Prepare Today Homemade- Orange Chicken (Crockpot & Stove Top)

My family loves orange chicken and I have tried out a few recipes lately and found two recipes that I think are pretty good.  I have to take my family's word on the chicken part (I don't eat meat) but I liked the sauces for these two dishes.  I will tell you which one I liked better though :)

The first way I cooked orange chicken was in my Saratoga Jacks thermal cooker.  I took a slow cooker recipe and used it for the thermal cooker.  The sauce for this recipe came out REALLY thick so I added some chicken broth to it, (about 1 can) but I think it took some of the flavor away from the orange sauce.  I'll add less next time.  Two of my five children weren't a fan of this one although they ate it.  I found the recipe HERE from 365Crockpot.com and I added some of my own spices according to some of the comments on that link.


Crock Pot Orange Chicken
1 1/2lbs chicken cut into cubes
1/2 C flour
oil for browning
1 T kosher salt (if you use table salt 1 T will be too much, start with 1/2-3/4 t salt instead)
6 oz. orange juice (I used the real thing not the frozen stuff, but that will work too)
3 T brown sugar
1 t balsamic vinegar
3 T ketchup
These are what I added for flavor:
1/2 t ginger
2 cloves garlic
about 2 T soy sauce


Dredge the chicken in flour, shake off excess and brown in oil.  It doesn't have to be cooked all the way, just browned.  Mix the salt through soy sauce and stir.  Add all to a small slow cooker.  You don't want a lot of empty space in your slow cooker.  This meal will cook in about 2-3 hours on high.  It doesn't make a lot of sauce so I would double the sauce ingredients and like I mentioned earlier, it comes out really thick and you may want to thin it a little with chicken broth.  Serve over rice.


This is how I cooked it in my thermal cooker.

I browned my chicken, after dipping in the flour, right in the thermal cooker pan.  

I mixed all the sauce ingredients and added them to the browned chicken. (I didn't have orange juice on hand but I did have clementine oranges.  It takes a lot of little oranges to get 6oz of juice;)

I brought the sauce/chicken pot and a pan of rice to a boil for 4 minutes.  Then I put them in the thermal cooker.  I made this at 2:00 in the afternoon and my kids ate it for dinner at 6:00.  My family liked this better than I did, I thought this dish was just OK, edible but missing something.  Most of my kids liked it and I loved having it cook all by itself in the thermal cooker.  Honestly I liked this next recipe better. (sorry for no photos of the next recipe, I didn't know I was going to share it)


Cashew Orange Chicken
 3/4 C orange juice
1/3 C honey
1/4 C soy sauce
1 T cornstarch
1 t ground ginger
1 t garlic powder
1/2 t pepper
2 T oil
4 green onions chopped
2 large carrots sliced
1 celery stalk sliced
4 chicken breasts cut into 1" strips
1 C cashews

Mix in a small bowl the orange juice through the pepper and stir, set aside.  Heat 1 T of oil until it smokes and stir fry the onions, carrots and celery until the onion is fragrant.  Set aside and keep warm.  Heat the other T of oil until it smokes and stir fry the chicken until browned.  Add the veggies, sauce, and cashews.  Cook until the sauce thickens and is bubbly.  Serve over rice.  


This dish was devoured and there were only a few stray carrots left in the pan.  I really like the crisp veggies and the cashews.  I mentioned I don't eat meat so I really liked the added protein of the cashews.  This dish also only took about 15 minutes to make!  I want to try the cashew chicken in the thermal cooker, but I will add the cashews only before serving.  I think it will work but with less crisp veggies.  You try them and decide which one you enjoy more!!


"Have Faith, Unencomber Your Life, Lay Up In Store" -Keith B. McMullen