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This 20 Minute Crispy Orange Garlic Chicken is inspired by everyone’s favorite restaurant-style orange chicken. It’s made quicker and with a few tweaks that make it slightly unique and even more delicious. The chicken (or use ground beef or pork) and broccoli are cooked in a golden buttery, sweet-spicy sauce until caramelized around the edges. Then served simply with steamed rice and plenty of green onions. The addition of butter and ginger (pickled sushi ginger) are the secrets. This dish is saucy, salty, tangy-sweet, and has just the right amount of spice. This dish is sure to become a favorite takeout-style staple!
It’s that time of the year when the weather is finally nice, and literally all you want to do is be outside. It may not be this way in the Colorado mountains just yet (where winter/spring tends to run late into June), but in places like New York, the weather is perfect. I’m writing from my hotel where the sun is out and it’s around 60 degrees.
A little chillier than I prefer, but it’s the sunshine – it gives me so much energy, I really do crave it. As you might guess, when it comes to cooking at this time of year, I’m just like you all, keep it simple, fast, and effortless.
This is when the 20-30 minute dinners come into play.
This chicken is the easiest to prepare, but beyond the ease, I also love the colors and, even more importantly, the taste! Inspired by our favorite takeout style orange chicken, but made very easily at home with ground chicken and zero frying!
The ground chicken is the key. There’s no cutting up of raw chicken, and it cooks so quickly. That’s something we can all love.
These are the Details
Step 1: let’s mix the sauce
Keeping things basic, I use fresh squeezed orange juice, tamari, a small amount of honey, pickled ginger and ginger juice from the ginger jar, chili paste (use either Thai red curry paste or gochujang; I prefer gochujang), toasted sesame oil, black pepper, and chili flakes.
Give this a good mix before starting the chicken.
Step 2: cook the chicken
To keep the recipe quick-cooking and avoid frying pieces of chicken, I love to use ground chicken. I toss the chicken with cornstarch and black pepper. The cornstarch helps the chicken get crispy and gives it a slight “breading”.
Pan-cook the chicken, then toss in butter and garlic. Add the broccoli and let the butter caramelize and brown around the chicken pieces.
Step 3: add the sauce
Now, add the orange sauce and let it thicken around the chicken and broccoli. This should only take a few minutes, after which you can pull the pan off the heat.
If you enjoy fresh herbs mixed in you can add fresh Thai, sweet basil, and cilantro. If I have any of these on hand, I do like to add fresh herbs!
Step 4: serve over rice
Now, you really do need a side of rice with this dish. Spoon the chicken, broccoli, and sauce over a plate of rice.
Green onions and toasted sesame seeds on top are my favorite.
All the right flavors and they all hit so well together.
Plus, I really appreciate all the fresh colors – the best kind of recipe! Great for spring and summer!
Looking for other quick weeknight dinners? Here are some favorites:
20 Minute Thai Basil Beef Rolls
Chili Crisp Chicken Mango Cucumber Rice Bowl
30 Minute Sticky Thai Meatballs with Sesame Noodles
Better Than Takeout Sweet Thai Basil Chicken
Thai Basil Beef and Lemongrass Rice Bowls
Lastly, if you make this 20 Minute Crispy Orange Garlic Chicken, be sure to leave a comment and/or give this recipe a rating! Above all, I love to hear from you guys and always do my best to respond to each and every comment. And, of course, if you do make this recipe, don’t forget to tag me on Instagram! Looking through the photos of recipes you all have made is my favorite!
20 Minute Crispy Orange Garlic Chicken
Servings: 4
Calories Per Serving: 553 kcal
Nutritional information is only an estimate. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed.
Ingredients
Sauce
- 1/3 cup orange juice
- 1/3 cup tamari or soy sauce
- 1-2 tablespoons honey
- 1 tablespoon chopped pickled ginger, plus 1 tablespoon ginger juice
- 3-4 tablespoons chili paste (gochjang) (gochujang)
- 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
- black pepper and chili flakes
Chicken
- 3 tablespoons sesame oil (or olive oil)
- 1 1/2 pounds ground chicken
- 1 teaspoon arrowroot powder or cornstarch
- 3 tablespoons salted butter
- 4 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1 1/2 cups chopped broccoli
- 2 tablespoons toasted sesame/peanuts
- 4 green onions, chopped
Instructions
- 1. To make the sauce. Combine all ingredients in a glass jar.2. In a large skillet, combine the oil, chicken, cornstarch, pepper, and chili flakes. Cook over medium heat, breaking up the meat as it cooks until browned, about 5 minutes. Add the butter and garlic. Cook 2 minutes, until the butter browns and the chicken gets crispy.3. Pour over the sauce. Cook until the sauce thickens slightly. Then, add the broccoli. Cook another 2-5 minutes. Remove from the heat.4. Serve the chicken, broccoli, and remaining sauce over bowls of rice. Top with sesame seeds and green onion. Enjoy!
delicious recipe! Easy to make and great taste! I served it with avocad. Thank you for sharing!! Greetings form Colombia
Hey Maria,
Happy Wednesday! I appreciate you giving this recipe a try and your comment, so glad it turned out nicely for you! x
Very tasty and simple! Loved the sauce.
