Better than Takeout Truly Oven-Baked Sesame Chicken
Ditch the takeout menus! This fully oven-baked sesame chicken is just like the real deal!
My family loves sesame chicken — it’s always what everyone wants when we get Chinese takeout. But those takeout places load their dishes with sugar, MSG and other stuff that we don’t want to be eating on a regular basis. Also, I find the sesame chicken to be so heavy that I can’t eat more than a few bites, so I’ve been trying for years to figure out how to make a good sesame chicken at home.
I’ve seen many recipes that are described as “oven-baked” or “easy,” but really they’re anything but! You still have to make the sauce on the stovetop or even pan fry the chicken pieces first. I wanted something that was truly easy and oven-baked from start to finish.
Also, with a lot of those oven-baked recipes the chicken ends up dry and hard and the sauce is either thick and gloppy or runny. I wanted chicken that was moist and tender with a sauce the perfect consistency — in other words, just like the real deal!
Well, with this oven-baked sesame chicken recipe, I truly got what I was looking for! The secret is in the cornstarch, which is in the coating and the sauce, and results in a perfectly thick coating. Also, the chicken is not baked together with the sauce, which is what usually results in hard chicken. You keep it separate until the end, which keeps the chicken more moist. And this sauce is not loaded with so many heavy ingredients, so it’s lighter and easier to eat.
In other words, all the pluses of takeout chicken, none of the minuses — win-win!
If you do want to make this in advance, keep the sauce and chicken separate and then heat gently before putting them together. Overheating will dry out the chicken.
Watch a video of me making this oven-baked sesame chicken here!
If you’re serving this over rice, try my perfect every time oven-baked rice for a truly fully oven-baked dinner — no pots whatsoever!
Truly Oven-Baked Sesame Chicken
Ingredients
- 2 lbs. chicken cutlets, (approx.), cubed
- 1 cup cornstarch, divided
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 2 Tbsp toasted sesame oil
For the sauce:
- 1 cup honey
- 1 cup soy sauce
- 2 frozen ginger cubes, or 2 tsp dried ginger
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 3 Tbsp toasted sesame oil
- 2 Tbsp cornstarch
- ½ cup sesame seeds
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a bowl, toss the chicken pieces with ½ cup cornstarch. Add eggs and toss again to coat. Add remaining cornstarch and toss again. Add sesame oil and toss once more.
- Spread chicken on prepared baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes.
- While the chicken is baking, prepare the sauce: Place all ingredients besides sesame seeds in a bowl and whisk very well until everything is incorporated and cornstarch is dissolved.
- As soon as the chicken comes out of the oven, pour the sauce over the chicken and stir to coat. Add the sesame seeds and toss again.
- Serve immediately* over rice or noodles.
Notes
Recipe by Faigy Murray | https://mykitchenmystudio.com/oven-baked-sesame-chicken/
