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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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.
Rather late post but try finding Rice Wine Vinegar on Amazon