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Home » Main Dish » Chicken » General Tso’s Chicken Chinese New Year Celebration
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General Tso’s Chicken Chinese New Year Celebration

By Rachael | Updated on January 13, 2020

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This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #NewYearFortune #CollectiveBias

General Tso’s chicken with a twist, fantastic authentic egg rolls, and a collection of fun ideas for celebrating the Chinese New Year, and the Year of the Sheep!General Tso's Hero Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year is the longest and most important of the celebrations in the Chinese calendar. It is celebrated in a variety of ways across China, with each providence celebrating with their own traditions. However, some of those traditions carry over and are used across China, such as Red Packets, which are red envelopes of money that are given to the children and are used to ward off evil, celebrating luck in the coming year, and eating delicious foods, including traditional appetizers, as a family. We went with Tai Pei egg and spring rolls which come in chicken, pork, shrimp, and vegetable varieties, and offer authentic flavors and a perfect easy peasy addition to your celebration. There is just something I love about biting into a crunchy egg roll wrapper and having my mouth flooded with fresh flavors, add a sweet and sour dipping sauce and I am hooked!

Tai Pei

In addition to the crunchy and flavorful egg and spring rolls, this year for Chinese New Year I decided to celebrate with some of the traditions and a main dish recipe that perfectly complimented the fresh, crisp veggie spring rolls and chicken egg rolls I served: General Tso’s Chicken with a twist! I love introducing my kids to new ideas and cultures, and any excuse for a party!

So I took a look at what some of the traditions are.  There are fireworks, which is awesome! I absolutely love fireworks, but decided to skip that for my party since my kids are little, and fire and little kids don’t exactly mesh well.

Another tradition is a family feast. I LOVE this idea because I am all about the food. So I did some recipe testing, and came up with this fantastic recipe for General Tso’s chicken, but I put a little twist on it to keep things interesting.

The twist: I used pineapple juice instead of water to make it extra sweet and tangy and fun! This is amazing. I like mine with a kick so I put in a little bit of sriracha too, but my kids said it was too spicy so I left it out of the recipe!

General Tso 2Recipe inspired by : Carlsbad Cravings

Serve with:

  • Egg drop soup
  • Fried rice
  • Instant Pot Lava Cakes for dessert

General Tso's Chicken Chinese New Year Celebration

General Tso’s chicken with a twist, fantastic authentic egg rolls, and a collection of fun ideas for celebrating the Chinese New Year, and the Year of the Sheep!
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Print Pin Rate
Course: Chicken
Cuisine: Chinese
Keyword: chinese new year, tso's chicken
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 30 minutes
Servings: 4
Calories: 650kcal
Author: Rachael

Ingredients

  • 2-3 lbs of chicken cut into bite sized pieces
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tbs water
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1/2 tsp black pepper
  • 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 Tbs ground ginger

Sauce

  • 1/3 cup soy sauce
  • 1/3 cup rice wine not rice wine vinegar
  • 1 Tbs white vinegar
  • 2 tsp paprika
  • 1 tsp red curry paste
  • a pinch of crushed red pepper flakes
  • 3 Tbs minced garlic
  • 1/3 cup pineapple juice
  • 1/2 inch fresh ginger root chopped really small
  • 1 tsp ground ginger
  • 2 Tbs corn starch
  • Vegetables of choice

Caramel Sauce

  • 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 1/4 cup water

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 425 degrees
  • Cut chicken into bite sized pieces
  • Whisk 1 tbs of water and egg together, and coat chicken pieces with the egg
  • In a plastic bag, mix together the flour, pepper, salt, and ground ginger
  • Take chicken pieces coated in egg and dredge in the flour mixture
  • Get a cookie sheet and put a cooling rack on top, then place chicken pieces on top of cooling rack, and spray with cooking spray.
  • Bake for 15 minutes, flip half way through, then turn oven on to broil, and broil 2 minutes per side to crisp up the chicken.
  • While chicken is cooking, in a large bowl, mix together the sauce ingredients, except the corn starch
  • In a heavy sauce pan, stir together sugars and water and bring to a boil, stir constantly until sugar melts, then remove from heat right away (Should be a caramel like mixture)
  • Pour into sauce mixture, and stir together. Then whisk in the corn starch to thicken
  • Put in a pan with vegetables of choice (Sugar snap peas or broccoli) and sautee for 1-2 minutes, then put cooked chicken in, toss to coat and serve over rice!

Nutrition

Calories: 650kcal | Carbohydrates: 88g | Protein: 27g | Fat: 18g | Saturated Fat: 5g | Cholesterol: 122mg | Sodium: 1766mg | Potassium: 424mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 54g | Vitamin A: 1020IU | Vitamin C: 5.6mg | Calcium: 66mg | Iron: 4mg

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.

