Sesame Chicken Bowls
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Super saucy, crisp-tender sesame chicken! 1000x better than takeout, made in 30min or less. Serve with rice and broccoli. SO SO GOOD.
I have been making these sesame chicken bowls all week. Sometimes with lentils, sometimes with brown rice, sometimes with quinoa and brown rice – basically any kind of grain I can find/use up in my pantry.
Because at the end of the day, the saucy bits from the chicken can be served on top of anything and everything. It’s sweet, it’s tangy, it’s savory – it is everything you want it to be.
It’s so good – you can serve it up with all your favorite veggies because, well, veggies and greens are good for you. Just be sure to coat them in the leftover sauce and you won’t have any leftovers (even among your picky eaters).
Sesame Chicken Bowls
Ingredients
- 1 cup basmati rice
- 12 ounces broccoli florets, about 2-3 cups
- ½ cup chicken stock
- ¼ cup orange marmalade
- ¼ cup freshly squeezed orange juice
- 2 ½ tablespoons reduced sodium soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 teaspoon Sriracha, optional
- 4 ½ tablespoons corn starch, divided
- 1 ½ pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into bite-size pieces
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 3 tablespoons canola oil
- 2 teaspoons toasted sesame seeds
- 1 green onion, thinly sliced
Instructions
- In a large saucepan of 1 1/2 cups water, cook rice according to package instructions; set aside.
- Place broccoli florets into a steamer or colander set over a pan of boiling water. Cover and steam for 5 mins, or until cooked through and vibrant green; set aside.
- In a small bowl, whisk together chicken stock, orange marmalade, orange juice, soy sauce, vinegar, ginger, garlic, Sriracha, if using, and 1 tablespoon cornstarch.
- Season chicken with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper; sprinkle with remaining 3 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch until evenly coated.
- Heat canola oil in a large cast iron skillet over medium high heat. Working in two batches, add chicken and cook until golden brown, about 6-8 minutes. Stir in chicken stock mixture until thickened, about 2-3 minutes. Stir in sesame seeds.
- Serve chicken immediately with rice and broccoli, garnished with green onion, if desired.
Did you make this recipe?
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This recipe was delicious! I followed the recipe exactly with the exception of using a regular pan instead of a cast iron skillet. The sauce was perfect and the chicken was so tender. Even my picky eater loved this recipe!
This took me way longer to cook than 30 minutes. It was also my first time making it. Still needed an hour to prep and cook everything. First, I am unsure about one cup of rice being enough for four servings. It got me two. I’d also add more broccoli in, because we love it and I also love leftovers. Sadly, there was no leftover rice or broccoli when I cooked it for two people. I liked the chicken – I know everyone said it taste like orange chicken, which it does, but the flavor was good and the orange wasn’t overwhelming. I will try adding the Sriracha next time for a little kick! I’d make some salt adjustments (less) next time I make this dish. I also like that it wasn’t heavy. Another great recipe! Thank you for sharing.
The flavor is SO good. Even my picky 3 year old loves this. Like other reviewers, I do think it tastes more like orange chicken than sesame chicken.
One thing I do on weeknights to speed this up is cook the thighs whole because it takes forever to cut them up and cook in two batches. Instead I salt and cornstarch the whole thighs, brown them, and then cut them up and add to the sauce. Cooked chicken is much easier to quickly cut up than raw chicken.
This recipe was a total winner in my house! The sauce’s sticky texture was perfect. Will definitely make it again since I now have a jar of orange marmalade to use up 🙂
I have made SO MANY recipes from Damn Delicious and usually love all of them… although this one, I wasn’t feeling the orange marmalade at ALL. I agree with other reviews that this is definitely more of an orange chicken, but I think if the OJ and marmalade were omitted, it would be bomb.
can you cook this chicken in an air fryer?
This was a hit and will be on rotation at our house!
Needed brown sugar to offset soy sauce. Marmalade wasn’t enough. Otherwise, good and easy to make.
The orange juice and marmalade REALLY made this dish. Sure, my 4-year-old dumped most of the marmalade on our freshly resurfaced floors, but I’m already ready to make this recipe again.
Thinking this would make an easy camping meal if I prep a bit in advance. Could I mix the sauce the in advance and put in a mason jar so I don’t have to take all the ingrediengs? I’d add the cornstarch when ready to cook it up.
Thanks!
I enjoyed this. It tastes more like orange chicken than the sesame chicken served at my local places, but it was really good and came together quickly once I had the chicken cut up.
Super easy and quick. I doubled the sauce and used 2# of chicken tenders instead of thighs. Also doubled the rice so that we could all have leftovers. It was perfect. More like Orange Chicken – terrific meal for a busy Monday night.
