A friend first shared this dish with another friend, who then shared it with many more people. It is a vibrant and delectable salad that is served with a homemade vinaigrette. A wise decision whenever hosting dinner guests.
| Prep Time: | 15 mins |
| Cook Time: | 30 mins |
| Total Time: | 45 mins |
| Servings: | 4 |
| Yield: | 4 servings |
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
- 4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves – cut into 1 inch pieces
- 1 ½ cups distilled white vinegar
- 1 cup white sugar
- ½ cup soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon red pepper flakes, or to taste
- 2 tablespoons garlic powder, or to taste
- 1 tablespoon onion powder, or to taste
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 (8 ounce) package button mushrooms, sliced
- 1 cup frozen green peas
- 3 green onions, chopped
- 3 teaspoons cornstarch
- 2 tablespoons cold water
Instructions
- Heat oil in a large heavy skillet over high heat. Add chicken pieces, and fry, stirring, until browned. Pour in the vinegar, soy sauce, and sugar; stirring to dissolve sugar. Season with red pepper flakes, garlic powder, onion powder, and ginger. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes. Taste the sauce at this point and adjust seasoning to taste. The sauce should be very sweet. If it is too tart, add more sugar; if it is too sweet, add more vinegar.
- Once the sauce is to your liking, add the mushrooms, peas, and green onions. Simmer gently over low heat for another 5 minutes, until the mushrooms shrink a bit. Stir together the cornstarch and water, and stir it into the sauce. Continue to simmer until it reaches the desired thickness.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 442 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 68 g |
| Cholesterol | 68 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 4 g |
| Protein | 34 g |
| Saturated Fat | 1 g |
| Sodium | 1931 mg |
| Sugars | 56 g |
| Fat | 5 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
Okay so I was really looking forward to trying this very simple recipe, however I am giving this a 4 cause my chicken was amazing. I am not sure what happened when or where I went wrong, something definitely happened. It may of been cause I attempted to tripple this recipe. My sauce came out like some super thick brown sugary blob. I wish I knew what happened. I did strain it all put salvage the chicken and attempted to salvage my chicken flavor which was a success. If any one has any idea what happened to my sauce I would love to hear opinions.
This dish is okay. Definitely follow the directives regarding “to taste”. It is a very ingredient-heavy recipe–I probably wouldn’t make it again.
I should have gone with my gut when I saw 1/2 cup soy sauce. I knew that would be too much. The flavor of the soy sauce overpowered almost everything else. I will not make this again.
I made this as written, except using brown sugar (loosely packed). I ended up with an unappealing black stew of indistinguishable ingredients and tough meat. It was tasty, but way too saucy to eat without rice. Were I to make this again, I’d cut the sauce ingredients in half, and marinate the chicken in about 1/4 cup of it before cooking. Then remove the cooked chicken, and cook the mushrooms till they shrank a bit. Maybe add some broccoli or sugar peas to up the veg quotient. Add the frozen peas to warm them, add back the chicken. Stir half the remaining sauce into the cornstarch slurry, and add that to the pan to coat the food. Add remaining sauce for desired consistency, sprinkle with the green onions.
It was so-so.
This recipe is fantastic!!! I did use fresh garlic and ginger, because I love these ingredients and I like to add some extra veggies…for instance, stir fry veggies and baby corn.
I made this for dinner with only 1 substitution. I used chopped broccoli in place of the peas. it was very good and it does kinda clear your sinuses. it’s not to sweet and not to hot.next time I might cut down on the liquid a wee bit.1 cup vinegar should be enough.I will be sure to make this again.
Chicken Vicious Haiku: “Eek, my mouth’s on fire! Yet I can’t stop eating this. Vicious delicious!” Took suggestion of reviewer #2 and marinated the cut-up chicken in soy sauce, sherry, and EVOO (along w/ fresh garlic and ginger) and took the advice of reviewer #3 and served over a salad. (This provided a nice cooling effect to the kick that this dish brings.) The vinegar burned my eyes and nose when I added it to the skillet, but I stuck to my guns (and the recipe as written), and used the called for measurements of sugar, vinegar and soy sauce. Husband said exactly what some reviewers mentioned, “tastes like General Tso’s w/o the unnecessary breading”, and I just liked that despite its fire, it still had a good taste. (My suggestions: marinate the chicken and use fresh garlic and ginger.)
Wonderful. Decided to try it for Halloween dinner and I’m so glad I did. We both loved it. The only regret I have is that I listened to some of the reviews and decreased the vinegar to 1 cup. Next time, I’m going for the full amount. It was delish with the lesser amount but I think I lost some of the “wowza”. Also, as part of a Halloween menu, I made the Pumpkin Casserole from this site. I didn’t think the two would actually go together and considered serving them as two separate courses. I was wrong. The two went so well together I was stunned. Thank you for a great recipe. It’ll be a go to.