Tried this recipe?Mention @ezpzmealz or tag #ezpzmealz!
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During Chinese New Year, people typically wear red. In fact, red is the color of the celebration because it symbolizes fire, which according to legend will drive away bad luck. I thought it would be fun to incorporate the red with red napkins, red lanterns, and of course, “lucky money” filled red envelopes.

chinese new year, red envelopes, celebration, holidayAnother fun custom is that of lanterns being used. These lanterns are often painted, and are works of art. They are hung on temples or carried in parades. And I think they are beautiful. So I went out and bought some red lanterns to use to decorate our table and make our Chinese New Year celebration even more exciting.

red lanternsAnd like any New Year celebration, one of the traditions of Chinese New Year is Shou Sui, which means “after the New Year’s Eve dinner.” It is the tradition of staying up all night (or at least til midnight) after enjoying a family feast together. Our feast included the General Tso’s chicken, but as I already mentioned, it also included a fantastic, authentic, Tai Pei® frozen appetizer tray of spring rolls and egg rolls. I loved this because you get all the authentic flavor without any of the work. They literally cook in just minutes, and have crispy wrappers, fresh cut veggies, and hearty chicken, and other meats (pork and shrimp), or a vegetable only option, which make for great flavor. I love using these because they are so convenient, come with a fantastic dipping sauce (or you could make your own), and taste great! Did I mention they are baked? Big plus. And the box contains microwave instructions for those that don’t even want to preheat their oven!

Tai Pei® frozen appetizers are an easy and fun way to share the authentic fun of Chinese New Year, and you can pick them up at your local Walmart, so even better!

tai pei in store

To learn more about Chinese New Year, and how you can use Tai Pei® authentic appetizers that cook up in just minutes to celebrate,  check out the Chinese New Year app on the Tai Pei® Facebook page. When visiting, look for The Red Envelope tab which includes a coupon (While supplies last).

If you love Chinese food be sure to check out some of the other options offered here on Eazy Peazy Mealz:

Beef and Broccoli

beef and broccoliLemon Chicken

lemon chicken, chicken, asian chicken, lemon, lemon chicken dish, easy lemon chickenShrimp and Veggie Egg Rolls

egg rolls #timetobelieveCrab and Cream Cheese Wontons

crab and cream cheese wontons

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Related categories:
Chicken Lifestyle Main Dish#NewYearFortune asian food celebrate chicken chinese food chinese new year egg rolls general tso's chicken

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Erica (@Erica's Recipes) says

    February 12, 2015 at 11:09 am

    congrats on another delicious recipe!
    Reply
    • Rachael says

      February 12, 2015 at 8:34 pm

      Thanks Erica!
      Reply
  2. bblad says

    February 12, 2015 at 11:27 am

    Oh this looks so good! I've been craving Chinese food this pregnancy. Pinning this so I don't forget it!
    Reply
    • Rachael says

      February 12, 2015 at 8:34 pm

      Congrats on the pregnancy, and I hope you love it!
      Reply
  3. Natalie @ Life Made Simple says

    February 12, 2015 at 2:17 pm

    Yum! Our family loves making Chinese food at home! This chicken would definitely be a hit!
    Reply
  4. Michele @ Flavor Mosaic says

    February 12, 2015 at 2:56 pm

    Now I want this for dinner tonight!
    Reply
  5. Renee's Kitchen Adventures says

    February 12, 2015 at 7:44 pm

    I love everything about this CNY meal!
    Reply
  6. HonestAndTruly says

    February 12, 2015 at 11:22 pm

    Ooo that General Tso's chicken looks tasty. What a great way to incorporate the Chinese New Year with your foods - both homemade and storebought! #client
    Reply
  7. Evelyn @ My Turn for us says

    February 13, 2015 at 6:49 am

    This is one of my favorite Chinese dishes! Love adding a homecooked dish and these easy eggrolls to make the celebration complete! And I always enjoy hearing about different cultures and traditions, thanks for sharing!! This sounds like a fun way to celebrate, red envelopes and all!!
    Reply
    • Evelyn @ My Turn for us says

      February 13, 2015 at 6:50 am

      PS Totally pinning!!
      Reply
  8. Carrie @Frugal Foodie Mama says

    February 13, 2015 at 7:28 am

    This is one of our favorites to order from Chinese takeout, but I have never tried making General Tsos at home. I am definitely going to have to give this recipe a go soon! :)
    Reply
  9. Sheena @ Hot Eats and Cool Reads says

    February 13, 2015 at 8:17 pm

    The chicken and egg rolls both look delicious!! I could totally go for some Chinese food right now!
    Reply
  10. linda pudvah says

    February 19, 2015 at 10:42 am

    made this and it was incredible...very delicious...ty
    Reply
    • Rachael says

      February 19, 2015 at 4:52 pm

      I am so happy to hear it! Thank you for letting me know.
      Reply

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Rachael from Eazy Peazy Mealz

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