Low Fat Baked General Tso's Chicken
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General Tso's Chicken is a favourite Chinese take out dish that you can make even better at home & with less fat than the deep fried version. One of our TOP TEN recipes ever.
Originally published March 31, 2009.
A favourite Chinese take out dish that you can make even better at home and with less fat than the deep fried version. This recipe has received many great reviews from readers who have tried it.
The real secret to this General Tso's Chicken sauce is getting the caramel base correct, once you master that the rest is a breeze. I have had many readers tell me over the years that this recipe is better than any restaurant version they've ever tried.
Making the sauce for General Tso Chicken
Here's a short video which shows what the caramel should look like before you add the rest of the ingredients.
You can see why it is so important to do this with care. The caramel is so very hot and the addition of the other ingredients causes a big release of steam. This all calms down rather quickly but take care not to cause a burn.
April 2020 Update to include a new print page and demonstration video.
If you liked this recipe you may also like to try our General Tso Chicken Wings.
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Low Fat Baked General Tso Chicken
Low Fat Baked General Tso Chicken - a favorite Chinese take out dish that you can make even better at home and with less fat than the deep fried version. This recipe has received many great reviews from readers who have tried it.
Ingredients
- 2 -3 pounds boneless chicken thighs or breasts, cut in strips
- 1 egg + 2 tablespoon water whisked together to make an egg wash
- 1 cup flour
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper cayenne pepper
- 3 tablespoon ground ginger
- 2 teaspoon salt
- 4 tablespoon soy sauce
- 4 tablespoon rice wine vinegar, white wine vinegar is fine in a pinch
- ¼ cup water water
- 2 tablespoon toasted sesame seed oil
- 2 tablespoon hot chilli paste or sauce, use more or less to taste if you don’t like it very hot
- ½ teaspoon salt salt
- 2 teaspoon corn starch
- 3 cloves minced garlic
- 3 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
- 1 cup sugar
- ¼ cup water
Instructions
- Combine the 1 cup flour, ½ teaspoon black pepper, ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper, 3 tablespoon ground ginger, 2 teaspoon salt.
- Dip the chicken pieces in the egg wash then dredge them in the flour mixture.
- Place on a lightly oiled baking sheet and lightly drizzle or the tops with a little more olive oil.
- Bake at 375 degrees F for about 25-3o minutes. Flip the pieces at half way through the cooking time.
- While the chicken is baking, prepare your sauce. Don’t walk away from this sauce; it gets very hot when making the caramel base and can burn easily so pay careful attention while cooking it.
- In a small bowl, mix together the 4 tablespoon soya sauce, 4 tablespoon rice wine vinegar, ¼ cup water, 2 tablespoon toasted sesame seed oil, 2 tablespoon hot chilli paste or sauce, ½ teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoon corn starch, 3 cloves minced garlic and 3 tablespoon freshly grated ginger. Set this mixture aside.
- In a medium saucepan boil together the 1 cup of sugar and ¼ cup of water.
- Boil this over medium heat, watching constantly until the caramel starts to turn a light amber color and you can begin to smell the caramel. When it reaches this stage, give the other ingredients in the bowl a quick stir to make sure the corn starch is dissolved then add it all at once to the hot caramel. (Careful: This mixture is very hot!)
- Be careful at this stage because this sauce can foam up considerably for a few seconds and it is very hot. Simmer for only few minutes and remove from the heat and allow to cool down slightly.
- Toss the sauce with the cooked chicken pieces and serve over plain steamed rice or Chinese noodles.
Notes
-
The nutritional information provided is automatically calculated by third party software and is meant as a guideline only. Exact accuracy is not guaranteed. For recipes where all ingredients may not be used entirely, such as those with coatings on meats, or with sauces or dressings for example, calorie & nutritional values per serving will likely be somewhat lower than indicated.
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Rock Recipes a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Our product recommendations are almost exclusively for those we currently use or have used in the past.
Nutrition Information
Yield
6Serving Size
1 servingAmount Per Serving Calories 470Total Fat 11gSaturated Fat 2gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 7gCholesterol 130mgSodium 572mgCarbohydrates 42gFiber 1gSugar 34gProtein 49g
The nutritional information provided is automatically calculated by third party software and is meant as a guideline only. Exact accuracy is not guaranteed. For recipes where all ingredients may not be used entirely, such as those with coatings on meats, or with sauces or dressings for example, calorie & nutritional values per serving will likely be somewhat lower than indicated.
Yum, made this and we loved it! I personally could have used more ginger and garlic but that's just my personal taste.
is there anything I can use as a substitute for the rice wine vinegar? I have regular white vinegar, red wine vinegar, lemon juice, white wine, or chicken broth.
I'd substitute the white vinegar
or red wine vinegar.
This is delish! I made it as written but added broccoli (definitely recommend doing this). I had some trouble getting the sauce to thicken - even after some more cornstarch and water to thicken it. but either way its SOOOO good!
I made this foes dinner one night this week and it was fantastic!!!!! Thanks for sharing this recipe.
I used half the sugar and water called for in the caramel step and it was still great.
This chicken looks awesome. I love the General Tso from the Chinese restaurant down the street but find it to be too greasy. A baked version would be much healthier:)
I made this last weekend and my family loved it. My husband liked it so much he went to work talking about it and they all want the recipe. Thanks!
Ok, this looks amazing and I want to try it, but I have a clarification. I know I'm going to sound stupid, but does it truly call for "soya" sauce or is it really soy sauce with a typo? I'm new to Asian ingredients, so I didn't know. Thanks!
~Marysue
it is indeed soy sauce.
This was very good! I added bell peppers to mine. Next time I am going to nix the ginger and use a different oil in the hope that I can make it taste more like my favorite restaurant's.
This recipe was so easy and tasted awesome. Pan fried some prawns and tossed with this sauce. This is a keeper.Rock Recipes, rock.
Hi any suggestions what to use in place of chili paste? I have all the ingredients except the chili paste... They never had it at the grocery store I went to and I never had time to go to another one!! Really want to cook this tonight!! Looks YUM YUM!!
Chili flakes will do. Just use less.
Thanks for this recipe. I made it tonight and it was fantastic.
I used 500gms of chicken thigh fillets and substituted the cayenne pepper for paprika as I didn't have any cayenne. I then halved the rest of the ingredients. I made it serve 4 and it came in at 366 cals.
I served it over sautéed onion, garlic and cabbage and it was a nice decent serve.
Very enjoyable!