spicy, though, you could always add a pinch or two of red pepper flakes to the sauce.
Try adding 1/2tsp chili oil. This is an excellent recipe especially after being updated. If you have some culinary experience you can change things up. Add more garlic, use roasted garlic, use a different spice/egg coating, toast the sesame seeds in the oil. I made something I call a chinese takeout bomb that has three or four different takeout recipes (sesame chicken, chicken lo mein, stir fry and a sweet shrimp pad thai if I’m feeling really hungry. I cooked small batches up of each recipe and stuffed it inside an omelet with a chicken fried rice risotto that’s been reduced in a thai sweet chili sauce and drizzled it with a coconut crab sauce on top. When I’m hungry for takeout I make it and it cures my cravings for several months. Recipes are like a canvas with a background and the chef’s little touches. You add the “happy trees” or your own twist. Thanks for the great recipe.