General Tso's Chicken

By Addie

"Wow! This is even better than the BEST I have had in my fave Chinese restaurant. To make the meal go quickly prep everything the day or night before and store in the fridge. To make this easy to understand I have changed the terms to cornstarch slurry and sauce. The first is used to coat the chicken for frying, the second to coat the fried chicken. HTH I use a grater with small holes for the garlic or you can just zip all the sauce ingredients up in a blender or food processor. Enjoy! NOTE: I really appreciate all the reviews this recipe has received. I know that when making this it seems strange and like it just is not going to work. Trust that it will work even though the method and the way that the cornstarch slurry acts before cooking are so different. I was the same way the first time I made this. It does result in crispy pieces of chicken that are so like you find in a restaurant. The heat here is pretty much a balanced amount because some like it hot and some do not. Taste and add more heat as desired. Thanks again for trying this recipe. I hope that you have the great results that I have had time and again."

Ingredients

• CORNSTARCH SLURRY:
• 3 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into chunks
• 2 cups green onions, sliced
• 8 small dried chilies, seeds removed (bird pepper or Thai chilies are good)
• ...................................................
• 1/4 cup soy sauce, low sodium preferred
• 1 eggs, beaten
• 1 cup cornstarch
• ................................
• SAUCE:
• 1/2 cup cornstarch
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 1/2 teaspoons fresh garlic, minced
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup white vinegar
• 1/4 cup sherry wine or 1/4 cup white wine
• 14 1/2 ounces chicken broth ( a can)

Preparation

Step 1

Place sauce ingredients in a quart jar with a lid and shake to mix. If you make this ahead of time just refrigerate until needed, shaking it again when you are ready to use it. This also keeps your dirty dishes down.

Mix cornstarch slurry in a large bowl- the mixture will be strange but trust me it works. It will be VERY thick almost paste like. Add chicken pieces to coat. Using a fork remove ONE chicken piece at a time and let the excess mixture drip off. YES even though the mixture has a weird consistency it will not stick like paste and the excess will drip off. Add chicken to the hot (350 degree) oil and fry until crispy. Only cook 7 or 8 chicken pieces at a time. You do not want to lower the temp of the oil by cooking too many at a time. You can use a simple cooking or candy thermometer to judge the temp of the oil.

Drain on paper towels. Keep warm- I just put them in the oven with the oven off. Repeating until all chicken is fried.

In a separate wok or large skillet add a small amount of oil and heat to 400 degrees. Again, a candy thermometer works great. You can fry all the chicken, drain the oil to the desired amount and use the same pan if you like.

Add green onions and hot peppers and stir fry about 30 seconds.

Stir sauce mixture, and then add to pan with onions and peppers, cook until thick. If it gets too thick, add a little water. The thickness of the sauce should be similar to what you get when ordering this at a restaurant.

Add chicken to sauce in wok, and cook until all is hot and bubbly. The quicker this is done the crispier the chicken stays. Serve over rice.
.......................

REVIEWS: (218)

I skipped frying the chicken, and instead dusted it with cornstarch seasoned with salt and pepper, then browned it in a small amount of oil. I followed the rest of the recipe exactly, and it tured out great!

I skipped frying the chicken, and instead dusted it with cornstarch seasoned with salt and pepper, then browned it in a small amount of oil. I followed the rest of the recipe exactly, and it tured out great!

Wow I thought this was pretty good!! I am not a cook but I can follow directions and measure. I had no problems making this. The slurry worked fine. I'm not sure what others are complaining about. I don't own a thermometer but had no problems. My chicken was crispy. Follow the directions and its good.

I love this recipe. Especially the slurry. I used to make General Tso's just flouring the chicken and frying it, but with the slurry it turned out SO much better! Nice and crispy without the sauce, and perfectly in the middle of crispy and soft with it. The sauce was amazing. A little thick, but then again, that's exactly how General Tso's is supposed to be. The people who say "I hated it and my dinner guests hated it" I say that's more your own incompetence in the kitchen than a problem with the recipe.