This was fantastic. Very similiar to General Tso’s. My brave tasted three year old daughter even loved it. I omitted the mushrooms just as personal preference. This is going into regular dinner rotation.
Holy Freaking Goodness! This is one yummy dish! Made this exactly as described (except added carrots and used fresh ginger because I had them) and I would not change a thing–don’t taste it too soon or the sugar/vinegar will knock your socks off.I was quite liberal with the red pepper flakes and the spice nicely offset the sweetness. This is going on my regular rotation—and makes me not miss take out Chinese.
This worked out well with frozen stir fry veggies & cut in half for 2 chicken breasts. Added the frozen veggies in the last 5min. Maybe would have cut the cook time on the chicken in the beginning because it came out a little tough. Great sauce, expected it to be really spicy but the sweet was a nice offset.
Great recipe. My family has light taste buds, so we only used a teaspoon of the red pepper flakes. We didn’t even have to use the corn starch to thicken it! Thank you for sharing it!
Me and my girlfriend made this last night. We both loved it, but she found it more spicy than i did. I’ll definitely try this again but play around with the ingredients to attempt to make it more healthy.
Wow, you weren’t kidding. But I did like it. I mean, it’s hot but good. I dislike mushrooms so dumped those, and used low-sodium soy sauce, but I didn’t assume I needed to start changing everything. I ended up adding about 2 tablespoons more sugar, thinking perhaps I’d need even more. But once you get everything added, thickened, and put on rice, it does calm that heat just a little, so I think at the “taste test” point you can leave it just a hair on the “too much” side. (My opinion – don’t hold me to it.) I did not find it in any way sweet even with a bit of extra sugar. It goes very well with the rice – and with rice, this might be double the servings. This was also a nice way to sneak in peas, as I don’t like them cooked but don’t notice them in something like this. The downfalls are all that sugar – for an otherwise healthy dish. And it also does not re-heat very well. Tolerable and I don’t let leftovers go to waste, but certainly not the same. Oh, and this was not done in 45 minutes at all. For one, having to cut up raw chicken is not quick, and it took a while to thicken – noticed others having trouble getting it to thicken. Now while I understand, if you don’t like hot, don’t make this,
The whole family loves this dish! another winner!
I read through the reviews before making this dish. As a result, I made numerous modifications to this recipe and it came out absolutely delicious. I made the following changes: (1) I used one fresh yellow onion, about six cloves of garlic, and about 2 tablespoons of fresh chopped up ginger. I’m a big believer in using fresh ingredients where possible and here I think it really adds to the flavor. Before adding the chicken I sauteed the onion, garlic, and ginger in the oil for about two minutes. (2) In terms of the sauce, I used 1/2 cup white vinegar, 1/4 cup reduced sodium soy sauce, and 1/2 cup brown sugar. (3) In addition to the 8 ounces of mushrooms and one cup of peas, I added one chopped green bell pepper and one chopped red bell pepper. I did not include the cornstarch. It gives a great Asian flavor and is much tastier than what you would get in most Chinese restaurants. Plus there is the added advantage that it tastes so much healthier because I was able to use all organic and fresh ingredients. I will definitely make this again, maybe rotating different vegetables (I think this recipe would also work with broccoli, green beans, sugar snap peas, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, bok choy, baby corn, a lot of things). I also think it is really important to accompany this dish with rice. My rice really absorbed the sauce well.
I stored this recipe in my inbox a few years ago and occasionally flirted with the idea of trying it, but, until last night, it had remained an unconsumated relationship. More fool me for waiting so long! We really enjoyed this dish – it’s earned itself a regular spot in the “Rotation”. The only change I made was to reduce the amount of vinegar to 3/4 cup, following the advice of an earlier submitter.
This was great!!! i didn’t follow the amount of spices exactly, but I have apretty good feel for what we like, and it came out great. I agree with the submitter — if you read the description and it doesn’t sound like your taste, don’ review it with a bad rate. I will def do this again!!
I wasn’t sure how I would like the combo of flavors but I was quite surprised and pleased. I used 1 c vinegar and 1 c. sugar, all of the soy (low sod) and all fresh ingrediants. Next time I think I would reduce the vinegar to 3/4 c. Also, my sauce never thickened, even with the cornstarch added towards the end..?
The first time I made this it seemed a bit too tart so the second time I made it I decreased the vinegar. By decreasing the vinegar though, it made it much more spicy so the next time I will decrease vinegar and red pepper flakes and then I think it will be perfect for our liking! Originally I had this at 3 stars but with my altering Ive upped it to 4 stars! Just needs to be switched up a bit for my tastes