Easy And Tasty Homemade Szechuan Chicken Recipe

Szechuan chicken is a Chinese dish that you will definitely love if you love spicy food.
Szechuan chicken has a lot of interesting flavors that you will discover after you’re done cooking this Chinese Szechuan chicken recipe. Besides the spiciness and the flavors, Szechuan chicken is a bit sweet because of the little sugar added to balance the heat in the chicken.
Think of it as a hot sweet dish.

The word ‘Szechuan’ basically means a cooking technique that is spicy and most importantly, involves the use of Szechuan peppercorns in the cooking process.
So if you’re cooking authentic Chinese Szechuan chicken and it has no Szechuan peppercorns, please stop cooking right now!

Ingredients for the Szechuan chicken recipe

• 8 boneless chicken thighs (You can also use chicken breast but you have to make sure you regulate the heat well because chicken breast gets ready very fast)
• 1 tablespoon each of dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, and Chinese Rice Wine
• ¼ tablespoon of white pepper
• 2 tablespoons of corn starch (maize flour)
• 1 cup of any vegetable cooking oil
• 1 tablespoon each of sunflower oil and sesame oil.
• 2 large onions
• 22 large dried red chilies.
• 1 ½ teaspoon of Ground Szechuan peppercorns
• 3 cloves of minced garlic
• 2 teaspoons of minced ginger
• 5 chopped scallions.
• 2 tablespoons of light soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon of rice wine
• 1 tablespoon of brown sugar

Steps to follow when making Chinese Szechuan chicken

We have to begin by marinating the chicken.
Slice the chicken into 1-inch-sized pieces and put it in a big bowl.
Drizzle a tablespoon of dark soy sauce on the chicken.
Pour 1 tablespoon of light soy sauce into the chicken. But if you don’t have both the dark and light soy sauces, you can use 2 tablespoons of the soy sauce that you have.
Add 1 tablespoon of Chinese rice wine to the chicken.
Sprinkle ¼ tablespoon of white pepper on the chicken.
Add 2 tablespoons of corn starch (maize flour) to the chicken bowl.
After, mix everything together to cover the chicken with all the spices fully.

Cover the bowl with cling film and marinate the chicken for about 35 minutes.
On the other hand, if you intend to marinate it for a longer time, make sure it marinates from the refrigerator.

Shallow frying

After marinating the chicken, get your large frying pan and pour in one cup of vegetable cooking oil. In this recipe, we shall be shallow frying the Szechuan chicken. This is why we are not using a lot of oil.

Then put the frying pan on your stove and heat the oil between medium and high heat and then put in the chicken pieces when the oil is hot.
Then fry the chicken for about 4 minutes and then flip the chicken pieces so as to cook the other side. Fry for another 4 minutes or until all the sides are golden brown.
Ensure you don’t burn the chicken and that your oil is not too hot.

Remove the chicken from the pan and set it aside on a plate.

Cooking the Szechuan chicken

For this next part of the recipe, we recommend using a ‘wok’ to cook. However, if you don’t have a wok you can use a big frying pan.

Put 1 tablespoon of any vegetable oil like sunflower oil into the wok or frying pan.
Then drizzle a tablespoon of sesame oil into the wok and heat this oil. But make sure it is between medium to high heat.

Chop the onions and put them into the wok.
Add the dried chilies to the wok. But if you don’t want you can skip the chilies.
Then, stir fry the onions and dried chilies for about 3 minutes.
Grind 1½ teaspoon of Szechuan peppercorns in a mortar and add them to the wok and fry for an extra 1 minute.

Then add 3 cloves of minced garlic and 2 teaspoons of minced ginger to the wok.
Mix in 5 chopped scallions into the wok and fry for 30 seconds. However, you can also use spring onions instead of scallions.

Additionally, put 2 tablespoons of light soy sauce, 1 tablespoon of rice wine, and 1 tablespoon of brown sugar. Even if you don’t have light soy sauce you can use the dark version.

Lastly, stir fry for another 60 seconds, add the chicken into the wok, and stir fry until the chicken has acquired all the flavors for about 3 minutes.

Conclusion

Serve your Szechuan chicken with white rice and enjoy!

If you have enjoyed this recipe, be sure to check out our other Chinese tofu recipe.

Also, if you have finished making this recipe, don’t forget to send us your photos and we post them on our blog.