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In college, mandarin chicken was my weakness. I loved Chinese food and ate mandarin chicken from a local chinese restaurant many late nights while studying. Healthy… not so much. Delicious… absolutely.
Mandarin Chicken
As with practically all foods, I’ve found that healthy versions can actually taste better even without the MSG and chemical flavoring agents. Served over some cauliflower rice or fresh steamed broccoli, this mandarin chicken is delicious, filling, and nutritious. If you like Chinese food, try this recipe!
Healthy Mandarin Chicken Recipe
A delicious orange mandarin chicken that rivals the best restaurant versions but without the high fructose corn syrup, cornstarch, and refined white flour!
Servings 4 cups
Calories 414kcal
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Ingredients
- 2 lbs boneless skinless chicken thighs (or breasts)
- ½ cup almond flour
- ¼ + 1TBSP cup arrowroot powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp pepper
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- ½ tsp ground ginger (optional)
- 2 eggs
- 1 TBSP water
- 1 cup coconut oil (or tallow, or lard for frying)
- 3 oranges
- 1 lemon
- ¼ cup coconut aminos
- 1 TBSP chili garlic sauce (optional)
- ¼ cup honey (optional)
Instructions
- Cut the chicken bite-sized pieces.
- In a medium size bowl, mix the almond flour, ¼ of the arrowroot, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and ginger.
- In a separate bowl, beat the eggs with the water.
- Heat the coconut oil, tallow or lard in a large skillet.
- Dip the chicken into the egg mixture, then into the flour mixture, shaking to remove excess flour.
- Carefully drop the breaded chicken pieces into the hot oil, cooking about 3-5 minutes per side until cooked through. Do not stir or move chicken except to flip once during cooking as it may knock off the breading.
- Carefully remove the chicken from the pan and place on a plate to cool.
- Repeat with all the chicken until cooked.
- While chicken is cooking and cooling, zest the oranges and lemon into a medium sized saucepan.
- Squeeze the juice of the oranges and lemon into the pan and add the coconut aminos, chili garlic sauce, and honey.
- Stir well and slowly add the remaining arrowroot powder.
- Bring to a simmer and continue simmering over medium-low heat for 15-20 minutes or until it reaches desired thickness. Do not let it boil or burn! If you want a thicker sauce, add a little more arrowroot.
- If you are serving with cauliflower rice or steamed broccoli, cook it while the sauce is thickening.
- When everything is done, pour the sauce over the chicken and lightly toss to incorporate.
Notes
You can completely skip the flour and egg steps if you don't want to bread the chicken and can just stir fry the bite-sized pieces of chicken in 2 tablespoons coconut oil until cooked
Alternately, you can bread the chicken and place it on a well-oiled baking sheet and bake at 375°F for least 30 minutes or until cooked through in the oven.
Nutrition
Serving: 1cup | Calories: 414kcal | Carbohydrates: 51.2g | Protein: 12.8g | Fat: 18.4g | Saturated Fat: 14.4g | Cholesterol: 83mg | Sodium: 279mg | Fiber: 4.4g | Sugar: 32g
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Ever made healthy versions of your favorite foods? How did they turn out?
Overcoming Stumbling Blocks
This was amazing!!! My husband who doesn’t usually love the healthier version of popular dishes loved it!!
Just made this for lunch. Only had one orange in hand, so I used 5 lemons. Wow! Tart and delicious! Sautéed snow peas from the garden and tossed it together. Will make this version again!!
How many does this serve?
Could I use coconut flour instead? I’m allergic to almonds. Thanks for the [email protected]:disqus
Yes, but the texture will be slightly different…
Thanks. Yeah almond flour sounds great here! I’m bummed since my pregnancy I have developed an allergy to almonds and various other things. I always appreciate your recipes. 🙂
At what temperature if I want to bake them in the oven?
350 works.
Love love love this recipe. I skipped the breading and my whole family loved it. I had left over sauce so we used it as a dip for bacon wrapped shrimp the next night!! AMAZING!!!
This was amazing! I think I got too much pith in it or too much rind as I had to add more honey.
Hi there, I have some Registered Dietitian colleagues thinking that the “Healthy” here in the title may be trumped by the 1 cup of saturated fat (coconut oil – about 1900 calories and 220gm fat-, tallow, or lard) that the recipe calls for. While the recipe looks DELICIOUS, what do you think could substituted here to make it healthy? Thanks for any feedback
I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one. I’m of the mindset that saturated fats from good sources (coconut oil, grassfed meats, etc) is healthy and good and fats like Canola oil and vegetable oil should be avoided at all cost. If you consider those franken oils healthy, by all means, you could sub vegetable oil.
Made this tonight. Followed recipe exactly but used my fry daddy to fry chicken. Wow, this was a knockout! Served it over spaghetti squash and a side of steamed broccoli. Plan to make this sauce in bulk and freeze it so it’s ready at a moment’s notice!
I made this the other night, it was great, but it was super sweet. What can i do to tone down the sweetness? I did use the honey which i’m sure made it sweet, but it helped to thicken it up as well.
You could omit some of the orange or just use more arrowroot to thicken instead of the honey.