I love Chinese take out as much as the next person. But sometimes, I just can’t handle all the MSG and sodium.
I have been making a chicken recipe from cooking light for many, many years. I have even used the recipe in my Personal Chef menus for my clients and it was always a favorite. I will link to it later to make sure I give credit where credit is due.
Over time, the recipe evolved and changed as many of my recipes do. The original recipe called for using raspberries preserves. Not being a huge fan of raspberries in my food, I substituted apricot preserves.
When my daughter comes home for her breaks from school, she always requests some sort of chicken cutlet recipe for dinner. This time for Spring break was no different. I asked her, “well how about Fruity Balsamic Chicken” and we were off to the races.
The original recipe does not call for a dredge but for some reason this time I did and on top of it made a mistake and used bread flour. Because of the high gluten content in the flour, it gave the chicken a thicker coating. After we ate dinner, I kept saying to myself that it reminded me of Sesame chicken. So I made a mental note of tweaking the recipe yet again with some additional ingredients to serve over rice and steamed broccoli and viola! here we are. My own version of Sesame Chicken, which I’m very proud of (me taking a bow)
I do apologize for the quality of the picture. I will make sure better pictures are used in the future. But I was so excited to post about this recipe I had to use my phone, which was running out of charge.
Oh, by the way, you can click here for the original recipe from Cooking Light. This recipe is the start of it all.
Just as a reminder, get all your ingredients and measure everything out before starting to cook. It will come together so much quicker.
Sesame Chicken
Ingredients
- 3 lbs Chicken thighs or Breast Boneless - Skinnless
- 3 Tbls Bread flour or rice flour Rounded spoonful and All purposed flour would work too
- 3 Tbls House seasoning ***see my recipe for house seasoning
- 1 large Shallot diced small
- 1 Tbls garlic Chopped
- 3 Tbls Fresh Ginger Chopped
- 1 tsp Fresh Thyme
- 1/4 cup White Wine
- 1 cup Apricot Preserves
- 4 Tbls Balsamic Vinegar
- 1 cup Chicken Stock
- 1/4 cup Low Sodium Soy Sauce
- Salt and Pepper To Taste ( you may not need to add because of the Soy Sauce)
- 1/4 cup Vegetable Oil any neutral oil will work
- 2 Tbls Sesame Seeds
- 1/2 cup Green Onions/Scallions Sliced thin
- 1/2 cup Cilantro Chopped large
Instructions
- Slice the chicken thighs into bite size pieces and put in a bowl. Sprinkle with house seasoning, salt and pepper. Mix the chicken to make sure it is coated with the seasoning. Once coated, sprinkle with flour and mix again to make sure all the pieces are coated well.
- Heat the oil in skillet on medium high heat. Brown the chicken in batches, by adding the chicken to the pan in one layer. Once the chicken has been browned remove from pan to a bowl and set aside. Repeat with next batch until all the chicken has been browned. Set aside all chicken to begin the sauce.
- Drain off all but 1 tablespoon of oil and heat.
- Add the chopped shallots and cook until translucent. Add in the thyme, ginger and garlic and cook for 1 minute.
- Pour in white wine to deglaze the pan. Add in the preserves and stir until melted. Add in the balsamic vinegar and soy sauce. Heat through for 1-2 minutes
- Add in enough chicken stock to thin out slightly. Reserve any remaining chicken stock in case you want to thin our the sauce even more.
- Add chicken and any accumulated juices back to the pan. Simmer chicken until cooked through and the sauce has thickened.
- Serve over white/Brown rice with steamed veggies. Top with a sprinkle of Sesame Seeds, Green onion and cilantro.