Asian Sweet Chili Chicken is crispy, sticky, sweet, slightly spicy and completely addicting. This recipe is sure to be a new family favorite!
This sweet and spicy chicken is easy to prepare and takes hardly any time to fry. All of that to say you could be sitting down to a delicious Asian Dinner in the amount of time it takes you to steam the White Sticky Rice you’re making on the side.
Sabrina’s Asian Sweet Chili Chicken
Asian Sweet Chili Chicken combines two of my favorite things about Asian cooking, tempura batter and sweet chili sauce. The batter is perfectly light and crispy so that it doesn’t weigh down the meal. It is a mix of cornstarch and flour that you add ice water to (drain the ice out first). This means you’ll want to work fast because the colder that batter is the crispier it is going to be.
Recipe Card
Ingredients
Tempura Battered Chicken:
- 2 egg whites
- 1 cup all-purpose flour , sifted
- 1/2 cup cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 cup water , ice cold
- 2 tablespoons canola oil
- 1 pound chicken thighs , boneless-skinless and cut into 1 inch pieces
Sauce:
- canola oil for frying
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 3 cloves garlic , minced
- 3 green onions , sliced thinly, tip to tail not including the root
- 1/2 cup Thai sweet chili sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
Optional Garnishes:
- white sesame seeds
- minced green onions
Instructions
- Mix together the batter ingredients in a large bowl.
- Add the chicken pieces to the batter to coat.
- Heat a frying pan up with oil deep enough to fry your chicken pieces without them touching the bottom of the pan, a couple inches should be enough space.
- Using a slotted spoon drain the batter as much as possible and slide the chicken into the pan.
- Break apart the chicken after the crust starts to form and cook until the chicken is golden brown (4-5 minutes)
- Work in batches to prevent the oil from dropping too far in temperature.
- Remove the last batch of chicken from the pan and discard almost all the oil, leaving just a couple of tablespoons in the pan.
- Add the garlic and green onions to the pan and cook it on medium heat for 20-30 seconds.
- Add the chicken back in along with the sweet chili sauce and crushed red pepper.
- Toss to combine and serve immediately.
- Garnish with sesame seeds or green onions if desired.
Notes
Nutrition
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Table of contents
Chef’s Note: Tips for crispy chicken
A tip for making this dish as crispy and light as possible is cooking in a wok. I reference it a lot when it comes to Asian cooking because the high heat, quick cooking is the best way to get crispy small bites of proteins, like in my Mongolian Beef and Pineapple Chicken recipes.
Sometimes I also swap out ice water for ice cold club soda. I know what you’re thinking, who has club soda around the house? Well, you probably don’t if you live near me because I think I single handedly keep the stores within 5 miles of me out of stock I love it so much. Carbonation without the added stuff of sodas.
Kitchen Ingredients
- Sweet Chili Sauce: Adds that sweet, glaze to the dish that you’ll have trouble replicating without quite a lot of work, this is at the heart of the dish. If you’re in a pinch use the Trader Joe’s brand, add a bit more than written of the crushed red peppers since the Trader Joe’s variety is not spicy at all.
More Delicious Spicy Asian Recipes
Photos used in previous versions of this post
I’ve been using this recipe for years (all the way back to 2019 when I first put it in my recipe document) and it’s one of the three Asian chicken recipes I keep coming back to (my large family can never agree on which of the three is best and we like having variety… but this one is my favorite!). It’s a delicious recipe and so easy to tweak however you want it. All the ratios seem quite good too, we never end up with a significant amount of wasted tempura batter. I’m not one who usually reviews recipes but when I saw how few this one had I knew I should seeing just how often we make it. Delicious!
Thanks Carolyn and thanks for the five star review!
My son loves this recipe!!!!!!! He keeps asking me to make it!!!!!!!!!
Wonderful! Tell your son Thanks and thank you for the five star review.
Can you bake the chicken instead of frying it? Trying to do a healthier version of this. Thanks!
I haven’t tried this recipe in the oven. If I did, I’m guessing it would have to be at pretty high heat (like 400 degrees) to get the same glazed crunch. I’m super interested in hearing if you try this in the oven! Please let us know what you decided to do!