In the interest of full disclosure:

1) This is NOT my recipe. I found it on Kitchen Simplicity and that blogger adapted it from Martha Stewart. But I thought it looked yummy and I had every thing on hand to give it a try last night (that never happens).

2) This tastes very little like General Tso’s that you find in a Chinese restaurant. BUT I think after playing around with the sauce it could get there if you wanted it to…I personally liked it despite its very distant relationship to what I think of as General Tso’s and think with a little sriracha in the sauce it could be a favorite. (I left the heat out so that the kids would eat it. HA! Like the spice is the reason they would turn it down. They just refuse to eat to torment me.)

3) I’m always encouraging you to use fresh, real ingredients.  (Walk away from the garlic powder! Go buy a bulb!) Don’t tell Martha, but I don’t like fresh ginger. It tastes like I’m eating flowers.  So I used powdered out of my spice cabinet. Use the fresh if you like it – if not, go with the stuff in the jar. I  won’t yell at you.  But if Martha finds out, you are on your own. Biotch has been to prison – I’m not telling her fresh ginger is gross.

Lighter “General Tso’s” Chicken

For the chicken:

1 lb chicken breast, cut into bite size pieces

1/2 cup Egg Beaters (or 2 egg whites)

3 Tbl cornstarch

Salt & Pepper

Couple of tablespoons of oil

Whisk the egg beaters, cornstarch, salt and pepper until smooth.  Add the chicken and stir to coat. Heat a pan (med-medium high) with a tablespoon or 2 of olive or vegetable oil.  Once the pan is hot, add the chicken pieces one at a time. If you put them all in together, they all form 1 large chicken pancake. (Notice in picture – there isn’t much oil – you aren’t deep frying the chicken.)

Cook on both sides until done. Remove from pan. Repeat if necessary – I did 2 pans full of chicken pieces.

I’ve never done chicken this way before but it was an easy/less horrible for you way to get chicken with a little coating on it. I see this being the basis of some other chicken dishes in the future.

For the Veggies & Sauce:

2 Cups fresh broccoli, snow peas, carrots, etc – whatever you have on hand and like in stir fry dishes (I used broccoli…the original recipe used snow peas – next time I will use a mixture)

1 T cornstarch

1/2 cup cold water

4 cloves garlic

3 green onions, sliced

2 tsp ginger

3 Tbl brown sugar

3 Tbl Tamari (check the brand to be sure of it being gluten free)  or regular soy sauce if you don’t have a gluten issue

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (or Sraracha or other source of spice to give it some kick) – I left this out for the kids. It was still good but I like the spice!

Mix the corn starch and the water. (Always use cold/cool liquid to mix cornstarch or you get lumps.) Add the rest of the ingredients and mix.  Toss you veggies in your hot pan (you’ve taken the chicken pieces out so it is hot but empty).  Pour the sauce over the veggies and stir fry until veggies are nearing done.  Add chicken back in and stir to coat with sauce.  (My sauce got too thick too quickly and I added a little more water to the pan to loosen it up.)

The chicken was moist and yummy.  The sauce was nice without being the gooey overly sweet stuff I get from the take out joint (don’t get me wrong, love me some General Tso’s now and then).  I served it over brown rice – quinoa would also be good.  Verdict: I really liked it. The girls didn’t hate it but didn’t really eat it – par for the course these days.