Gluten Free Sweet & Sour Chicken

Who needs a Chinese takeaway when you can make your own gluten free sweet & sour chicken and it tastes thissss good?!! And its surprisingly simple.

When I announced to my boyfriend that I was going to attempt to make his all time favourite, Sweet & Sour Chicken, he said: “it won’t be like the Chinese though!”. To be fair, at the time I really didn’t think it would taste like the Chinese either. I thought if I could get 75% there, I’d be happy enough!

His response when I he tried it “Ok, that’s identical, 10/10, imagine if you did that with your prawn toast and egg fried rice too”. Never doubt me Charlie ;)….

Here is my gluten free sweet & sour chicken, complete with our two fave fakeaway sides:

From what I can see, the majority of Sweet and Sour Chicken recipes online are almost identical, so I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel here. But, when I follow other recipes, I always have loads of questions: “is that enough cornflour? should it look like that now? the sauce is a bit brown, is that right?!” etc etc…. So I have added LOADS and tips, pics and extra bits to help you along the way.

Veggie/Fish/Other Meat Varations

If you’re veggie, you could easily leave out the first section of the recipe instructions and just add in some extra bits – maybe beansprouts and broccoli?

Recipe also works fantastically with pork or other types of meat. Sweet and Sour Prawns went down well too!!

Looking for some other gluten free fakeaway options?

How about my Gluten Free Prawn Toast? Or Egg Fried Rice?

Or check out my Guide to Gluten Free Fakeaways here!

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5 from 1 vote

Gluten Free Sweet & Sour Chicken

Prep Time5 minutes mins

Cook Time20 minutes mins

Servings: 2 generous portions

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Chinese

Keyword: chinese fakeaway, gluten free dinner, gluten free sweet and sour

Ingredients

• 1 red/yellow pepper
• 1/2 onion
• 1 small carrot
• Drizzle of sesame oil
• 200 gram can of pineapple - rings are best (cut into large chunks) but chunks are fine if you can't get them (they're smaller but still yummy!)

Sweet and Sour Sauce

• 6 tbsp Tomato Ketchup
• 4 tbsp Light Brown Sugar
• 3 tbsp Rice Vinegar - or White Wine Vinegar
• 2 tbsp GF Soy/Tamari

Optional: Meat/Fish

• 2 chicken breasts/160g prawns/whatever you'd like to use as the base
• Small bowl of cornflour - approx 100g – enough for dusting your meat/fish
• 1 egg
• 1 litre Sunflower Oil

Instructions

Optional Meat/Fish

• If you're using chicken or another type of meat, chop into small chunks.
• Put the cornflour into a bowl.
• Dust each piece of meat/fish in the cornflour, so it looks like the picture.
  
• Take one of the coated meat/fish and dip into the egg, letting any excess run off. Then dip it into the cornflour. Repeat for the rest of the prawns/chicken.
  
• Add some oil to a deep pan/wok.

  >The oil needs to be at least 2 inches high in the pan so that the meat/fish pieces will be totally immersed. Just make sure the pan you pick is quite deep – you don't want it to be more than 2/3rd full as the oil will spit!! I usually make mine in a deep wok with 1 litre of oil.
• Get a chopping board and place a layer of kitchen towel on top. Place it somewhere near your wok as this is where you will put the meat/fish once its cooked and you remove it from the oil so you want it to be close!

  >Or if I'm out of kitchen roll, I place a cooling rack on the chopping board and place the pieces of fried chicken ontop of that, allowing the excess oil to drip off.
• Heat the oil to 170oC. Carefully place half of the coated meat/fish pieces into the oil. Cook for 4-5 mins, or until they've just started to brown on the outside. Turn them occasionally during this time.

  >How to tell if the oil is hot enough:

  (1) a thermometer is the easiest way

  (b) If you haven't got one, test with 1 piece of chicken first. It should sizzle a little when you put it in, like the picture. If its too hot, the bubbles will be really aggressive and the batter will instantly brown. If its too cool, there won't be many bubbles around the chicken and the batter will soak up the oil and won't be crispy.
  
• Remove the meat/fish from the oil with a slotted spoon and transfer to the kitchen roll.
• Repeat the cooking process for the rest of the chicken.
• If you've only got 1 wok/frying pan, you'll need to remove the oil from the pan before you move on to the next stage.

  >You shouldn't tip it down the sink as it clogs it up! Once its cooled a little, pour it into an old oil/coke bottle and chuck it away!

  >Don't worry about the meat/fish getting cold in this time as it'll get warmed up at the end.

Make the "Sweet and Sour"

• Add all the "sweet and sour sauce" ingredients to a cup/bowl/jug and mix together.

  >It will look quite brown but that's normal! First time I cooked this, I thought the sauce would be a deeper red colour at this stage so just wanted to warn you!!
  
• Add 1 tsp of oil to the wok. Turn to a high temperature.
• Add all the chopped veg and leave for at least 30 seconds to brown.

  >If the veg starts sticking to the bottom of the pan, add a dash of lukewarm water to cool it down.
  
• Add the "sweet and sour sauce" to the wok. Leave for 2-3 mins, stirring frequently, until it has thickened.
  
• If you're adding meat/prawns, add that to the wok and stir together. Add the pineapple chunks too. Turn down the heat a little and leave to warm through for 30 seconds.
• Serve up and drizzle with a little bit of sesame oil. Enjoy!!!

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