PF Chang's Sweet and Sour Chicken Recipe

P.F. Chang's sweet and sour chicken is fried chicken in a sweet and sour sauce with pineapple, onion, bell peppers and ginger. This copy coats a pound and a half of chicken in egg and cornstarch, fries it at 350°F, and tosses it at the last moment with a sauce of sugar, rice vinegar, ketchup and pineapple juice. Forty minutes, four servings.

What P.F. Chang's puts in its sweet and sour chicken

The restaurant's menu, as listed on Yelp, gives the dish in one line: "Sweet & sour sauce, pineapple, onion, bell peppers, ginger". The frozen version sold as P.F. Chang's Home Menu is described as a sweet and tangy sauce with pineapple, bell peppers and white meat chicken.

Neither gives a recipe. Ginger is on the restaurant's list, so it goes into the stir-fry here. This is a reconstruction; MakeFoodLovely is not connected with P.F. Chang's.

Recipe

PF Chang's Sweet and Sour Chicken

A reconstruction of P.F. Chang's sweet and sour chicken — cornstarch-coated fried chicken in a sweet and sour sauce with pineapple, onion, bell peppers and ginger. Four servings.

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Prep

20 min

Cook

20 min

Total

40 min

Serves

4

Cuisine

Chinese-American

Ingredients

• For the sauce:
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup rice vinegar
• 1/4 cup ketchup
• 1/4 cup pineapple juice
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 2 tablespoons water
• For the chicken:
• 1 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon white pepper
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup cornstarch
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 cups vegetable oil, for deep-frying
• For the stir-fry:
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
• 1 red bell pepper, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 1 green bell pepper, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 1/2 medium onion, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 1 cup pineapple chunks

Instructions

1. Make the sauce: whisk the sugar, vinegar, ketchup, pineapple juice and soy sauce in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer. Stir the tablespoon of cornstarch into the water, whisk it into the sauce and simmer for 1 minute, until glossy and thick enough to coat a spoon. Set aside.
2. Toss the chicken with the salt, white pepper and egg in a bowl. Mix the 1/2 cup of cornstarch with the flour, add it to the chicken and toss until every piece is coated.
3. Heat the frying oil in a deep, heavy pan to 350°F. Fry the chicken in three batches for 4 to 5 minutes each, until golden and cooked through (165°F inside). Drain on a rack.
4. Heat the tablespoon of oil in a large skillet or wok over high heat. Stir-fry the ginger for 15 seconds, add the peppers and onion and stir-fry for 2 minutes, so they stay crisp. Add the pineapple and cook for 30 seconds more.
5. Pour in the sauce and bring it to a bubble. Add the fried chicken, toss for 30 seconds until coated, and serve at once.

Keeping the chicken crisp under the sauce

• Cornstarch in the coating. Cornstarch fries crisper than flour alone; the quarter cup of flour helps the coating stick.
• 350°F, in batches. Too much chicken at once drops the oil temperature, and the coating soaks up oil instead of setting.
• A thick sauce. The sauce is thickened before the chicken goes in, so it coats the pieces instead of soaking them.
• Thirty seconds. The chicken meets the sauce at the very end and goes straight to the table.

The USDA's safe temperature for poultry is 165°F. Check one piece from each batch with a thermometer, or cut it open.

The sweet and sour sauce on its own

The sauce is half a cup of sugar to a third of a cup of rice vinegar, with ketchup for colour and body and pineapple juice from the can of chunks. It makes about 1 cup and keeps two weeks in a jar in the refrigerator, which makes it a dipping sauce for anything fried.

White vinegar can replace the rice vinegar. It is sharper, so use 1/4 cup.

Without deep-frying

• Shallow-fry: half an inch of oil in a skillet at the same temperature, about 3 minutes a side.
• Air fryer: spray the coated pieces with oil and cook them at 400°F for 10 to 12 minutes, shaking the basket once.

What to serve with it

Steamed rice, to take up the sauce. For a starter in the same style, serve lettuce cups with the P.F. Chang's lettuce wrap sauce.

Other fried chicken on this site includes the Taco Bell chicken nuggets and the Popeyes chicken nuggets.