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.
The sauce can definitely be tricky, but last time we made this, we made extra sauce and put it in the fridge. Last week I diced up zucchini, summer squash, garlic and onions, stir fried them, then tossed them with the sauce. So delicious!! This sauce is my new addiction!
Does the recipe really call for 3tablespoons of ground ginger? That is almost a quarter cup to 1 cup of flour?
Yes, I like the warmth of the ginger but you can use less.
I made this for a lunch group of 20 today and EVERYONE liked it a lot. I served it over brown rice with a stir-fry of broccoli, red peppers and onions.
That's great to hear Janet. Not shy about cooking for a crowd are you!? Well done.
I made this again yesterday and substituted 5 spice powder for the ginger and it was also very good.
We made this last night & loved it. It's very similar to my favorite General Tso chicken at the local Chinese restaurant. I might even up it to 1/4 cup of grated ginger next time, we loved the ginger that much!
I made this today for the same group of 20 for Chinese New Year but used shrimp and served it over rice noodles with stir-fry veg YUM!!
I made this last nite and it was awesome. I swapped out the boneless chicken parts and used chicken wings. I have been looking for a new wing recipe and decided this sauce would be perfect. This is my new Chinese version of buffalo wings.
I did everything the same and it was OUTSTANDING! Thanks for sharing the recipe.
Great idea to make them with wings. I'm going to try that!
This recipe is amazing! An absolute hit with my family. It tasted like the best version of what I was hoping for (just like the picture and very tasty) - a BIG bonus when it's the first attempt at a new recipe.
Thank you for the easy-to-follow instructions and for having ingredients that I usually have in stock!
Will definitely make again and check out your other recipes and cook book 🙂
Looks absolutely delicious
Can I use Siracha in place of chili paste? And is it soya sauce or soy sauce? They sell both, and are 2 different types of sauces. I read the comments and you said it is soy sauce but wondering why it says soya sauce in the ingredients? Haha sorry just confused! And not sure which one to buy.
Sriracha will give a slightly different flavour but still good I think. It is regular soy sauce that I mean, the kind used all the time in Asian dishes. In Britain they sometimes use "soya" sauce to mean the same thing. Perhaps we are talking about 2 different things.
Delicious. Made this tonight and it was awesome. The only thing I'll be changing next time I make it is to reduce the amount of grated ginger, was to much for my liking, I think I'll reduce it to 1 tbsp and it will be perfect.
I make a recipe similar to this. So good!!
Really delicious!
Rockrecipes Rocks!
I made this for the family and it was delicious. Actually WAY better than the takeout that's all breading around a tiny piece of chicken. Plus, it's not loaded with grease. When making the sauce, I had a moment of panic. When I added the sauce to the caramel the cold sauce hit the caramel and turned into a rock! But the heat started to melt the rock quickly and all was well. However, next time I might warm up the sauce in the microwave prior to adding to the caramel. Like others, I steamed some broccoli and added sauce to the chicken and broccoli. This recipe is fantastic - you must try it!
This was absolutely delicious. I cooked my chicken in the air fryer and used Swerve sugar substitute to cut down on the sugar count. Omitted the ginger just because I didn't have it on-hand, I'm sure it would be even better with it but it was still delicious without. Served over white rice. Perfect!