Name: Orange Chicken 鲜橙鸡柳 (Air Fryer)
Prep time: 45 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 75 min
Ingredients: 600 g chicken breasts or thighs (boneless & skinless); 1.5 tbsp baking soda; 0.5 cup corn starch (or corn flour in Asia); 1 tsp salt; 0.5 cup vegetable oil (for air frying); 2 oranges (to make 1 cup juice); 1 tbsp vegetable oil; 2 tbsp honey; 2 tbsp rice vinegar; 2 tbsp soy sauce; 1 knob ginger (to make 0.25 tsp grated ginger); 2 cloves garlic; 0.25 tsp red chilli flakes; Orange zest (from the orange); 1 tbsp corn starch (or corn flour in Asia); 2 tbsp water (to mix with corn starch); 1 spring onion; Orange zest (from the orange)

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Orange chicken is never really popular in Southeast Asia. Some restaurants in Singapore may offer it but I do not recall my family or friends ever ordering it whenever we dine out. The Chinese orange chicken is made by deep frying chicken pieces and coating the meat with a tangy orange sauce made from fresh orange juice. The original Chinese version actually uses dried orange peel, thus called 橙皮鸡 or orange skin chicken, it is also not as sweet as the modern version.

To make this dish slightly healthier, I made a few modifications. Firstly, using the air fryer to fry the chicken instead of deep frying it, it saves me a lot of oil too. Secondly, I used lean chicken breast meat. As breast meat can be tough, I tenderised it with baking soda for 30 minutes, rinse it off, then coat with salt and corn starch before brushing it with a thin layer of vegetable oil before air frying. The orange sauce is made from freshly squeezed orange juice, full of vitamin C. And even though it’s cooked with soy sauce, I added Manuka honey, another good stuff, so the natural sweetness of the fresh orange and honey really makes the dish shine.

The harmonious fusion of crispy textures and vibrant zesty flavours is what makes this orange chicken dish so incredibly delicious. In fact, I made a batch in advance and pack into individual lunch boxes with jasmine rice and some tomatoes, making it a meal prep option. We had it for lunch and sometimes dinner during the week, simply by reheating it in the microwave for 3-4 minutes, or transfer it into a pan and warm it over the stove on medium heat.

Orange chicken is in fact one of the classic Chinese-American dishes that evolved to accommodate the ingredients available to the Chinese in the United States in the older days, as well as Chinese restaurants adapting the dish to the American palates. And it was precisely in the United States that I realised how popular and commonly available this dish is in Chinese restaurants in Chinatown and the franchising Panda Express.

Now, talking about Panda Express, when I was in the US for more than a month at one point of time, I was really craving for Chinese food and was jumping with joy when I saw Panda Express in one of the shopping mall in Michigan. But much to my disappointment, I find their rice noodles hard like cardboard and their famous General Tsao chicken tough and masked with too much of the sweet sauce. The same comment extends of their orange chicken, too tough, too sweet, too difficult to eat.

If you have an air fryer, do check out my other air fryer recipes: