JOYEATSRAMEN – Simple Asian Food Recipes

An easy guide to make Chinese style lemon chicken, homemade sauce included from scratch.

This recipe takes less than 20 minutes.

Growing up as a Malaysian, I first had this dish, made from scratch by my mom.

Chinese lemon chicken is originated from Guangzhou, China. Thanks to migration over the years, the dish was introduced and loved by people around the world.

You can easily find this in Chinese restaurants but it is also super easy to make it from scratch.

Step 1: Set aside the required ingredients

This is a less than 10 ingredients recipe, perfect for anyone who looks for a quick yet good meal.

Meat and marination:

• Chicken fillet cubes (300g / 1 pack)
• Shaoxing wine (1 tablespoon)
• All purpose flour (1 tablespoon)
• Black pepper (1 dash)
• Sunflower oil (1 tablespoon)

Lemon sauce:

• Lemon juice (3 tablespoons)
• Mirin (2 tablespoons) or honey (1 tablespoon)
• Salt (1 dash)
• Water (3 tablespoons)
• All purpose flour (1 tablespoon)

Step 2: Marinate the chicken fillet cubes

Grab a bowl or plate, marinate the chicken following these steps:

• Shaoxing wine (rice wine): A very important component in Chinese cuisine to eliminate any unpleasant meat scent. It also adds depth to the dish by releasing more meat flavour!

• Light soy sauce: The iconic, umami punched soy sauce that is salty, sweet and acidic.

• Black pepper: This is my household’s personal preference – we like an additional citrusy flavour that can be actually found in this spice!

Once you have marinated the meat, give it a good stir to distribute the flavours evenly.

• All purpose flour: This helps to create a stronger marinate flavour and create a golden brown stir fry effect. It also creates a layer between the meat and oil to retain meat moisture.

• Sunflower oil: This is the last marinate step that truly binds and distributes the flavour evenly. By adding oil, it can avoid oil splash when frying. Add the same type of frying oil to complete meat marination.

Let the meat marination continues for 10 minutes and prepare lemon sauce, the soul of this dish!

Step 3: Create lemon chicken sauce

Create the sauce following these steps:

• Lemon juice

• Salt

• Mirin (or honey): I opted mirin over honey, a Japanese rice wine for its balanced sweet and tangy flavour. When used for cooking, it creates a beautiful caramelisation on the meat‘s surface too. You could also just use sugar instead with no big effect to the dish flavour.

• Water: Helps to stir the sauce evenly.

• All purpose flour: Acts as a thickening agent to create that velvety and slurry sauce.

Once you have created the sauce, have a taste and feel free to add more sugar or salt to achieve your preferred taste.

Tip: If you want to create additional sauce for next usage, separate the additional portion and opt out all purpose flour to keep it fresh for three to five days.

Step 4: Pan fry the chicken cubes

Start the gas stove on high heat and pour sunflower oil.

You could add more oil to cover the chicken. I included lesser oil as a personal preference and could still achieve the deep fry effect.

Pan fry the chicken for 3 minutes on each side.

Tip: If you are deep frying the chicken, fry a total of 5 minutes.

Step 5: Set aside the chicken cubes

This is optional but I added two lemon pieces, restaurant style.

Step 6: Stir fry the homemade lemon chicken sauce

On low heat, pour the homemade lemon sauce, continuous stir until it is slightly sticky.

Tip: If you are doing a one pan cooking like me, let the pan slightly cool down before adding the lemon sauce to stir. This avoids the sauce to dry up quickly.

Step 7: Stir fry the chicken with lemon sauce

On medium heat, immediately include the fried chicken cubes back to the pot.

This will take less than 30 seconds but make sure the sauce binds with the chicken before serving them.

Tip: If the lemon sauce is quickly drying up due to heat, switch off the gas and continue to stir till satisfaction.

Step 8: Plate your Chinese lemon chicken

Get ready for a final sprinkle of the amazing sesame seeds.

Finally, sprinkle some sesame seeds for additional crunch and nutty flavour. Serve with a bowl of rice and enjoy!