Healthy Orange Chicken (Easy Stir-Fry Recipe) - Kirbie's Cravings (2024)

FAQs

What is the difference between orange chicken and tangerine chicken? ›

Tangerine is used in traditional Chinese medicine as well as cooking. Tangerine chicken tastes fresh and spicy, but orange chicken tastes sweet and sour. Orange chicken is crispy cooked in a sweet and little spicy orange sauce. The sweetness of orange chicken was introduced to cater to American tastes.

In Chinese, this dish is known as "橙花雞", literally "(Fresh) Orange peel chicken". The dish also has a variation known as "陳皮雞", literally "Dried Citrus peel chicken", referring to dried orange or tangerine peel , which is used in traditional Chinese medicine as well as cooking.

While the orange chicken is one of the most famous Chinese dishes in America, it is a purely American invention, with no authentic Chinese resturants or restaurants in China serving this dish.

The chicken itself is also different, as orange chicken is made with dark meat chicken ( chicken thighs) and sweet and sour chicken is made with chicken breasts and fried in a batter that yields a puffy and airy crust.

Takeout orange chicken is not very healthy because it's loaded with sugar and deep-fried as well. But this homemade version is a healthier alternative made from whole food ingredients with no added sugar and no deep frying involved. When you pair it with some veggies it is a healthy option!

Orange Chicken

Since then, this citric sweet and sour boneless chicken dish usually served with fried rice has become one of the most iconic and popular Chinese American preparations, which can instead be categorized just as an American preparation.

The chicken in many orange chicken recipes is usually battered and fried before adding the sauce. So you end up having a dish that is high in calories, fat, and sugar. It gets worse when you insist on eating it with sauce drippings and rice, which itself is highly caloric as well.

Choosing by taste:

General Tso if you like a bit of spice. Orange chicken if you want something a bit sweeter.

How to make the orange chicken sauce. The orange sauce is made from a mixture of the orange juice and zest, sugar, soy sauce, garlic, ginger and rice vinegar. This is bubbled up in the wok until slightly thickened. The chicken is then added back in, and tossed in the sauce until fully coated.

Executive chef Andy Kao invented orange chicken in Hawaii in 1987, having ventured there to lend a hand in opening the state's first Panda Express.

Does American Chinese food exist in China? ›

Although Chinese people will regard American Chinese food as inauthentic food and less likely to have it, or they will not recognize American Chinese cuisine, in recent years, some American Chinese food restaurants have opened in some cities of China, such as Beijing and Shanghai.

Although crab Rangoon can be found in almost all the Chinese restaurant in the United States, again, this dish has nothing to do with Chinese food.

The discrepancy is likely due to the fact that while sweet and sour chicken aptly contains slightly more sugar than General Tso's, the latter contains way more protein, so despite being a bit more calorically dense, it's actually the healthier choice.

By the fall of 2022, Panda Express fans had something new to clamor about at all of its 2,300 locations with the national launch of Beyond the Original Orange Orange Chicken (BTOOC), a plant-based take on its most popular dish made together with vegan company Beyond Meat.

Tangerine chicken originated in the Hunan Province and its Chinese name literally translates to “dried citrus peel chicken.” It had a more fresh and spicy flavor than the orange chicken, which evolved in later days.

Sesame Chicken, General Tso, and Orange Chicken look quite similar and share some common ingredients, which can make it difficult for some to choose between them. Chicken: Each dish uses chunks of boneless chicken meat (usually thigh).

Although they're both made with an orange-based sauce, mandarin chicken and orange chicken are different dishes. Mandarin chicken is typically sweeter because it uses more dark brown sugar than orange chicken. The sauce for mandarin chicken also tends to be thicker and much stickier.

Panda Express' orange chicken is made with dark meat chicken

And when prepared correctly, a boneless, skinless chicken breast can be a thing of beauty. But dark meat has its benefits, too, and Panda Express realizes this. Perhaps that's why dark meat chicken is the star of their orange chicken.