Sweet and Sour Chicken baked in one pot

This is a delicious sweet and sour chicken baked in one pot. Do you love this old family favourite? OMG you are going to think this new way to cook it is a keeper

There is much to love about this one pot chicken. It’s a true family favourite and one that everyone loves. This sweet and sour chicken is cooked in a completely new way.

Yes, it’s gluten free and it tastes just like the sweet and sour chicken you know and love. This one simple one pot will make enough for the whole family or a group of people by simply throwing it all together and baking it.

To make this sweet and sour I use skin on bone in thigh portions. They stay juicy and the skin goes crispy. As always though, this recipe is customisable. You can use thigh fillets, drumsticks or even a whole chicken. You just have to adjust the cooking time. Always test chicken by inserting a skewer in the thickest part of the meat or make sure it is over 67C.

The best part of sweet and sour is the lovely coating on the outside, don’t you think?. That’s why I love to use skin on pieces. After turning in cornflour and baking on top of the sauce they have the best texture. Just like your favourite sweet and sour Pork and Chicken from the Chinese Restaurant

What do I need to make One Pot Sweet and Sour?

It takes just a few simple ingredients to make this. You’ll need a baking dish or a large frying pan.

• Chicken pieces- preferably with skin on
• Cornflour and egg white. This forms a nice crust that isn’t spongey thick and will not soak up the sauce. The great bit is that the excess cornflour also thickens the sauce!
• Chunky cut onion and red capsicum
• Tomato sauce- This is common everyday tomato sauce, but you can use a chilli tomato sauce too if you like
• soy sauce- the one to use is light soy, which just means light in colour. Don’t use a dark sauce ( this is thick and intense and extra salty
• Rice vinegar is a gentle vinegar, that is never too strong and you can find this in the Asian section at the supermarket
• pineapple juice – unsweetened- you can use the juice and pieces (if you like) from a can of pineapple
• brown sugar for colour and sweetness
• garlic and ginger

Fuss Free fully baked Sweet and Sour Chicken

Sweet and Sour has childhood memories. We loved fried rice and and found Sweet and Sour Pork and Chicken and sometimes fish very exotic. We generally went to the restaurant to eat, but sometimes on a Friday night we ordered takeaway. There was no home delivery and no ordering over the phone. We went to the shop to order, and waited for it to be cooked before taking it home.

This sweet and sour sauce is the perfect balance. Some examples of sweet and sour sauce are both extra sweet and extra vinegary. It isn’t unusual for some to be heavily coloured too.

As usual, you can add more sugar if you want, more vinegar and even pineapple fresh or canned if that’s what you like too. I only used some fresh pineapple as garnish

1. Below you will notice the large frypan I used. I added the chunky chopped vegetables and grated that ginger and garlic into the pot too.
2. Next, you will see the start of my sauce. This is pineapple juice. It’s best to mix all of the ingredients together before adding to the dish. See the next picture

3. Here you’ll see all of the sauce ingredients combined and mixed well into the dish. At this stage you can add pineapple either fresh or canned if you like it!

4. Next pop the chicken that has been coated in egg white and cornflour on top of the sauce.

5. It has a deliciously browned and thin coating when baked

6. Turn the chicken over in the sauce and bake for a further 10 minutes just to make the chicken shiny and well coated.

If you liked this recipe you will love these other one pot chicken dishes

Butter chicken traybake

Baked chicken Stroganoff

Korean one pot chicken

Balinese Baked chicken

One Pot Chicken with dijon and mushrooms

Sweet and sour chicken baked in one pot

This is a delicious sweet and sour chicken baked in one pot. Do you love this old family favourite? OMG you are going to think this new way to cook it is a keeper

Prep Time 20 mins

Cook Time 35 mins

Course Chicken, Chicken Dishes, One pot cooking

Cuisine Asian Fusion, Asian Inspired

Ingredients  

• 1.5 kg chicken thighs skin on bone in | 3.3 lb
• 500 ml pineapple juice, unsweetened | 2 cups 3.3lb
• 250 ml rice wine vinegar | 1 cup
• 100 gm brown sugar | 3/4 cup
• 80 ml soy sauce, light | 4 Tbsp | gluten frree if required
• 1 Tbsp ginger, grated
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 100 ml tomato sauce | 1/2 cup
• 60 gm cornflour | 1/2 cup
• 1 whole eggwhite
• 1 large red capsicum, cut into large squares
• 1 large onion cut into very large dice

Instructions 

• Set the oven to 190 C | 375 F. You will need a baking dish. I used a 32cm round oven proof frypan but any baking dish will work. it should be big enough that you can put all the chicken in one layer.

• Put the cornflour into a large bowl and add the chicken. Toss the chicken into the cornflour and roll it around to coat. Add the egg white and toss until the chicken and cornflour now looks like a thin batter. This will both thicken the sauce and make a nice coating on the chicken when it’s baked. Set aside

• To make the sauce grate the ginger finely and crush the garlic. Add both to the baking dish along with the soy sauce, tomato sauce, sugar, pineapple juice, and rice vinegar. Stir together well. You could do this in a bowl and then pour it into the baking dish but why make more dishes?

• Add the roughly diced onion and capsicum (pepper), stir again. Put the chicken pieces on top of the sauce. I make sure you rub that chicken onto the sides of the bowl and get all the cornflour mix stuck to the sides onto that chicken. The chicken should be sitting above the sauce. Half in half out

• Put the dish into the oven. Bake for 35 minutes, before piecing the centre of the biggest piece with a knife or skewer to make sure it is cooked through. This of course will depend on the size pieces you have, your oven, and how spaced out the pieces are. The boneless chicken will not take as long again. Please check chicken, if still pink give it another 10 minutes.

• Take the tray out of the oven and turn each piece of chicken over in the sauce to coat and then bake again for 5 to 10 minutes.

• Serve with chopped cucumber, pineapple and coriander and rice of course!

Notes

You can make this sweet and sour with drumsticks, boneless thigh pieces or even a whole chicken. You can also make this with fish use a nice thick cut
You cook a pork belly and then finish it in this sauce before serving
You could add vegetables only and cook them in the sauce
So many ways to use this sweet and sour sauce
Do you like your sweet and sour with pineapple?. You can add fresh cut pineapple or canned pineapple about 2-300 gm.  
If you can’t get rice vinegar use 150ml white vinegar 
To make this vegetarian use large chunky vegetables like cauliflower florets, whole mushrooms, broccoli chunks, zucchini thick-cut rounds red and green peppers and sliced firm tofu any other vegetables you may like. I also add a 1/4 cup of yeast flakes for flavour into the sauce. Stir everything around and then add the vegetables. The vegetables and tofu need to be dusted in the cornflour (in the recipe)and popped straight into the sauce. There no need to fry them. The cornflour helps thicken the sauce as they cook. Turn the vegetables and tofu over halfway through the baking time.

Keyword chicken dishes, onepot, sweetsour