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Sesame Chicken is both savory and sweet with soy, garlic, ginger, brown sugar, and sesame seeds.
This dish is grat served over rice! Add in a side of steamed broccoli or some bok choy for an easy meal that’s both quick and delicious!
Sesame Chicken For a Quick Meal
Sesame Chicken is an easy and quick meal. Tender chunks of chicken are and pan-fried until crisp and tossed in a sweet and sticky sesame sauce.
- It’s a quick and easy meal, ideal for busy weeknights.
- Requires common ingredients found in most kitchens.
- Can be customized with your favorite veggies or sides.
- Great for meal prep and leftovers, and we love making take-out at home, so we know exactly what’s in it!
Chicken – I use boneless chicken breast in this recipe, but chicken thighs will work too. Marinating in a little bit of egg and some cornstarch helps tenderize the chicken and creates a crust.
Sesame Sauce – Chicken broth is the base of the sauce, while brown sugar adds sweetness. Soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger, garlic, and toasted sesame seeds flavor the sauce.
How To Make Sesame Chicken
- Marinate chicken in cornstarch, egg, and soy sauce.
- Combine sauce ingredients (per recipe below).
- Stir fry in batches until browned. Add sauce and simmer.
- Garnish with sesame seeds and green onions.
This recipe is great served with broccoli, snap peas, peppers, or other stir fried veggies.
Takeout Fake-Outs
Did your family love this Sesame Chicken recipe? Be sure to leave a rating and a comment below!
Sesame Chicken
Equipment
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons cornstarch
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 egg
- 1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts cut into bite size pieces
- 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
- green onions for garnish
Sesame Sauce
- ¾ cup chicken broth
- ¼ cup brown sugar or honey
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- 3 tablespoons soy sauce
- 2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger
- 1 clove garlic minced
- 2 tablespoons sesame seeds
Instructions
- Place the sesame seeds in a dry skillet over medium heat. Cook, stirring frequently, just until lightly browned and fragrant. Set aside to cool.
- Toss the chicken pieces with egg, 3 tablespoons cornstarch, and soy sauce. Refrigerate for 15 minutes.
- Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk together broth, brown sugar, 2 tablespoons cornstarch, soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger, and garlic.
- In a 10-inch skillet, heat the vegetable oil over medium-high heat. Add half of the chicken and stir-fry until browned and almost cooked through, about 5 minutes. Transfer the fried chicken to a bowl and repeat with the remaining chicken.
- Whisk the sauce and add it to the skillet along with all of the chicken and cook over medium-high heat while stirring until thickened, about 3 to 4 minutes. Stir in the sesame seeds.
- Garnish with green onions.
Notes
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Chicken, Dinner, Main Course
Cuisine American, Asian Fusion© SpendWithPennies.com. Content and photographs are copyright protected. Sharing of this recipe is both encouraged and appreciated. Copying and/or pasting full recipes to any social media is strictly prohibited. Please view my photo use policy here.
Added stir fry veggies with this and the whole family loved this. Definitely a keeper. Thanks for a delicious recipe
So glad you enjoyed it, Karen!
Very good.
Made this for dinner tonight and it was a big hit! Only thing I will change next time is 1 TBSP of sesame seeds.
Thanks, Wendy! So glad you enjoyed it.
Great recipe that was easy, no fuss and delicious. Served this with brown rice and roasted veggies. Will definitely make again.
sesame chicken is easy to make and delicious! I prefer cutting the chicken in small pieces
Another easy and delicious recipe!!! I doubled the sauce and omitted the sesame oil only because I don’t care for it and added red pepper flakes for a little kick. Served it over wide egg noodles with pole beans and it was delicious. Thank You Holly for another awesome recipe!!
So glad you loved it Kathy!
I made this dish for my family, the kids enjoyed it and everyone wanted seconds. Simple and easy to make. I think sometimes I overthink things and get intimidated by recipes. This was really simple. We enjoyed it.
This is absolutely WONDERFUL! Oh my goodness. The flavor knocked my socks off. I have made Sesame Chicken before, but it was nothing like yours—WOW! Thank you so much! I will be making this dish again and again and have already shared the recipe. [FYI- I used Aldi organic chicken tenders and served it over Cadia organic short-grain brown rice that had been toasted in butter and cooked in Aldi organic chicken stock, with a side of steamed zucchini ;-)]
So happy you loved it, Jeannie!
Everyone loved this recipe, even my toddler. We served the chicken over rice with broccoli! It was a quick and easy supper. SWP Employee
Fantastic! Everyone loved it. Served over rice with asian quickles and spicy fried green beans.
This recipe was a hit in my house. We are trying to eat out less and Chinese is always so expensive when we do. I have started to not like the sesame chicken at our take out place because it was getting too sweet. This recipe was perfect and so, so easy. This is going into our rotation to have again. Thank you so much!
Any suggestions if I want to add a little bit of spice to this to bring down the sweetness.
Chili pepper flakes, paprika, or cayenne pepper will all add some heat to this dish! :)
Love ur recipes!
I was onderiñg, can you use water instèad of egg in cornstarch mixture? My daughter has añn allergy to eggs. Thanks
I haven’t tried it with water but if you need to skip the egg I would suggest just tossing the chicken with cornstarch and soy sauce. Let us know how it goes.
We love a lot of sauce.. does this recipe have a lot? Or could i double that? We love to use some for rice!
If you’d like it more saucy, it can certainly be doubled.
Is it ok if it marinates for a few hours instead of 15 minutes?
We have not let it sit that long Jen but it should be fine. Let us know how it turns out.
Yum! The chicken was cooked to perfection with the gooey marinade. I always wondered how that was done! I added a couple T of rice wine vinegar to the sauce to give it a slight sour note. This recipe is a KEEPER! Thank you!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Great recipes
Hola Holly! Greetings from Guatemala :) I love to read your recipes and I am new to the cooking word..I have a question about the sauce, among the ingredients isn’t listed the honey (you mentioned it, previously), but I noticed the brown sugar..does that mean that the honey is not required and the sugar is going to become some sort of caramel? Thanks!
Apologies for the confusion Joanna! This recipe uses brown sugar for sweetness. Enjoy!
I love trying new things an making things with my grandchildren