Firecracker Chicken
The most amazing combination of sweet and spicy flavors that tastes a million times better than take-out!
I’ve been seeing this “firecracker chicken” all over Pinterest, and you know how much I love recreating take-out dishes, so I just had to give this a try. I honestly wasn’t expecting much since I’m not the biggest fan of buffalo sauce but boy, was I wrong.
This firecracker chicken has the most amazing combination of and sweet and spicy flavors, with a hint of tanginess and zing from the buffalo sauce. And if you’re not the biggest fan of heat, you can certainly add more sugar to balance it out.
And it’s so easy to whip up! The method is just like my baked sweet and sour chicken – a quick cook in hot oil and then into the oven for about 45 minutes to let all those amazing flavors soak right in. You can serve it over rice or even some quinoa. Either way, this will be in constant rotation at our house because there’s no way that take-out can beat this!
Firecracker Chicken
Ingredients
- 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch chunks
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- ½ cup cornstarch
- 2 large eggs, beaten
- ¼ cup vegetable oil
For the sauce
- ¾ cup Imperial Sugar Light Brown Sugar
- ⅓ cup buffalo sauce, or more, to taste
- 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes, or more, to taste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Lightly oil a 9×13 baking dish or coat with nonstick spray.
- To make the sauce, whisk together sugar, buffalo sauce, vinegar, salt, red pepper flakes and 1 tablespoon water in a large bowl; set aside.
- In a large bowl, season chicken with salt and pepper, to taste. Stir in cornstarch and gently toss to combine. Working one at a time, dip the chicken into the eggs.
- Heat vegetable oil in a large saucepan. Add chicken and cook until golden brown, about 1-2 minutes. Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate; discard excess oil.
- Add chicken to prepared baking dish. Top with buffalo sauce mixture. Place into oven and bake until the sauce has thickened, about 45 minutes, turning over every 15 minutes to evenly coat the chicken.
- Serve immediately.
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Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Imperial Sugar. All opinions expressed are my own.
I make this at least once a month. Everyone in the house loves this recipe. I’m no fan of frying, mostly because of all the mess I make (something for me to work on lol), but I suck it up because this is just so good. This dish and your red beans and rice led to buying your cookbook – my favorite Christmas present to myself. Thanks, thanks, thanks a thousand times over, Chungah!
Love love love this recipe! I have made it twice and will definitely be making it lots more. So much flavour! I used a homemade buffalo sauce and followed the recipe, no changes. Thanks!!
This is my absolute favorite chicken recipe. It has the perfect blend of sweet and spicy and the chicken is so moist. It comes out perfect every time I make it.
I was a little leery about this cooking method but after reading all of the great reviews, I gave it a go and I’m so glad I did! What an interesting way to make this dish and one I’ll be making over and over! The frying piece was simple, the sauce was quick to put together and baking it for 45 minutes in the oven gave me time to make the rice, chop up and quick saute some onions and bell pepper AND clean the kitchen.
This was a little on the sweet side for me, but I only had dark brown sugar so maybe that’s why? I’ll cut down a little on the sugar next time but other than that, this is a KEEPER. Thank you!!
Can I use a deep fryer for the chicken instead of oil in a pan?
I’m one of the last to have tried buffalo sauce on anything, and when I sampled some from my first bottle, I was really put off. But after combining it with brown sugar and vinegar and then making this recipe, I was sold. This was pure excellence! I made it exactly as written with the exception of making 1.5 times the amount of sauce per a helpful commenter. That was just the right amount, too. I’ll be making this one over and over again. Thanks again, Chungah & team!
My husband said he would eat this every day! It was a hit. I used an air fryer to fry up my chicken and then placed them in the oven with the sauce. I also tried the tip of another user and used half Siracha sauce.
Love this recipe – everyone’s always looking for seconds. I am wondering if it’s possible to make it stove top only – like a stir fry recipe? Any suggestions?
I made this but in my wok. Doubles the sauce recipe and put over brown rice. It’s one of my favorites. Spicy but delicious.
Really tasty, just the right amount of spicyness to it. Thank you
Excuse me is it okay to add regular brown or light sugar?
Just finished having this for dinner. It’s damn delicious!
My kids love this meal. It’s thier number one request. I altered a bit by using Siracha in place of the Buffalo suace. This adds some heat!!
Tried this for the first time and it is simply amazing. Now one of our firm favourites. Will be cooking this for our Christmas Eve buffet.
By far our favorite!! Always looking to try something new and this beats the restaurants !!
I made this for dinner last night and it was amazing! I have been craving Chinese food and this hit the spot! I have also used Damn Delicious recipe’s for sweet and sour chicken and orange chicken in the past. You seriously can not go wrong using any of her recipes! Everything turns out perfect and is always damn delicious!
My suggestion to anybody making this, is start it at least 2 hours before you want to have dinner. Frying the chicken took me about an hour, I think it would have been less time if I used a larger sauce pan though.
Thank you!!
I love the flavor. I just fried some chicken tenderloin in olive oil then put it in the sauce and let boil for a few minutes served over rice and some green onions as an experiment. Definitely would eat again!
We really enjoy this recipe. We have had it several times and always love it. But I have recently discovered an allergy to eggs. Does anyone know of a way to adjust this so it is egg free? Perhaps I could just omit them, but if there is another good replacement, I’m open to that! Thanks for any help you can give.
Quite delicious!
Made for the first time. It was amazing.
My hubs and I LOVE this recipe!!! It’s so so good – a great balance of sweet and spicy. We usually make it at least once a week!!! Thank you!
This recipe was amazing, and when I saw the looks on my families faces after I made this delicious treat it just lit up my day. Thank you for this recipe, and this was actually my first ever dinner that I made for my family. It takes a long time to make but boy was it worth it. It had the perfect contrast between sweet and spicy. I only for twenty minutes though because we were on a tight schedule. I’m not sure if it would have turned out better if I baked it for longer but it seemed perfect at twenty minutes to me.