Sweet & Sour Chicken with Sriracha

I've been on a bit of a Chinese chicken kick lately!  My husband keeps asking when I'm gonna stop.  My answer is always "when Pinterest runs out of Chinese chicken recipes for me to try."  This sweet & sour chicken pin looked really good but when I clicked through to the recipe I immediately started editing the recipe in my head.  Here's how it went...

Here's your ingredients... The first obvious change I made was adding Sriracha to the sauce recipe.  The second was reducing the sugar.  The recipe called for a whooping 1 cup of sugar!  Let's not forget people that there is a ton of sugar in ketchup.  I reduced the sugar to 1/4 cup.  The last change I made to the ingredients was using garlic powder instead of garlic salt.  I never use garlic salt because I like to be able to control the amount of salt in my recipes. 

So the first thing you do is cut up your boneless skinless chicken breast into bite sized pieces.  In a bowl mix together 3/4 cup cornstarch, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper, and 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder.  Add in your chicken and gently (to avoid getting hit in the face with a plume of cornstarch) stir to coat. 

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Heat up 1/4 cup canola or vegetable oil in a large non-stick skillet over medium-high heat.  Break 2 eggs into a bowl and whisk until smooth.  When the oil is good and hot start dipping the chicken pieces into the eggs and toss into pan.  It's best to do this in 2 or 3 batches so you don't overcrowd your pan.  The egg causes the chicken to stick together.  Cook for 2 minutes per side until golden brown.  Place on foil lined baking sheet.

Put your chicken in the oven and set a timer for 10 minutes.  This is a little different from the original recipe.  I wanted it to cook faster and hopefully get the chicken crispy.  So I turned up the heat and baked it first with no sauce.

For the sauce in this recipe I strayed a bit from the original.  For starters I cooked the sauce a bit before pouring it on the chicken.  So in a small sauce pan combine 1/4 cup sugar, 1/3 cup ketchup, 1 teaspoon garlic powder, 1/2 cup white vinegar, 1 tablespoon soy sauce and 1 tablespoon sriracha.  If you want to kick up the heat a bit more, add more sriracha! Go nuts!  Bring the sauce up to a boil for a few minutes, at least until the sugar is dissolved.

After the chicken has cooked for 10 minutes remove from oven and pour sauce over.  Toss the chicken until evenly coated in sauce.  Return to oven and cook for 5 minutes.  Toss and cook for another 5 minutes. Serve over rice.

We really enjoyed this chicken!  I really think the sriracha made all the difference.  If you use hot sauce a lot I definitely recommend giving it a try if you haven't yet! 

A bit of a warning about this recipe, the chicken really doesn't get all that crispy.  In the original pin the pictures really make the chicken look crispy.  But honestly unless you use a deep fryer you're never going to get that crispy chicken that you get from a Chinese restaurant.  If I find a way to do it without a deep fryer, you'll be the first to know. 

That being said, this chicken was delicious, I definitely recommend giving this one a try.  Here's a printable for my kicked up version.