Asian Lemon Chicken:
Lemon Chicken that is delicious and easy to make, with just the right sweet and tangy! Not too much sweet and not too much vinegar.
This lemon chicken makes for a great take-out fake-out, pair it with homemade egg drop soup, some delicious easy fried rice, and these pineapple egg rolls for a complete meal.
Asian Lemon Chicken
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I am a huge fan of the fast, tasty, and take-out inspired Asian dish, and one of our favorite menu items at the local chinese place we visit is their lemon chicken. They make this amazingly tangy, but still sweet enough to want to drink lemon sauce that they use on both their lemon chicken and their fried wontons. I love it. Love it.
But at about $16 a plate, it is not very economical to take the family out for lemon chicken. So, I searched out recipes and tried a million, to find my favorite one, and the inspiration for the creation of this version was from Damn Delicious. I make some alterations, and make it fit what our family likes, and what I typically have in my cupboard. It is super good, comes together in under 30 minutes, and costs way less than $16 a plate.
If you want to speed things up with this dish, feel free to just dredge your chicken in flour, and skip the second dredging. That just makes it nice and crispy, and gives it a good crust to catch the yummy, tangy, tasty lemon sauce.
Also, I purchased a small kitchen fryer a few years ago, and get a ton of use out of it, and I like that it feels less scary than heating oil in a pan. Is it just me, or is popping grease scary? You can find some great options for fryers here, and they are so easy to use.
Go Fresh and Customize
Also, Don’t use bottled lemon juice; fresh is best!
If you have smaller kids, feel free to cut your chicken into bite sized pieces and prepare it the same way. This is how we prepare our Orange Chicken, which is a similar dish and another family favorite. I like doing this because it means more surface to catch the sauce. For this reason, I sometimes double the sauce, so I can use it for fried wontons, crab and cream cheese wontons, or just to serve over brown rice. Yum!
Dinner Time Can be Family Festive Time
We like festive for every meal, because it really elevates family time and makes my children happy. When it comes to Asian food, our children begin to salivate and become joyful whenever they see the table set with chopsticks on bamboo dinner mats. We are just so festive like that. Or for that special Asian dinner date with my hubby, I love to dress my table with a beautiful Asian tablecloth runner. Now, if you like Asian, be sure and try some of our other favorites that follow.
Other Favorite Asian Dishes!
- Instant Pot Mongolian Beef
- Honey Walnut Shrimp
- Ginger Orange Chicken Meal Prep
- Lemon Chicken with Cilantro Brown Rice
- Chicken Asparagus Stir Fry Rice Noodles
- Easy Lemon Chicken
- Orange Chicken
- Beef and Broccoli
- Slow Cooker Beef and Broccoli
Asian Lemon Chicken
Ingredients
- 1.5 lbs boneless chicken breast cut into tenders
- 1 cup all purpose flour or if you are going gluten free, any gluten free flour works, I love potato flour when cooking asian themed
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- Salt and pepper
- 1 egg
- 1 cup milk
Lemon sauce
- 1/4 cup honey
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/3 cup gluten-free soy sauce
- 1 pinch of chili pepper flakes optional, adds a slight kick
- 1/3 cup pineapple juice
- 1 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 2 tsps apple cider vinegar
- 1 Tbs corn starch
- zest of one lemon
Garnish
- 1 tbs toasted sesame seeds
- 1/4 cup sliced green onions
Instructions
- In a small sauce pan over medium heat mix together all sauce ingredients, except corn starch, and stir until sugar melt.
- Bring to a boil, and let cook for 1-2 minutes, stirring frequently.
- Remove from heat, whisk in corn starch.
- Then set aside.
- Next, prepare chicken by cutting chicken into tender, then pat them dry.
- Then mix together salt and pepper (a few shakes of each) with the flour, and dredge your tenders
- Mix together milk, egg, and take dredged chicken, and dip into the egg, milk mixture
- Then dredge in flour again
- In a medium size skillet, heat oil until it sizzles when you flick water into it, but not so hot that steam is coming off. Fry your chicken tenders on each side until nice and brown. Or use a fryer heated to 375 degrees. Cook 3-4 minutes.
- Set on paper towels to catch excess oil
- Then toss with lemon sauce, which will be thin, but should have thickened up some while sitting.
- Garnish with toasted sesame seeds and fresh green onion
- Serve hot
Notes
Nutrition
Our recipe card software calculates these nutrition facts based on averages for the above ingredients, different brands, and quality of produce/meats may have different nutritional information, always calculate your own based on the specific products you use in order to achieve accurate macros for this recipe.
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Rachel Kathyg says
Rachael, this looks like some crazy yumminess. Honestly. Thanks for sharing. I am making this very soon (with orange instead of lemon—-would you believe it is almost impossible to get lemon here in Brazil)? found you at foodie friday linky. Pinned to try AND shared, because this looks awesome:) Have a really great holiday weekend.
Rachael says
I never would have thought lemon would be hard to come by. Hope you do make it and love it!
C Merrill says
I’ve made this with bottled lemon juice, which worked just fine.
Tyche says
Wow this is really eazy peazy lemon squeezy! 😀
marcie says
I love take-out inspired meals that can be made at home — they’re so much better! This looks delicious, and perfect for busy weeknights!
Deb@ Cooking on the Front Burner says
I love lemons so this dish is going on my must try menu!
Jamie @ Love Bakes Good Cakes says
We eat soooooo much chicken that I am always looking for new ways to cook it! This looks like a winner! 🙂
Debi @ DebiStangeland.com says
I really want to try this recipe. Can you elaborate on step one. What does “Mix together all sauce ingredients, and still until sugar melts, ” mean? Is this done in a saucepan or just cold? Is it supposed to say stir? I just want to make sure because this looks delicious.
Thanks. I’m a practicing cook and I like to do it right.
Rachael says
Thank you for pointing out my error. I have updated the recipe. You do mix it in a sauce pan over medium heat. Stir until the sugar melts, then strain (if you used crushed pineapple).
Kelly says
This looks really yummy but I am not a fan of frying, could you bake and still get the same type of texture?
Rachael says
I have never tried, but I would say you can certainly try. I recommend baking them on a cooling rack placed on top of a cookie sheet, that way their can be air flow under them, and the bottom won’t be soggy while the top is crunchy.
Miriam says
Hi! I am making this now and I notice the sauce is very thin. Should it have cornstarch or some other thickening agent to make it more of a glaze, or is it supposed to be a thin sauce? I’m following your recipe to the letter, so I’ll let you know how it turns out. Thank you! 🙂
Jessica Grimes says
I just made this & wondering the same thing! Very thin sauce.
Rachael says
I am sorry to hear that. I usually toss it right on the chicken, and the flour in the chicken coating helps thicken it up. If my kids are at all slow to the table, the drippings are usually fairly thick. However, if you want to use it on unbreaded chicken, or prefer a thicker sauce, definitely add some corn starch.
Rachael says
Oh I am so sorry. You can definitely add some corn starch. We make this regularly and it usually cooks down some, and once put on the coated chicken ends up nice and thick. I will take a look at how I wrote the recipe, and adjust if needed. Thanks
Madison says
I just tried this tonight, and it was really good, but next time I will not use as much Apple Cider Vinegar. Both my and my husband drink a mix of apple cider vinegar and honey when we are sick, so when I used Apple Cider Vinegar in this recipe, and the smell was so strong it kind of put a bad taste in our mouth. But we still ate it, and it was very good, but we just couldn’t do the smell, so maybe next time use it without or a lot less. This recipe was dang good!!!