General Tso's Chicken

I skipped frying the chicken, and instead dusted it with cornstarch seasoned with salt and pepper, then browned it in a small amount of oil. I followed the rest of the recipe exactly, and it tured out great!

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wow i thought this was pretty good!! i am not a cook but i can follow directions and measure. i had no problems making this. the slurry worked fine. i'm not sure what others are complaining about. i don't own a thermometer but had no problems. my chicken was crispy. follow the directions and its good.

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This is an absolutely wonderful recipe!!! So happy I found it. I did make a few changes though...

1. In order to make this dish a little healthier, I skipped frying the chicken. I just seasoned with salt and pepper and cooked in a small amount of olive oil until crispy. Once the sauce was on it, I did not miss the fried part of it and you really could not tell a difference.

2. Sauce: I added fresh ginger and orange juice instead of water. Both added another set of great flavors.

3. I briefly steamed some fresh broccoli and red peppers and added them into the sauce with the chicken.

I will definitley be making this again!

And to all the negative reviews, don't pay attention. People need to use some of their own decision making in the kitchen instead of relying on a recipe to tell them EXACTLY what to do and EXACTLY how long to do something...when the chicken is crispy and cooked, it's done! When the sauce is as thick as you'd like it, take it off the heat :)

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I love this recipe. Especially the slurry. I used to make General Tso's just flouring the chicken and frying it, but with the slurry it turned out SO much better! Nice and crispy without the sauce, and perfectly in the middle of crispy and soft with it. The sauce was amazing. A little thick, but then again, that's exactly how General Tso's is supposed to be.

The people who say "I hated it and my dinner guests hated it" I say that's more your own incompetence in the kitchen than a problem with the recipe.

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I'm not a great cook but I regularly cook at home. It tasted as good as Tiki Ming Tao's !! Two steps to remember, the slurry (that is pretty much dry wall ciment) DROP ALL THE CHICKEN IN IT! One shot, no pieces dipping. All the pieces in it, magic happens and the slurry turns sauce-like. AND, read the damn receipe : Chicken in the sauce, not more that what heede to get hot chickenb pieces and coated with the sauce... Else, your slurry will turn like mine : not crispy, back to paste-like texture.

And for the green onion, white ones do too... big chunks !

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LOVE THIS! I've made it more than a few times now and get great reviews every time I make it for someone new. I also use the recipe for the slurry for the chicken whenever we do other types of stirfry and I always have to make extra so my husband has some to snack on! One change is I usually add a little hot pepper sesame oil to add an extra kick to the sauce. THANKS SO MUCH for sharing this recipe!

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The first time I made this it came out amazing. The second time I made it using the store brand cornstarch and the chicken did not stay crispy at all and the batter even looked different. My kids went crazy for this both times I made it though, but personally I like when the chicken stays crispy. The sauce is excellent, but when I added brown sugar to it, it was right on the money to my favorite restaurant. Actually, everyone said it was better. It is the best General Tso's recipe I have ever tried and I like the fact that you don't need to buy any hard to find or expensive ingredients.

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Maybe I did something wrong here but my dish turned out terribly. It ended up like a gooey black mess and just tasted like Soy. First of all "20 min prep" needs to be updated to 1-2 hours of prep + another hour of cooking. Granted I am not a pro chef but this was probably the most time consuming / complicated recipe I have made, and it also creates a rediculous amount of dishes to clean up afterwords. The recipe is not too clear in my opinion. Is it assuming that we have a deep fryer? How do I know if my oil is 400 degrees or not? I have no idea if I was under or over cooking the meal. "cook until thick" I am not sure what that means, ours ended up like a sticky pudding consistency. I thought it needed to cook more but my wife thought it was too thick already, so we left it as it was. I gave the recipe 2 stars because the coated chicken pieces were excellent and I plan to make those again using a different sauce. I do have a problem with the slurry mix though. Surely there is a typo there, there is more cornstarch than liquid and yet in step 2 of the instructions it sounds as though it should be a sauce that is dripping off the chicken. It was literally a hard sticky paste and was very difficult to coat the chicken with. I will follow other peoples ideas to simple coat the chicken in egg and soy and shake in a bag of cornstarch. My recipe looked nothing at all like the picture here so I am sure I did something wrong. Unfortunately the amount of work involved in this recipe negates the desire to try again to do it right. I would recommend this recipe only for experienced cooks.

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I registered just to review this recipe. Turned out fantastic. The slurry was like cement at first, but I kept the faith and was rewarded with very crispy chicken. If you have a candy thermometer and don't mind micro-managing your burner heat a little bit you can fry as many pieces of chicken in the oil as you like, just be sure to turn the heat up to compensate for the amount you're frying.

