Roasted Orange Chicken
Updated April 16, 2024
- Total Time
- 1 hour 15 minutes
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
- 5small tangerines or clementines
- ½packed cup dark brown sugar
- ¼cup soy sauce
- 1½teaspoons rice vinegar or distilled white vinegar
- 1teaspoon ground cayenne or other hot red ground chile
- 1(4-pound) whole chicken
- Salt and black pepper
- 8slices peeled fresh ginger
Nutritional analysis per serving (4 servings)
828 calories; 47 grams fat; 13 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 19 grams monounsaturated fat; 10 grams polyunsaturated fat; 41 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams dietary fiber; 35 grams sugars; 60 grams protein; 1392 milligrams sodium
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
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Preparation
- Step 1
Heat the oven to 400 degrees.
- Step 2
Squeeze ¼ cup juice from 2 to 3 tangerines into a small bowl; reserve the spent peels. Cut the remaining tangerines into wedges with their peels intact, and set aside. Add the brown sugar, soy sauce, vinegar and cayenne to the tangerine juice and whisk until the sugar dissolves.
- Step 3
Generously season the chicken inside and out with salt and pepper. Tuck the wingtips behind the body. Stuff the tangerine peels and 6 ginger slices into the cavity, then tie the legs together using kitchen twine. Place in a large ovenproof skillet, and scatter the tangerine wedges and remaining 2 slices ginger around the chicken.
- Step 4
Slowly pour the juice mixture all over the chicken, then slide the skillet into the oven. Roast for 30 minutes.
- Step 5
Using a large spoon or baster, quickly and carefully coat the chicken with the pan sauce. Continue roasting, basting every 10 minutes, until the chicken is browned and cooked through, 20 to 30 minutes longer. An instant-read thermometer inserted in the thickest part of the breast should register 155 degrees and, in the leg, 170 degrees. The chicken will continue to cook while it rests.
- Step 6
Transfer the chicken to a cutting board and let rest for about 5 minutes. If the pan sauce isn’t already syrupy, bring it to a boil over medium-high heat on the stovetop. Be sure to wear oven mitts or use a kitchen towel to hold the skillet (the handle is hot). Cook, stirring occasionally, until the bubbles grow larger and paler brown, and the sauce is the consistency of syrup, about 5 minutes. Discard the ginger.
- Step 7
Serve the chicken whole or carved with the glaze poured all over the meat. Arrange the tangerine wedges from the pan around the bird. You can eat them, if you’d like.
Private Notes
Comments
We just finished having this for dinner and I made it as written except for the whole chicken. I used skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs and it was delicious. I used Clementines for the fruit. It was easy to baste the chicken as all I did was flip it over in the sauce as it cooked. I also made the stir-fried brussel sprouts to go with it. Both were really good and easy to make. This will absolutely be in the rotation from now on.
Navel oranges won't sub for tangerines: use clementines/mandarins instead. You need an orange variety with thin skin (peelable easily with fingers, without cutting with knife first) and little bitter white pith. (Thin-skinned varieties are ideal for homemade marmalade.) If you use navels, you'll have to use only the zest instead of the entire skin, or the dish will be quite bitter. For the recipe, I'd use minced ginger instead: it complements orange perfectly and is too good to discard.
RE: boneless skinless breast - between the relatively brief cooking time needed for breast and the absence of intrinsic fat, oven-roasting will likely dry it out. Consider a saute or brief braise instead: use food.com/recipe/mandarin-orange-chicken-delight-79344 for inspiration. (Seasoned, floured, breast strips are sauteed in butter+oil base before a slow simmered in the orange sauce. The recipe uses canned mandarins, but I'd use Ms Ko's sauce from Step 2 + orange wedges instead.)
Very tasty sauce but mine was way too spicy. I should have realized the cayenne I had was hotter than average. Will know better next time!
I did change the brown sugar for maple syrup. I have often used maple syrup in Asian and Japanese cooking in combination with shoyu or tamari and I found the sweetness of the maple syrup to harmonize very well. A gentle sweetness and very round in flavor as in comparison to cable sugar.
Very easy to make with huge ROI for the little time, expense, and skill needed to make it. Was quite happy with the outcome. Served with a stir-fried rice/quinoa dish.
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