I grabbed ground chicken breast at the store and doubled the recipe. I followed it to a T but the chicken never browned or got crispy. I wonder if it’s because of the breast meat.
Hey Susan,
Thanks so much for making this recipe and your feedback! Love to hear that it was enjoyed! xT
The steps in the recipe are different from the way you have them in the blog post. It turned out okayish because the sauce was good but my broccoli didn’t cook right.
Hi Nicole,
Thanks for trying this recipe and sharing your feedback, so sorry to hear the broccoli didn’t cook correctly. I will go back and look at the instructions! xx
Made this tonight for dinner and it was so delicious! Hubby said he didn’t like it, he “loved” it and to put it on rotation! Added some shredded carrots to it as well. Thank you for the yummy recipe!
Hey Kristy,
Fantastic! So glad to hear that this dish turned out nicely for you, I appreciate you making it! xT
Absolutely delicious!!! I cut the chicken in cubes just because the pictures looked cubed chicken, I will definitely make this again & super easy!!
Hey Heather,
Wonderful!! Love to hear that this dish was enjoyed, I appreciate you making it and your comment! xT
made this twice- first time followed as is and the sauce didn’t thicken. second time added the corn starch to the sauce instead of the chicken and it was way better! good flavors in the sauce and I think this would be tasty with chicken thigh
Hey Meredith,
Happy Sunday!! I am thrilled to hear that this recipe was a hit, thanks a lot for trying it out! Xx
Good recipe. Might have been better with thighs or breasts instead of ground chicken.
Hi Robert,
Thanks for giving this dish a try and your comment, glad to hear it was enjoyed! Let me know if you try again using breasts or thighs! xx
Just made this recipe for dinner tonight (5/22/24) and it was a 9/10! My family loved it! Took me about 35 min. to make. My grocery store didn’t have pickled ginger or ground chicken, so I used fresh ginger and chicken tenders. I also used both broccoli and asparagus. I also did not have sesame seeds but I added cashews on top instead. So good. Thanks for the relatively quick, yummy weeknight dinner idea.
Hey Tricia,
Happy Thursday! Thanks so much for making this recipe and your feedback, love to hear that it turned out well for you! xT
What could I substitute for pickled ginger? . I have everything else. Thanks
Hey Ardith,
I would just skip it, no big deal:) I hope you love this recipe, please let me know if you give it a try! xT
This was delicious and quick. We are crazy for ginger so I added a bit more juice after the sauce had thickened a little. Instead of just broccoli I added a bag of fresh chopped veggie mix that had shredded carrots, shaved Brussels, sugar snaps, broccoli, kale and cabbage. It was outstanding! Yes it was very spicy with 3.5 Tbs of Gochujang, but we love spicy food so much. Really not much prep with the ground chicken and mixing sauce in a jar. Definitely a keeper especially with extra veggies!
Hey Lucy,
Thanks so much! So glad to hear that this recipe turned out well for you, I appreciate you making it! xx
Hi Tieghan,
I combined some of the suggestions with your own original recipe and it turned out beautifully. I cooked the chicken over high heat, reduced it, and then followed the recipe pretty precisely, except I upped the amount of corn starch and instead of using pickled ginger (which I dislike) I added fresh grated ginger and a tbsp of rice wine vinegar. I only used 1 tbsp of gochuchang.
Hey Jane,
Happy Sunday! Thanks so much for making this recipe and sharing what worked well for you, I love to hear that it was tasty! xT
This was really easy and delicious! I used half of the soy sauce and half mirin because I don’t like things too salty. My husband loves ginger so I’ll increase that next time. But this is definitely going in our regular rotation.
Hey Tasha,
Fantastic! Love to hear that this dish turned out nicely for you, thanks so much for making it! Have a great weekend:)
I really liked this recipe, but made it with tofu! Just diced it into small cubes. I tossed the cubes with the cornstarch so they would be crispy.
Hey Ines,
Amazing!! So glad to hear that this recipe turned out well for you, I appreciate you making it! xT
So easy and so full of flavor! I wasn’t sure about the ground chicken but with rice and peanuts all the textures were on point too. Sometimes HBH recipes say they only take 10-15 minutes of prep and then a regular person spends 40 minutes on it, haha. Buy This was so easy I will add it to my weeknight meals rotation.
*Theres a good amount of spice, so back off the chili paste and pepper flakes if you want something less than medium.
Hey Madeline,
Thanks so much for making this recipe and your comment, love to hear that it turned out well for you! Xx