One word of caution for timing at the end, if you really want your chicken to stay crispy: There's a lot of sauce per chicken (which I like anyway), so serve it up quick after you coat the chicken. Obviously, if you soak something crispy in any liquid and let it sit it won't stay crispy very long :P

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I made this pretty close to the way it's listed here with just a few added suggestions from the other reviewers. I added a teaspoon or so of fresh ginger and also some orange juice to the sauce. It came out SO WELL. To those of you confused by the slurry, it is supposed to be like that. Haven't you ever mixed cornstarch and water together as a kid? It's called a non-Newtonian fluid. Yes, it is difficult to get it to cover the chicken, but it is not impossible. Like others said, dump all of the chicken chunks in it at the same time and take the time to mix it up. It will work out fine.

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I registered just so I could rate this recipe. Some of the negative reviews scared me but I went ahead and made it because I had chicken tenders to use up. Next time, and there certainly will be a next time, I'll use thighs. It sounded like it would take forever but to my surprise it went quite quickly and even with the wrong chicken, came out very well. I'll be making again. Thank you, Hope, for a great recipe. I love Chinese and never had any luck making it but this is great.

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I love this recipe. I substitute a lot of ingredients due to food allergies (use fermented coconut sauce instead of soy sauce), so my results may be different, but I think I have figured out the secret to the sauce. You have to cook it until you cannot smell any vinegar or alcohol or any fermented smell at all. you must cook it until it begins to smell sweet. This is why many like it better the second day. I usually have to add more water to keep it from thickening before it has sweetened. If I don't let it sweeten, it is decidedly off, even sour tasting. And YES! It is equally good without all that deep fat frying. And guilt free.

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This was excellent! I added a little extra water to the batter (slurry), used brown sugar in place of white, added some chili paste, sesame oil and ginger to the sauce and used water in place of chicken broth. I also only used about 1/3 C of corn starch in the sauce. Overall, this is definitely worth the effort to make instead of ordering take-out! Just as good or better than I have had from any restaurant. Thank you for this recipe!

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I can not even begin to express how much my family enjoyed this meal. The finished product turned out surprisingly delicious. Most of all it is a fun let's get the family involved type of recipe.
It's one of my family's favorite recipes. Thank You.

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the best ive ever eaten! better than any resturant too!

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Not sure what all the ravings are about. I thought this was average at best and my husband agreed. I saved the sauce recipe in case I want to refer back in the future, but even then I would decrease or omit the vinegar altogether, switch the sugar from white to brown, and change the cornstarch in the sauce to 1/3 cup which yielded a perfect consistency. I measured the slurry as listed and it did work out just fine. But, people must understand you can't add just one piece of chicken to the slurry and expect results. You must add all the chicken pieces to the bowl of slurry and combine them. That said, it really isn't worth the trouble because the result is a less than crispy, rather FAR from crispy chunk of chicken. All in all I won't make it again with all things considered. Flavor wasn't outstanding and nothing like a restaurant dish, and it was too laborious for what you get in the end.

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This slurry? Sorry but it becomes glue in a deep fryer. Thanks to this recipe, I have ruined the basket in my fryer. I've had many versions of this recipe before, this one is not good.

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Wow I'm sorry but I was not impressed. This is one of my husband and I's favorite dish at any chinese restraunt, and this was no where close. As others said, the mixture to coat chicken was difficult to work with. While the sauce was ok, it wasn't what I expected. Too sweet with not enough spice. I was also concerned because after reading the introduction it mentions fresh ginger, but that is nowhere in the list of ingredients. I'll keep looking. Thanks.

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This dish calls for very, very crispy chicken bites which this recipe did not produce. The sauce was only ok, but can be worked with. I even tried to twice fry the chicken, but no luck. I suspect one needs to add baking powder to acheive desired results. Better luck next time!

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I loved the texture of the chicken. I do not often fry food, but I was in the mood to make something that I love from Chinese restaurants. The slurry made an awesome batter. I did add an extra egg because mine was too dry. I tried the chicken because they were so beautiful after I fried them. They were great chicken nuggets. The soy sauce added just the right amount of salt to season the chicken. I also used the the regular sodium Kikkoman soy sauce not the low sodium. The Asian culture use soy sauce in place of salt. It is how they salt their food. Unless you have hypertension or renal problems eat and enjoy your salt. I also used boneless skinless chicken thighs. I love dark meat, and I think it has a better taste.

The sauce was great. I did add extra garlic. Also, in conjunction with the green onions I put in two green peppers that were in bite size pieces and a yellow onion chopped into bite size pieces. I also like a little more heat. I put in one large Jalapeno sliced. I think it could have used a few more, but I wanted to make sure it would not be too spicy. I did not know how hot the chillies that I put in would make it. I loved this. I also forgot to say, I used one of Julia Childs tips, and it worked perfectly. for my white wine I used vermouth. My mother hates wine in her food, and she had no idea. Vermouth has a great flavor and is perfect for cooking.

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