I'm not a great cook but I regularly cook at home. It tasted as good as Tiki Ming Tao's !! Two steps to remember, the slurry (that is pretty much dry wall ciment) DROP ALL THE CHICKEN IN IT! One shot, no pieces dipping. All the pieces in it, magic happens and the slurry turns sauce-like. AND, read the damn receipe : Chicken in the sauce, not more that what heede to get hot chickenb pieces and coated with the sauce... Else, your slurry will turn like mine : not crispy, back to paste-like texture. And for the green onion, white ones do too... big chunks !

This was excellent! I added a little extra water to the batter (slurry), used brown sugar in place of white, added some chili paste, sesame oil and ginger to the sauce and used water in place of chicken broth. I also only used about 1/3 C of corn starch in the sauce. Overall, this is definitely worth the effort to make instead of ordering take-out! Just as good or better than I have had from any restaurant. Thank you for this recipe!

LOVE THIS! I've made it more than a few times now and get great reviews every time I make it for someone new. I also use the recipe for the slurry for the chicken whenever we do other types of stirfry and I always have to make extra so my husband has some to snack on! One change is I usually add a little hot pepper sesame oil to add an extra kick to the sauce. THANKS SO MUCH for sharing this recipe!

The first time I made this it came out amazing. The second time I made it using the store brand cornstarch and the chicken did not stay crispy at all and the batter even looked different. My kids went crazy for this both times I made it though, but personally I like when the chicken stays crispy. The sauce is excellent, but when I added brown sugar to it, it was right on the money to my favorite restaurant. Actually, everyone said it was better. It is the best General Tso's recipe I have ever tried and I like the fact that you don't need to buy any hard to find or expensive ingredients.

I registered just to review this recipe. Turned out fantastic. The slurry was like cement at first, but I kept the faith and was rewarded with very crispy chicken. If you have a candy thermometer and don't mind micro-managing your burner heat a little bit you can fry as many pieces of chicken in the oil as you like, just be sure to turn the heat up to compensate for the amount you're frying. One word of caution for timing at the end, if you really want your chicken to stay crispy: There's a lot of sauce per chicken (which I like anyway), so serve it up quick after you coat the chicken. Obviously, if you soak something crispy in any liquid and let it sit it won't stay crispy very long

I made this pretty close to the way it's listed here with just a few added suggestions from the other reviewers. I added a teaspoon or so of fresh ginger and also some orange juice to the sauce. It came out SO WELL. To those of you confused by the slurry, it is supposed to be like that. Haven't you ever mixed cornstarch and water together as a kid? It's called a non-Newtonian fluid. Yes, it is difficult to get it to cover the chicken, but it is not impossible. Like others said, dump all of the chicken chunks in it at the same time and take the time to mix it up. It will work out fine.

I registered just so I could rate this recipe. Some of the negative reviews scared me but I went ahead and made it because I had chicken tenders to use up. Next time, and there certainly will be a next time, I'll use thighs. It sounded like it would take forever but to my surprise it went quite quickly and even with the wrong chicken, came out very well. I'll be making again. Thank you, Hope, for a great recipe. I love Chinese and never had any luck making it but this is great.

I can not even begin to express how much my family enjoyed this meal. The finished product turned out surprisingly delicious. Most of all it is a fun let's get the family involved type of recipe.
It's one of my family's favorite recipes. Thank You.

The best I've ever eaten! Better than any resturant too!

This is an absolutely wonderful recipe!!! So happy I found it. I did make a few changes though...
1. In order to make this dish a little healthier, I skipped frying the chicken. I just seasoned with salt and pepper and cooked in a small amount of olive oil until crispy. Once the sauce was on it, I did not miss the fried part of it and you really could not tell a
2. Sauce: I added fresh ginger and orange juice instead of water. Both added another set of great
3. I briefly steamed some fresh broccoli and red peppers and added them into the sauce with the
I will definitley be making this again! And to all the negative reviews, don't pay attention. People need to use some of their own decision making in the kitchen instead of relying on a recipe to tell them EXACTLY what to do and EXACTLY how long to do something...when the chicken is crispy and cooked, it's done! When the sauce is as thick as you'd like it, take it off the