Wow! This dish was super easy and so wonderful! The chicken cooks great in the mixture and it has such a good, but light flavor. Will add to our dinner rotation!
Like another reviewer, I would definitely say this is more orange chicken than sesame chicken. I did use homemade marmalade so maybe it was more orangey/less sweet than it was supposed to be.
This dish has a nice balance of sweetness, saltiness, and heat. Very tasty. Will be making it again. Thanks for sharing.
I just made this for dinner…and not a single morsel of food remained at the end! Everyone loved it. And it was so easy (once I got everything prepped). Even my picky niece said, “You have to make this again!” Thank you thank you thank you!!!! I look forward to discovering the next recipe from here.
Would this still work without the marmalade or is there a good substitute you could suggest?
Absolutely the best sesame chicken! Tastes exactly like something from a restaurant! The chicken was so tender, and the sauce thickens up nicely. Followed the recipe exactly.
Can shrimp be used as well? I haven’t made this yet but I’m looking forward to it.
Looks delicious! What are the nutritional numbers? My husband and I follow a 20% fat and 60% card so the numbers are important to us! Thanks!
Sounds like something you could easily calculate yourself with some googling, Jane.
I messed up! I put ALL the cornstarch with the liquids! Ughhh… lol I hope it’s not too thick!
Outstanding as always! XO
So easy and extra tasty. Definitely a repeat.
So delicious and my whole family approved. It will stay in the dinner rotation
Easy family enjoyed it a lot. Thanks
I think my kids would eat this every week if I would make it that often.
This recipe NEVER FAILS to please. It’s easy and the flavors are very well balanced. We swapped the thighs for breasts with no loss in flavor! We make this at least once a month, along with many of your other recipes.
Trying this tonight with shrimp
This is so good! I use about half of the sriracha it calls for and roast the broccoli (our broccoli prefrence). We all love it and my seven year old even asked me to add it to his favorite dinners list!
Was really good and the recipe was super straight forward and easy. My only thought is that this is more like orange chicken then sesame chicken.
Easy and delicious. Damn Delicious is my go to recipe website.
Delicious!
“Damn Delicious” is spot on! I forst found you a few years back with a chicken taco recipe!. That is in regular rotation in this house as well.as several others! My son and I cook together and he and I are always looking for good stir fry recipes. This one is the best by far that we have ever had!! We will definitely be making this again!
Love this! Super easy to make, minimal ingredients and you can tweak it to your liking. I used crushed red pepper flakes instead of siracha sauce. Didn’t have broccoli so I roasted some baby carrots. Served it with jasmine rice. Deeee-lish! My 7 year old is super picky and he had 2nds of this I could hear him taking bites and saying how good it was :).
This was delicious!! Hubby hasn’t raved like that in quite some time! One note: the garlic is in the ingredients list, but not the directions. I used chicken breaststroke and they were still juicy!
Loved this! I agree with one poster on the sauce. I would double it up next time as my family enjoyed it so much!
I’ve made this at least ten times. We love it. It’s our go to when we’re in the mood for take out but don’t want to order it. Very consistent and I’ve never gone wrong just following the directions. I’ve made tons of recipes from this site and the cookbook over the years and they’re all dope. YUM!
I’m having trouble finding Rice Wine Vinegar. I find all kinds of Rice Vinegar, but not Rice Wine Vinegar. I read online that they are different and have two different flavors. Can anyone who’s made this tell me what you used?
I used Mirin, which I think is rice wine vinegar. I agree though, it’s a little confusing because I almost used rice vinegar too. Flavor was good.
Angelique, that does help a lot! At the time I wrote the original post the ONLY rice vinegar I could find was online, and there were only like 2 or 3 brands I could find, with totally varying prices, so it was hard to determine what made one better than the other. So after reading your reply, I went to one of the most health driven stores that I know of here in San Francisco (Rainbow Grocery), and I asked and no one had any idea either. Just like every other store, they had Rice Wine (in one section) and Rice Vinegar (in another), but neither said Rice Wine Vinegar. Your response came in VERY handy because as I was leaving Rainbow, I noticed (in the vinegar section) the only one brand of Mirin they carried (which they were almost all sold out of – I grabbed the last bottle) which EXPLICITLY says, Rice Wine Vinegar. I was ecstatic! I haven’t made the dish yet, but I plan to probably this weekend. I will reply or update with my experience afterwards.
