Sweet and Sour Chicken from Scratch (+ Quinoa)

A lot of my recipes and foods I make have been born out of desperation. Desperation? You know the kind where you are half way through cooking a specific recipe and realize you are missing an ingredient, or two, or three. It’s not so much that I don’t HAVE a food storage (I would hope I do), it’s that there are some foods I just don’t store.

Early in my marriage, I was always making foods with mixes. They were a crutch for me. As years have gone by I have started recreating mixes and making my own from scratch. I wish I could say it was because I was creative, but it was mostly because I always started making meals and realized I didn’t have that little sauce or mix package in my cupboard after all. Sweet and sour chicken is one of our favorites around here, and I make it all from scratch (because one day I didn’t have the mix on hand). Making your own mixes is a great way to cut back on the number of things you need in your Food Storage. If you store staples, you don’t have to store mixes and you can make a lot of different foods!

Sweet and Sour Chicken

Breaded Chicken
1-2 chicken breasts cubed
Flour (Start with about a cup)
Water (Enough to make a pancake batter like consistency)
Soy Sauce

Cut chicken in cubes. Mix flour and water until you get a pancake batter like consistency. You can sprinkle a tablespoon or so of soy sauce in the mixture if you like. Put cubes of chicken in batter. Put a little bit of cooking oil in a pan and turn on heat. Once the oil is warm, you’ll want to spoon out each chicken cube into the pan. Fry on both sides until cooked. Take out and set aside.

Veggies
Carrots
Celery
Zucchini
Onions
Pineapple
Whatever you like

After the chicken is done, you’ll want to fry up the veggies. You can just do this in the same pan. This way, you can time it so the veggies are nice and crispy.

Sweet and Sour Sauce (from allrecipes.com)
3/4 cup white sugar (I use honey or agave)
1/3 cup white vinegar
2/3 cup water (I use the left over pineapple juice here too)
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon ketchup (for a sweeter/redder sauce use more ketchup and less soy sauce)
2 tablespoons cornstarch

While the veggies are cooking, make the sauce. Place the sugar, vinegar, water, soy sauce, ketchup and cornstarch in a medium saucepan, and bring to a boil. Stir continuously until the mixture has thickened.

Quinoa OR Brown Rice OR White Rice
Cook according to directions. Start this before you start anything else so it’s ready when the rest of the food is ready. I’ve been LOVING putting all sorts of things over QUINOA that I regularly have used with brown rice. Quinoa cooks faster than brown rice, is a complete protein, and it is delicious. You’ll want to soak it ahead of time, it seems to have a bitter taste if you don’t. I got some pre-washed organic kind at Costco once- can’t find it again, and it is great even without soaking.

I’ve also made a ranch mix, teriyaki sauce mix, taco seasoning mix, chili mixes and more! We pinned a few ideas on our “Make Your Own” Pinterest Board. Come on over and check them out. What mixes do you make?