Chinese salt and pepper chicken is one of the favorite dishes in the takeaway world. It’s a spiced fry chicken that everybody will love.
This is one of the few Chinese dishes that I can say it’s pretty simple. The recipe is basically small fried chicken pieces seasoned with Chinese spices.
As the name indicated the main flavor is salt and pepper. The outcome can be a little bit salty but if you add some plain rice as a side dish you get a balance in the flavors.
Also, you can use some dipping sauce — like a sweet chili pepper sauce — to balance the saltiness in the chicken.
Personally, I enjoy the salt in the recipe because that’s the exact point of this recipe. The chicken is mainly seasoned and partial curated with salt and pepper.
But this recipe is not a simple fry chicken. After getting a perfect golden fry chicken, the next step is to create a “sauce” with oil, garlic, ginger, and hot chili pepper to give a final spicy punch of flavor.
I hope you like this recipe as much as I do and I see you in the next one!
More Chinese recipes
Chinese sour and sweet chicken
Chinese cashew and zucchini chicken
Salt and Pepper Chicken
Ingredients
- 2 boneless chicken breast cut into cubes
- 1 egg
- ½ cup cornstarch
- 1 tsp sesame oil
- 2 tbsp sherry or cooking white wine
- 1 hot chili pepper
- 3 garlic cloves minced
- 1 tsp ginger paste
- 1 tsp salt (divided)
- ½ tsp ground black pepper (divided)
- ½ tbsp Chinese 5 spices
- Canola oil for frying (enough to fry the chicken)
Instructions
- In a big bowl season the chicken pieces with sesame oil, sherry (or white wine), Chinese 5 spices, ¼ tsp black pepper, and ½ tsp salt. Let it marinate for 10 minutes.
- Add, to the same bowl, the beaten egg and the cornstarch and mix until you get a tick batter covering the chicken pieces.
- In a frying pan add enough canola oil to cover half of the chicken. Fry until the chicken pieces start to get slightly golden and then flip them to get it evenly cooked. When the chicken is done remove it from the oil and take it to a plate with some absorbent paper towel.
- In a saute pan add 1 tbsp of canola oil and saute the chili pepper --- cut into small cubes ---, the garlic cloves and the ginger paste for 1 minute until slightly brown.
- Toss the chicken, ¼ tsp black pepper, and ½ tsp salt and cook for 3 minutes until the chicken pieces are coated with the rest of the ingredients. Serve.
I’m Maria and I love cooking—and mostly EATING—food from all around the world. I’ve been sharing my abuela’s secret Latin-American recipes for the last 7 years with the world on this blog. I’ve been a full-time food blogger for many years and I’m always trying new delicious meals that don’t require a culinary degree or a Michelin-star chef. I also love traveling, cats, and knitting.