So after making this, just as someone else posted below, my sauce wasn’t as dark as in the picture. My sauce ended up being kind of a light brown. All in all, it’s a good recipe that my son (who’s a very picky eater) actually enjoyed. The ONLY thing I didn’t measure out was my chicken. Rather than measuring how much chicken, I simply used 1 large breast and 1 small breast. (I wanted a leaner meat than the thighs), but I estimated the weight to be about 1-1/2 lbs, if not, it was a little shy on the weight. But because I didn’t weigh it, I question the viscosity of the sauce itself. When I added the sauce to the chicken, it thickened up so much that there was hardly any sauce to use on the broccoli. So at that point, I added more chicken stock, which only helped a little. Next time, I’ll be making twice as much sauce for the chicken and I’ll just add it to the chicken accordingly. Like I said though, this is a great dish! Already planning to make more in a couple of days.
Great dish but needs more sauce. I will double next time. To make any sauce darker, I use kitchen bouquet. It’s a GF product.
Rice vinegar and rice wine vinegar are the same thing. Mirin is rice wine, not fermented to become vinegar.
This was super tasty, my parents and I really enjoyed it!
Loved this meal.
This was great. Husband loved it. My sauce did not look as dark as yours in the picture, unsure why. Still very good. Thanks
Hello, This recipe sounds delicious. Could I use chicken breasts instead of thighs ? Would the flavor be affected?
Thank You
on occasion, if I don’t have thighs, I use breasts and usually the flavor is just as good.
I never leave reviews, but this satisfied an extremely picky eater in my household, so I am thrilled! She said it was almost like take-out, but totally worth not being deep fried. Very easy to make, although it did take me almost an hour from start to finish, but I also doubled the recipe. Thank you so much!! Will definitely be trying other dishes from your site.
Delicious & kid approved! It was a little too salty for us, so I’ll reduce the soy sauce in the future.
So yummy!!! My husband and I made this tonight and it is so good!! Easy and very tasty, total win!
This was amazing!!! My family, including picky kids, loved it! Licking the pan good. Very quick to make too.
Can this be made without the Rice Wine Vinegar and still be delicious?! Or if it needs vinegar..would apple cider work the same?
This was an insanely good recipe. Followed everything to the tee except used chicken breast (1lb). Wow. Will definitely make again!!
This was one of the first recipes I made when the lockdown first started in March…I had forgotten about it until the other night when I made it again and so glad I did! It is a keeper! Fabulous flavors combine with the crunch of the veggies make this the perfect dinner. I served with brown rice. Love this recipe !!!
So incredibly good. I can’t believe I made something that tastes and looks like restaurant quality. Thanks for another great recipe!
Another winner❣️ I don’t understand the comments about it tasting too ‘orangey’. I threw in another tbsp. of orange marmalade at the end! YUM!
I love these recipes since I cook for my Mom who has Celiac, and a lot of them use all gluten-free ingredients. Thank you
My son is celiac, and I use these recipes a lot too. Definitely try the shrimp that noodles. So good!
We loved this. I followed the recipe exactly and did add the sriracha. I’m not a huge fan of orange, which is the predominant flavor, but I must admit that I DID devour the entire dish. It was crispy on the outside and tender on the inside…so good. And I liked the fact that you can prep everything in advance and then just cook it up quickly when you are ready. I cooked the broccoli during the last few minutes that the chicken was in the pan and then served everything piping hot the second it came off the stove. By the way, I found that the amount of food specified in the recipe was enough to feed myself, my husband, and my 16 year old…with no leftovers. Thank you again, Chungah, for another wonderful recipe!
This is fabulous. It hits all my buttons fast, fabulous and every smiles when I serve it. I have to make a double batch because we all want left overs for lunch.
This turned out great! I added a splash of toasted sesame oil. My family loved it. Will make again.
This recipe is amazing!
This was damn delicious. Followed recipe exactly using the sriracha. No changes necessary. Call it sesame chicken or orange chicken, who cares!! It was DAMN DELICIOUS!!
This was delicious! Definitely adding it into my rotation of meals and absolutely not too spicy for my family.
So good! Not orange-y flavored at all. This was quick to put together and a hit with kids and hubby, and I added the Sriracha. I accidentally added all the corn starch to the chicken instead of dividing for the sauce and sauce still thickened up well after the 3 minutes.
Delicious! I pretty mulched followed the recipe but make a couple of minor changes:
I made the chicken and sauce in advance, put it in a casserole and stuck it in the refrigerator until dinner time, then reheated it in the microwave and added the toasted sesame seeds just before serving to keep the from getting too soggy. I also cut up the broccoli in advance and cooked it just before serving, along with the rice.
