This sweet and sour chicken tastes fantastic. It’s so much healthier than take-out and my family thinks it tastes amazingly better! Although this dish is usually made with breaded fried chicken, to make it healthy, I’m using chicken breast chunks, adding more vegetables and pineapple plus serving over brown rice. Each serving has 260 calories, 4 grams of fat and 4 Blue WW Freestyle SmartPoints, and 5 Green. I won’t be surprised if you end up making it several times a month. I do!
Ingredients
- 1 cup uncooked brown rice, I used brown Basmati rice, see shopping tips
- 2 teaspoons olive oil, divided
- 1 tablespoon fresh garlic, chopped
- 2 teaspoons ginger, from a jar, see shopping tips
- ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper
- 1 pound boneless, skinless, chicken breast, cut into ½-inch pieces
- 1 cup chopped onion
- 1 cup chopped carrots
- 1 cup chopped celery
- 1 cup chopped red bell pepper
- 1 (20-ounce) can pineapple chunks in juice, undrained
- ⅓ cup reduced-sodium soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon rice vinegar or seasoned rice vinegar
- 2 tablespoons flour or 1 tablespoon cornstarch (gluten-free)
- 2 teaspoons brown sugar
- 2 packages Stevia, Truvia, Splenda or your favorite sugar substitute
Instructions
- Cook rice according to package directions except you don’t need to add oil or salt to the water while cooking.
- In the meantime, coat the bottom of a nonstick pan with cooking spray. Heat 1 teaspoon oil over medium-high heat. Add garlic, ginger, red pepper flakes, and chicken to pan; sauté 5 minutes or until chicken is done. Remove chicken mixture from pan; set aside.
- Coat pan again with cooking spray and heat remaining 1 teaspoon of olive oil. Add onions, carrots, celery, and red bell pepper to the pan. Sauté 3-4 minutes until crisp-tender. Drain pineapple, reserving ¾ cup juice. Add 1½ cups pineapple chunks to pan; cook 30 seconds (Reserve remaining pineapple for another use). Combine the reserved ¾ cup pineapple juice, soy sauce, vinegar, flour or cornstarch, brown sugar and sugar substitute in a bowl, stirring with a whisk until smooth.
- Return chicken mixture to pan. Stir in juice mixture; bring to boil. Cook 1-2 minutes until sauce thickens a bit.
- To serve: Spread ½ cup rice over each plate. Top each with about 1 cup sweet and sour chicken.
- This dish freezes great. Mix together the chicken and rice and freeze in individual servings.
Notes
Makes 6 servings (1 cup sweet and sour chicken plus ½ cup rice)
Food Facts
Sweet and sour chicken is a dish frequently served in Chinese restaurants in various Western countries. It’s common in Australia, Europe, and North America and is available at some restaurants in East and Southeast Asia. This dish generally comprises cubes of white meat chicken deep-fried in batter and served with sweet and sour sauce. Sometimes it is topped with pineapple, green pepper, carrot, or sweet pickles.
Shopping Tips
Basmati brown rice can be found in most supermarkets either in the rice aisle or health food aisle. I bought it at Trader Joe’s. Ginger (in a jar) is a terrific product and can be found in the produce section of the supermarket.
WW Freestyle SmartPoints 4-Blue
WW SmartPoints 5-Green
WW Points Plus-7
Food Facts
Sweet and sour chicken is a dish frequently served in Chinese restaurants in various Western countries. It’s common in Australia, Europe, and North America and is available at some restaurants in East and Southeast Asia. This dish generally comprises cubes of white meat chicken deep-fried in batter and served with sweet and sour sauce. Sometimes it is topped with pineapple, green pepper, carrot, or sweet pickles.
Shopping Tips
Basmati brown rice can be found in most supermarkets either in the rice aisle or health food aisle. I bought it at Trader Joe’s. Ginger (in a jar) is a terrific product and can be found in the produce section of the supermarket.
WW Freestyle SmartPoints 4-Blue
WW SmartPoints 5-Green
WW Points Plus-7
| SKINNY FACTS: for 1 serving (1 cup sweet and sour chicken plus ½ cup rice) 260 calories, 4g fat, 1g sat. fat, 37mg chol, 20g protein, 40g carbs, 3g fiber, 174mg sodium, 10g sugar |
| FACTS: for Freestyle SmartPoints 130 calories, 0g sat. fat, 2g sugar, 2g protein |
Skinny Facts
Serving: 1.5cupsCalories: 260kcalCarbohydrates: 40gProtein: 20gFat: 4gSaturated Fat: 1gCholesterol: 37mgSodium: 174mgFiber: 3gSugar: 10gBlue Smart Points: 4Green Smart Points: 5Plus Points: 7
This is really good using two cups of sliced carrots to substitute for bean sprouts. I also used one whole can of pineapple that’s 20 oz undrained and added an extra half tablespoon of cornstarch to allow for the extra pineapple juice.
All sounds great Christal.
Thanks for sharing!
My best,
Nancy
I made tonight upped all veg added sliced carrots too. I used leftover grilled pork chop. I didn’t have rice vinegar I used apple cider in place. This dish is on the repeat list. I have veg and sauce to use on rotisserie chicken. ❤️
Love your feedback Pam. Thanks so much for sharing!
My best wishes,
Nancy
Nancy, I love your recipes and I want to try this, but with white basmati rice, so I was wondering what a serving would be in green points. Thanks.
Thanks so much for the kind words, Marjorie. I’m so glad you are enjoying my recipes.
I’m sorry but I’m not sure what a serving would be if using white basmati rice on the Green plan.
Wishing you all the best,
Nancy
This was delicious! I’m so glad I discovered your site.
I didn’t realize I was out of rice vinegar so used apple cider vinegar instead and it turned out fine. Hubby liked it too-even with brown rice. I’ll be making it again. Thank you!
Oh, and can you tell me how you got 4 points on WW Blue? Maybe I need to adjust how I entered the recipe cuz I got 6 points. Thank you!
I love your feedback. Thanks so much, Kathy!
All the best,
Nancy
Purple points? Why don’t you include these? I see green and blue plan points only. Thanks I will calculate and make. Sounds really good!
I’m so sorry Francine, but at this point, I’m only including Blue and Green points. For all of these years, I’ve used a different program than WW to input all of my recipes to do the nutrition facts and points
I have hundreds of recipes and don’t have the time to input them into WW to make the calculations for the purple plan. Maybe in the future.
Thanks for joining me on Skinny Kitchen!
My best,
Nancy
Sorry Lathy, I’m not sure how you got 6 points. I checked mine again and still came up with 4 points. I used brown basmati rice.
My best,
Nancy
I love your recipes but do not like wasting ink to print your logo and the picture of the item which on most sites can be deleted.
I’m sorry Suzanne. I use to have that type of print feature and so many people complained about it. I’m still working on an easier one. In the meantime, I just copy the body of the recipe and create a new page in word. It takes no time and you can create the parts you want. Then print it.
I hope this helps!
My best,
Nancy