Salt and Pepper Chicken is a popular Chinese takeout dish, crispy chicken chunks are tossed in onion, capsicum, garlic, and crushed pepper. This super-easy homemade recipe comes together quickly with ingredients you probably already have in your pantry.
Extra crispy, full of flavour this Salt and Pepper Chicken tingles the taste buds and keeps you wanting more. If you love this moreish dish, you are going to love making it at home even more. Its fast, easy, gives you crispy chicken and takes less than 30 minutes to put it together.
It’s a dry chinese chicken dish that needs only a few ingredients, but like so many simple dishes, the flavours are awesome.
INGREDIENTS YOU WILL NEED:
- Chicken Thighs: Highly recommend choose chicken thighs over breasts. Thighs withstand the high cooking temperatures from deep frying and don’t dry out, leaving you with really juicy bites of chicken. You can also substitute it with chicken wings. However, the frying time will increase.
- Batter: The batter is made of corn flour, rice flour, egg, salt and pepper. A combination of corn flour and rice flour gives it a nice crispy coating and makes the batter really light
- Salt: fine sea salt.
- Pepper: freshly ground white or black peppercorns.
- Soy sauce: just for a hint of extra flavor. Use light soy sauce as dark soy sauce will overwhelm the flavor.
- Vinegar: you can use rice vinegar or white vinegar for tanginess. Use lemon juice instead.
- Oil: any high smoke point, neutral-flavored oil suitable for deep frying will work; such as vegetable oil, sunflower oil, canola oil, peanut oil, etc.
- Onion, Capsicum, Ginger and Garlic: essential aromatics for seasoning and flavor.
- Spring onion: for flavor and freshness.
HOW DO YOU MAKE CHINESE SALT AND PEPPER CHICKEN?
Chinese Salt and Pepper Chicken Wings are much easier to make than you might think. Here are the basic steps:
- Marinate the chicken (15 to 20 minutes) in a mixture of flour, egg, garlic, and ginger to give it lots of flavor.
- Fry the marinated chicken until golden brown all over.
- Heat oil in a wok on high heat. Once hot, add garlic, ginger and green onions. Fry on high heat for 45 seconds to a minute
- Add onion and capsicum and sauté on high heat for 2-3 minutes. Add soy sauce, vinegar, black pepper and the fried chicken pieces.
- Toss to combine and mix well. Sauté for 1-2 minutes. Add chopped spring onions and serve hot.
TIPS FOR MAKING EASY CHINESE SALT AND PEPPER CHICKEN:
- We need just very few ingredients in this recipe, so use the best and freshest.
- Prepare everything in advance, before you start cooking. This is a really quick recipe and the stir frying takes less than 5 minutes.
- You only need to marinate the chicken for 15 to 20 minutes. But if you have time, marinate it overnight for even more flavor.
- Use chicken wings, drumsticks, or boneless, skinless thighs that have been cut into chunks. You can use breast meat if you like, but I prefer using dark meat because it is more tender and more flavorful.
- You can use any neutral-flavored, high-smoke-point oil for frying. I usually use sunflower oil. Other good choices are peanut, canola, corn, vegetable, or grapeseed oil.
- Fry the chicken in batches so that you don’t crowd the pan. If you put too much chicken into the oil at once, it will lower the temperature of the oil and you won’t get that nice golden brown color.
- Fry the chicken in a deep fryer if that is what you have and if you are not sure about how hot the oil should be, use a cooking thermometer and fry the chicken at 180C/380F.
- Fry the chicken in batches so that you don’t crowd the pan. If you put too much chicken into the oil at once, it will lower the temperature of the oil and you won’t get that nice golden brown color.
- Bake the chicken pieces for a healthier option. This is good if you are on any diet plan, weight watchers, slimming world and the likes
- This recipe can be doubled to accommodate the numbers of people you are cooking for.
WHAT TO SERVE WITH CHINESE SALT AND PEPPER CHICKEN?
Here are some easy serving options for this recipe:
- Over steamed rice or cauliflower rice.
- In a lettuce wrap for a healthy appetizer option.
- Served cold as leftovers on top of greens or chopped cabbage for a salad.
- Another option is to simply add more stir-fry veggies when cooking (broccoli, snow peas, etc.) to make a more complete meal. Just add them in to cook (with the onion and pepper).
It’s a great party appetizer or game-day snack.
MORE INDO-CHINESE RECIPES TO TRY!
Burnt Garlic Mushroom Fried Rice
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Salt and Pepper Chicken
Salt and Pepper Chicken is a popular Chinese takeout dish, crispy chicken chunks are tossed in onion, capsicum, garlic, and crushed pepper.
Ingredients
Marinate:
- 500 g Chicken Thigh boneless skinless cut into strips
- 1 tsp Soy Sauce
- 2 tsp Black Pepper freshly ground
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1 Egg beaten
- 1 1/2 tbsp Corn Flour
- 1 1/2 tbsp Rice Flour
- Oil for frying
Stir-Fry:
- 2 tbsp Oil
- 1 tbsp Garlic finely chopped
- 1 tbsp Ginger finely chopped
- 1 tbsp Green Onions finely chopped
- 1 Onion thinly sliced
- 1 small Capsicum Green Bell Pepper cut into strips
- 1 tsp Soy Sauce
- ½ tsp Vinegar
- 1 tsp Black Pepper freshly ground
- Spring Onion Greens chopped for garnish
Instructions
- Add all the ingredients mentioned under marinate into a mixing bowl and mix well. Ensure there are no lumps of flour. Set aside.
- Heat oil in a deep pan, kadai or wok. Heat enough oil for deep frying the chicken pieces. Once hot, carefully add the marinated chicken pieces into the oil one at a time. Allow to fry on medium high heat for 4-5 minutes or until golden brown.
- Remove from the pan and transfer to a towel lined plate. Set aside.
- Heat oil in a wok on high heat. Once hot, add garlic, ginger and green onions. Fry on high heat for 45 seconds to a minute
- Add onion and capsicum and sauté on high heat for 2-3 minutes. Add soy sauce, vinegar, black pepper and the fried chicken pieces.
- Toss to combine and mix well. Sauté for 1-2 minutes. Add chopped spring onions and serve hot.
Notes
- There are very few ingredients in this recipe, so use the best and freshest.
- Prep everything in advance, before you start cooking. This is a really quick recipe and the stir frying takes less than 5 minutes so you won’t have time to chop anything later.
- You only need to marinate the chicken for 15 to 20 minutes. But if you have time, marinate it overnight for even more flavor.
- Use chicken wings, drumsticks, or boneless, skinless thighs that have been cut into chunks. You can use breast meat if you like, but I prefer using dark meat because it is more tender and more flavorful.
- You can use any neutral-flavored, high-smoke-point oil for frying. I usually use sunflower oil. Other good choices are peanut, canola, corn, vegetable, or grapeseed oil.
- Fry the chicken in batches so that you don’t crowd the pan. If you put too much chicken into the oil at once, it will lower the temperature of the oil and you won’t get that nice golden brown color.
- Fry the chicken in a deep fryer if that is what you have and if you are not sure about how hot the oil should be, use a cooking thermometer and fry the chicken at 180C/380F.
- Fry the chicken in batches so that you don’t crowd the pan. If you put too much chicken into the oil at once, it will lower the temperature of the oil and you won’t get that nice golden brown color.
- Bake the chicken pieces for a healthier option. This is good if you are on any diet plan, weight watchers, slimming world and the likes
- This recipe can be doubled to accommodate the numbers of people you are catering for.
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