As for the sauce, which is the heart of this recipe, I added two teaspoons of toasted sesame oil to kick up the flavor a bit, and I minced the ginger root and increased both it and the garlic to about 2 tablespoons. Also used the Sriracha (it did not make the sauce too hot). And I agree that the orange flavor is not overly strong. All good!
BTW, the one green onion must be a misprint! I minced one BUNCH of green onions (about 7), using just the white and light-green portions. (Yeah, I love onions!) 😉
Could I have the calorie value please
There are a lot of websites that you can use to calculate calories.
We have made this 3 times since I found the recipe. My family LOVES it. Thanks for the great share!!!
Amazing! The whole family loved it! We will definitely make this again and again. Thanks for sharing!
The food looks so delicious
I made this tonight and it was so yummy!
I was hesitant to make it because of all of reviews saying it was too orangey. I disagree completely. It tasted just like the sesame chicken I get from my local takeout spot.
I stayed true to the recipe except for 2 things. I used chicken breast instead of thighs (only because that’s all I had) and I used some sesame oil when cooking the chicken. I don’t think it made a difference.
Would make this again. 5 stars!
This was absolutely delicious!! I made it tonight and entire family loved it. I used zucchini and yellow squash because it was what I had in the fridge. I will definitely make it again.
We made this the other night using chicken breasts instead of thighs because that’s what we had. I cut the chicken into quite small pieces. The whole family loved it except all felt the orange flavor was too strong. I agree and would make again definitely but would not add the marmalade. I did add extra siracha as we like the heat.
Making takeout at home is my favorite! Sesame chicken is definitely one of my favorites this look so good!
So good! Used chicken thigh fillets to make it more kid-friendly, and my picky eater loved it! Thanks for this!
I enjoyed this recipe, but it didn’t taste like sesame chicken that I am used to. The orange flavor is very prominent. I would consider making it again, but maybe with less orange marmalade.
This was AH-MAZING. I took advice from some comments below and used sesame oil to cook chicken. I kinda cheated and used Steam Fresh microwave broccoli (cooked 4 minutes, instead of 5..for some crunch). I topped it with some dry roasted peanuts and some fresh chopped cilantro.
Next time I”m going to double recipe so there are some left overs.
So good!! No leftovers here
Insanely ridiculously fabulous. I subbed tofu for the chicken and it was incredible! Thank you so much for this recipe!!!!!
I completely agree with Lindsey’s comment. This was tasty but it’s Orange Chicken not Sesame Chicken. Sesame chicken would include sesame oil, and this has a very strong orange flavor to it with the orange marmalade and orange juice.
I agree but still very good!
I made this and all I can say is: WOW!, better than take-out for sure. The only thing I would recommend is that when you cut up the chicken thighs take a little extra care to remove the fat. I’m going to try doubling the sauce mixture and keeping half of it (without the corn starch) in the freezer for next time.
Amazing!! Family loved it. Thank you!
I did this as is very good .
I made this tonight it was SO SO GOOD! I don’t think I changed anything. It looked just like the picture it was delicious! I served it with broccoli and white rice — thank you it’s a keeper!
THIS. IS. DELICIOUS! We used chicken breasts instead of chicken thighs and swapped broccoli for some frozen edamame. Turned out great!
Made this over the weekend for dinner, it is so good! Sauteed the chicken thighs in sesame oil, great flavor.
Was out of orange marmalade, substituted fig jam, little sweet. Looking forward to making this again with the marmalade, once I go shopping. We were out of brocolli so roasted various veggies and onions. This is a definite keeper! Hubs went back for seconds and polished off the leftovers next day for lunch.
Thank you, great flavors. Love your recipes, always a hit.
Made this recipe tonight and it was AMAZING!! My husband and kids LOVED it!! Our oldest son’s friend stayed for dinner and he loved it too. I doubled the recipe and there are NO leftovers . Going to triple it next time. Note: I ran short of cornstarch, so I made sure to add it to my sauce first, then to my meat: combined with a little flour. Turned out great. I’m so glad I’m signed for emails and received this terrific recipe that will remain in our family for a long time to come. Thank you, thank you!!
This was def a make again recipe! I used breast tenderloins, as that is what the store had. I added a bit of crushed red pepper to the sauce, and probably another tablespoon of the marmalade. I biased cut some carrots and par-cooked in the microwave, and added with the broccoli. So good!
Hi! This was tasty- but I do think that you should consider renaming it. It should be called Orange Chicken instead of sesame. Sesame chicken would include sesame oil, and this had an awful lot of orange in it 🙂 just a thought!
I find boneless, skinless chicken breasts so much more available. Have you ever tried using them with this recipe? Maybe the browning time is only 3-4 minutes for breasts versus 6-8 for thighs…