Best Chilli Chicken Under 20 Minutes

Restaurant-style chilli chicken dish is lightly battered and fried chicken pieces tossed with a spicy sauce.

The origin of the dish is an Indian Chinese mix but in Sri Lanka in most Chinese restaurants chilli chicken will definitely be on the menu. so we basically adopted this dish and made it Sri Lankan Chinese. Yes yes I know we do have a cuisine call Sri Lankan Chinese where you can taste Chinese dishes made the Sri Lankan style but its nowhere near similar to Chinese cuisine but don’t let that fool you, because this would be something that anyone would enjoy every day of the week.

Does it really matter where this dish comes from because two cuisine flavours mixed with each other give “boom” an explosion of flavour in your mouth.

If you haven’t tried this dish whether you are a Sri Lankan or not do yourself a favour and try this recipe it will definitely be a hero dish in any household.

This restaurant-quality chilli chicken will definitely keep coming back on your Sunday lunch menu and I will teach the nitty-gritty techniques to use when making this dish at home.

When I was working as an apprentice chef in Sri Lanka this was on the room service menu, and I still can remember how I would just eat chilli chicken and rice during my lunch breaks, not that we were allowed to eat food from the kitchen but I simply couldn’t resist it.

On a side note as a chef, you cannot eat from the kitchen. There is a cafeteria for staff that serves food. As usual, I never followed any rules. I always ate from the kitchen. I would never get into trouble, after all, I was the executive chef’s daughter hahaha hahaha.

Dishes that accompany Sri Lankan chilli chicken

• Fried rice; Click here to get my restaurant-quality roast chicken fried rice recipe
• Hot butter cuttlefish; Click here to get my hot butter cuttlefish recipe
• Vegetable Chop Suey 
• Chilli paste

Watch how to make chilli chicken

Step by step guide how to make chilli chicken

Chilli Chicken

Crispy chicken tossed with a spicy sauce

Prep Time: 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes minutes

Calories:

Servings: 2 people

Ingredients

Coat chicken

• ▢ 100 g Cornflour
• ▢ 350 g Chicken Thigh fillets Cut into small chunks

Stir Fry ingredients

• ▢ 100 g Capsicum/Bellpepper Large Dice
• ▢ 40 g Spring Onion Thinly sliced
• ▢ 100 g Red onion Large Dice
• ▢ 1 Garlic clove Chopped

Sauce

• ▢ 30 g Soy sauce
• ▢ 20 g Oyster sauce
• ▢ 20 g Chilli sauce
• ▢ 20 g Tomato sauce Tomato ketchup
• ▢ 50 g Water Tap water

Cornstarch slurry

• ▢ 1 tbsp Corn starch
• ▢ 2 tbsp Water Tap water

Instructions

How to cook the chicken

• Heat a pot of oil for deep frying on high heat
• Coat the chicken dices in cornflour
• Once the oil is heated, add the cornflour coated chicken into the oil and deep fry until cooked and crispy
• Take the chicken out of the oil and let it drain on a paper towel and leave aside

How to make the chilli sauce

• In a small bowl mix together soy sauce, oyster sauce, chilli sauce, tomato sauce and water

How to make a cornstarch slurry

• In a separate bowl mix cornstarch with 2 tbsp water to make a slurry

Cooking and assembling the whole dish

• Heat a pan or a work on high heat with 2 tbsp of oil
• Add red onions, capsicum, garlic and cook until soft
• Add the fried chicken, the sauce mix and toss well
• Add in the slurry and keep on the fire for 1 minute ( The sauce will thicken instantly and be coated well on the chicken) Note: the corn starch will thicken and go to the bottom of the bowl if it's kept too long. Simply mix it well with a whisk before putting it in the pan
• Finally, add the spring onion and mix it well
• Serve immediately

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