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
I made this recipe for myself and a friend the other night and it came out perfectly. I loved the egg-ness of the batter and while my sauce was not as dark or as thick as i would have liked, the flavor was awesome. After the chicken was cooked I threw in some thawed frozen broccoli, which worked really well. I added a little soy sauce to my bowl and of course a few dashes of sriracha! I will definitely be making this again!
Thank you for this superb recipe. I’ve cooked it three times and my family and I love it.
The pictures do look very different from the real thing. The pictures look like regular, crunchy sesame chicken, but in reality it’s just grilled chicken on top of a fried egg. Definately just go for takeout. Or a different recipe.
Hey Beth, I just made these tonight for the first time. They turned out DELICIOUS. Better than any Chinese restaurant any day. They also looked just like yours, so I’m not sure what the others are having issues with. Everything I’ve had from your site has been delicious. Thanks for the recipes!
This is unrelated to the recipe – which, I think I said somewhere above, is one of my favorites of all time – but, Beth, I love whatever program it is you use to put your recipes in a printable format. With a lot of other websites I used to use, I had to copy and paste into a word doc to get everything print-friendly (even when using their “print-friendly” version), but yours is a dream. Just another reason that basically your site is the only recipe source I use anymore! Thanks for what you do!
Great! It’s a plugin called Easy Recipe Plus that a lot of other blogs use as well. I’m so glad I found it! :D
Oh my, this recipe is the bomb! Never again will I subject myself to buying sesame chicken from a restaurant when I can easily make it myself. I love this website!
I’ve made this twice in the last week. I can’t get enough!
Dude. I don’t even like chicken that much, but this is excellent. We doubled the batter and sauce AND used coconut oil, which was so delicious. Too bad frying food is such a pain — my smoke detector is too sensitive. Thanks for the recipe!
Just made this dish and it is gooood! I made it in 3 batches: 1. Using just egg whites for the chicken coating ( because of past reviews) 2. Exactly as the recipe states. 3. With cooked leftover chicken. I like it exactly as the recipe states (except for tripling the sauce) Not sure why people had a problem with the egg mixture. As long as your oil is hot enough it’s fine. FYI my leftover chicken breast that was already cooked, worked almost as well as raw, although I added a bit more oil when cooking.
…oh i forgot to mention, I made you Bok Choy recipe as a side dish…
Three for three!!
I made this recipe last saturday night for company. I doubled the chicken (used breasts), and doubled the batter and sauce (and tripled the rice amount). I cooked the chicken in a large skillet in two batches.
It was sooo delish and a huge hit!! Even after we ate seconds (and in some cases thirds) I had enough left for two lunches the next day.
The next day my guests contacted me for the recipe, they liked it so much.
Two for two so far, way to go Budget Bytes!!
I was wondering if there was way to alter just a bit to get orange sesame chicken? Any thoughts or suggestions?
Thanks!
I’ve been brainstorming on how to make orange chicken… I don’t think it’s a quick fix, so I’m going to have to do some experiments. :)
I made some orange chicken and broccoli from scratch on the fly once, and like a nincompoop, I didn’t write down what I did, so I’ve never been able to recreate it again. I definitely did reduce a cup of orange juice which was most of the orange flavor, although I don’t remember how much I let it reduce. So maybe an OJ reduction (1 cup to 1/4 cup), or using frozen OJ concentrate?
I tried using OJ concentrate once and it was just gross, but I’m thinking that maybe I got the ratio of some of the other ingredients wrong. I definitely need to try again! :)
Reporting back on Operation Orange Chicken. I made the sessame chicken tonight, along with the double sauce others have recommended. Changes to the Sesame Chicken recipe were I omitted the sesame seeds, then zested an orange into the sauce and substituted the water for the same amount of fresh squeezed OJ. These were the only changes I made. The orange flavor came through pretty well, although I feel like it still needs a little something.
Made this tonight for my family of 5 (including two big eaters) and it was a hit. I doubled the chicken/egg/cornstarch and tripled the sauce, and it worked out about right. After reading some of the comments, I made sure my pan was good and hot before putting the chicken in, and I cooked the chicken in 3 batches to give it plenty of room to spread out so it would fry and not steam. Used more garlic, ginger, and green onion but otherwise stuck with the recipe as written. The hardest part was trimming the thighs and cutting them into pieces. The thighs I used seem to have lots of gristly and fatty bits that I knew my kids would object to if I didn’t trim them. Even so, it’s a winner of a recipe and I’ll definitely file it away for future use!
I think the flavor is good, but there’s too much cornstarch! This prevents any sauce from forming. I like a little sauce at the least.
I tried this last night and while it tasted great, I didn’t get it to be as brown or crispy as the picture showed. I am pretty sure I followed the recipe exactly, but is there something I could have done incorrectly?