Sweet and Sour Chicken (made with beet pickling liquid)

Sweet and sour chicken made with beet pickling liquid is a great way to use up your leftover beet pickling liquid! Crispy chicken in a sweet and tangy sauce with onions and bell peppers. You get that beautiful deep red color without using food coloring! And it’s so quick and easy because the sauce is already made.

Pickled beets get eaten pretty quickly in my house and I always end up with extra pickling liquid that gets thrown away. These days, we’re trying to be as economical as we can with food prices being so high, so I wanted to find a way to use the pickling liquid. Because the ingredients are similar to those used in traditional sweet and sour sauce, it makes sense to use the pickling liquid as a sweet and sour type sauce.

Ingredients & Substitutions

• Chicken: I like to use chicken thighs because they have more fat and a richer flavor. This recipe will also work well with chicken breasts.
• Pickled beet juice: That beautiful pickling liquid left over from pickled beets that you don’t know what to do with!
• Onions: Use any kind of onion – yellow, white, red. I like to thinly slice them, but they can be diced or even cut into large chunks.
• Bell peppers: I used frozen red, yellow and green bell peppers. I prefer frozen because they’re more economical and they last longer. They’re also already sliced which is a time saver! Fresh bell peppers of any color would work here as well.
• Light soy sauce: I find regular soy sauce to be very salty, so I like to use light soy sauce. Remember, you can always add more salt but it’s very difficult, if not impossible, to fix it if you add too much! You can use regular soy sauce instead of light.
• Corn starch: It’s what makes the chicken crispy and the sauce thick!
• Water: To make a slurry with the cornstarch.
• Cooking oil: To cook the chicken and the vegetables.

How To Make Sweet and Sour Chicken

• In a bowl, combine the soy sauce, cornstarch and chicken. Stir to coat.
• Let the chicken sit in the marinade for 10 minutes.

• Add the chicken and cornstarch to a large zip top plastic bag. Shake the bag to evenly coat all the chicken pieces.

• Heat 2-3 Tbsp of oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chicken to the pan. Two batches
• Let the chicken cook on one side until golden brown, about 4-5 minutes, then flip over and cook the other side until golden brown, about 2 minutes or until chicken is cooked all the way through. Reduce the heat if needed so the chicken doesn’t over brown or burn.
• Remove the chicken from the pan.

• Make a slurry with 1 Tbsp water and 1 Tbsp cornstarch. Stir to combine.
• Heat 1 Tbsp of oil in the skillet over medium-high heat.
• Add the onion to the pan and cook for 2-3 minutes. Then add the peppers. If you’re using frozen bell peppers, add them to the pan just long enough to thaw them out, about 1 minute. If you’re using fresh bell peppers, cook the onions for 1-2 minutes then add the peppers and cook an additional 2-3 minutes. Stir occasionally in both instances.
• Add the pickled beet juice to the pan and stir to combine with the onions and peppers.
• Add half the cornstarch slurry to the pan and stir to combine and thicken the sauce. If the sauce isn’t as thick as you want it, add more of the slurry until you reach your desired thickness.

• Add the chicken to the pan. Gently stir to combine and warm through.
• Remove from the heat and serve immediately.

Expert Tips

• Don’t crowd the pan – Cook the chicken in batches so they have enough space to cook. If you overcrowd the pan the chicken will steam and not get crunchy.
• Don’t skip the slurry – Cornstarch and water make what’s called a slurry which is used to thicken up sauces. Don’t skip the slurry if you want that restaurant style thick sauce!
• Serve it as soon as it’s done – Because you’re putting a sauce over crispy chicken, the sauce will soak into the crispy coating and it will quickly lose its crispiness. That even happens at restaurants. It’s just a fact.
• Frozen vegetables for the win – Frozen vegetables are generally less expensive and last longer than fresh vegetables. Sometimes I have trouble using up all the fresh produce I’ve bought and it can go to waste. With frozen vegetables, I use only as much as I need, and the remainder goes back in the freezer to be used another time. Less food waste and less expensive – a win-win in my book!

How To Store Sweet and Sour Chicken

Store this in an airtight container in the refrigerator for 3-4 days.