Is Orange Chicken Healthy? (Orange Chicken Without Breading)

Orange chicken is a classic Chinese takeout dish that is popular among everyone. It’s comforting and flavorful, packed with the tangy and sweet flavor of the sauce, juicy chicken, and fried to a crisp. Orange chicken is definitely delicious, but is orange chicken healthy?

Orange rice can be a very unhealthy dish given that it contains a high amount of fats and carbs from deep frying the batter in oil. Although the chicken itself consists of protein, the fat and carb content is make up more than 80% of the calories, making it a less than ideal meal for fat loss. 

A 5.7 ounce serving of orange chicken is 370 calories, with 13 grams of protein, 18 grams of fat, and 44 grams of carbs, following the recipe and portions below. However, there is a way to make this dish help rather than hinder progress towards your fitness goals -- at the end of this article, I will share a recipe that cuts the calorie content and readjusts the macro content to make a low carb orange chicken that is as delicious as it is healthy.

🍎 Calories and Nutrition – Is Orange Chicken Healthy?

To understand the calorie and nutrition content of orange chicken, it’s useful to look at the core ingredients that make up the recipe. Orange chicken is made of three main components: the chicken, orange chicken sauce, and the coating.

• Chicken: Orange chicken is often cooked with boneless skinless chicken, which is the way to go here. While bone in skin on chicken very delicious, this is less than ideal from a calorie counting and macros point of view. A 4oz serving of skin-on chicken thigh has 240 calories, 19g of which are from fat. Instead, opt for boneless skinless chicken thigh, which has only 130 calories with the same amount of protein. You can also opt for chicken breast if you'd like for even lower fat content, but I find the juicier chicken thigh to be much more delicious with an insignificant amount of additional calories -- for boneless skinless cuts, chicken thigh only has 1 more gram of fat compared to chicken breast for a 4 ounce serving.
• Orange Chicken Sauce: Orange chicken sauce usually consists of orange juice, rice vinegar, soy sauce, chilis, honey, and cornstarch. The 2 ingredients that can easily add up in calories here are the honey and cornstarch, so it's best to either omit, substitute, or portion them mindfully.
• Coating: Orange chicken is usually dipped in batter and deep fried. The batter usually consists of dipping the chicken in egg and coating it in flour. Flour can easily add up in calories, with one cup adding a whopping 455 calories. Then, the chicken is deep fried in oil, which also adds on a significant amount of calories. With this component, it's no surprise that orange chicken's calories mostly come from fats and carbs. If your goal is weight loss, it would be wise to consider omitting this component entirely.

Looking at each component, it’s easy to see that orange chicken can easily be made to be a high calorie and high fat dish, making it less than ideal for dieting purposes. But luckily, in this recipe, I will show  you some tweaks that will make orange chicken low calorie, low carb, and macro friendly, making it easy to fit into a healthy diet.

🍏 How to Make It Healthy – The Fitsian Method

Orange chicken is traditionally coated in breading and deep fried in oil, which significantly contributes to its calorie content. By making a few modifications, I'm able to cut down the calorie content of this dish immensely. Here's what I did:

• Omitted the breading, effectively limiting the high calories that come from the breading and deep frying and making this a low carb dish.
• Pan fried the chicken  using cooking spray instead of deep frying. This eliminates the need to use huge quantities of oil, allowing me to cut down the calories and fat content of the dish significantly.
• Omitted usage of cornstarch in the sauce and portioned high calorie sauce ingredients such as honey mindfully
• Pair with some brussel sprouts or sides of choice for a well balanced meal
• For some extra flavor, I also like to spice my orange chicken up by adding in some crushed, dried Thai chilis. To make sure I always have some on hand, I bought these dried Thai chilis from Amazon in bulk that I can keep in my cabinet for a long time

For a detailed breakdown of each ingredients, their portioning, and how they make up the nutrition profile of this low calorie orange chicken recipe, you may refer to the table below:

💡Tips and Tricks

Is orange chicken healthy?

Traditional orange chicken is usually covered in batter and deep fried, easily making them a calorie bomb. By stir frying the chicken in this recipe with the same sauce, I can retain the flavor of the original recipe at a lower calorie cost.

Make air fryer orange chicken for a crispier texture

In this recipe, I stir fried the orange chicken. But if you want a little extra crisp, you can spray the chicken with some cooking spray and pop it in the air fryer. Check out my air fryer orange chicken recipe to see how.

Pair it with rice and veggies for a more filling meal

In this recipe, I paired my orange chicken with brussel sprouts. Some other good accompanying sides include broccoli, brown rice, or cabbage.

For more recipes that take traditionally indulgent meals and turn them healthy, check out my Cheating Cheat Meals recipe collection.

📋 Ingredient Notes

Chicken & Marinade

• 6 oz Chicken thigh (Boneless, skinless)
• Juice of ½ Orange
• 2 tablespoon Soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon Honey
• 1 teaspoon Rice wine vinegar
• 1 clove Garlic
• 1 teaspoon Ginger
• 1 teaspoon Black pepper
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• 1 Thai chili (Optional, add if you want some extra kick)
• Scallion (For garnish)

🔪 Step by Step Instructions

1. Make orange chicken sauce by using juice of half an orange, 2 tablespoon soy sauce, a drizzle of honey, 1 teaspoon rice wine vinegar, ginger, garlic, salt, pepper and optionally some crushed dried Thai chilis for some extra spice.
2. Cut chicken thigh into bite size pieces and marinade for at least 30 minutes or overnight.
3. Heat a pan and spray with cooking span. Cook chicken in one layer for 3-4 minutes each side while reserving the marinade. As the chicken cooks, drizzle more marinade onto the chicken pieces.
4. Remove from heat and serve with your sides of choice (I opted for brussel sprouts as usual).

🍳 Recipe