Tasty Tuesday!

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With all the fun I've been having lately with Better for BlogHer, I've been craving Asian food. I absolutely adore it (if you can't tell by some of the recipes I have up), and it's usually surprisingly easy to make at home.

For whatever reason, orange chicken was bugging me the other day. I had such a taste for it, but it's so bad for you when you get it at a restaurant. And really... how hard could it be to make?

So I went searching online to look at recipes and then compiled a few and changed things here and there and came up with my own recipe. Bonus? This made enough sauce that I only needed half of it for a single recipe. The rest is in the freezer for the next time I make it. Score!

Orange Chicken

Ingredients:
Chicken-
2 lbs chicken breasts
1 1/2 c water
Juice of an orange (save the zest!)
1/3 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup rice vinegar
2 T soy sauce
zest of 2 oranges (I used a navel and a tangerine because that's what I had)
1 c brown sugar
1/2 inch ginger, grated
2 cloves garlic, grated
3 T cornstarch
2 T water

Cut your chicken into bite sized pieces. Set that aside while you make the orange sauce.

In a large saucepan combine 1 1/2 cups water, lemon juice, orange juice, rice vinegar, soy sauce, orange zest, brown sugar, ginger, and garlic. Heat on medium while stirring periodically until it boils.

While the sauce is getting to a boil, heat a large nonstick pan with a little bit of oil (I used grapeseed but anything from olive oil to peanut oil will work). Add the chicken pieces and sautee (no, I don't fry - but you could absolutely bread your chicken and fry the pieces. I justify this dish as being healthy because I sautee them, and they turned out great). Cook until they are no longer pink inside.

Once your orange sauce comes to a boil, combine 3 tablespoons of cornstarch with 1/4 cup of cold water and mix thoroughly. Slowly stir cornstarch mixture into sauce until it thickens.

Reserve half your sauce for later use. Pour the remaining sauce over your sauteed chicken and stir to coat. I served it with the traditional rice, and it was gobbled up.

Enjoy this and more with Tempt My Tummy Tuesday and The Well (this week's host)! Did I mention this took me less than a half hour start to finish? A half hour for such yummy goodness people (ok, excluding the rice that takes an hour in my cooker)!