This Healthy Orange Sauce Recipe is so flavorful and goes perfectly with a stir fry, baked tofu or chicken (if you eat meat). It’s so easy to make and has quickly become one of my go-to stir fry sauces!
I’ve actually used this Healthy Homemade Orange Sauce in a few different recipes that are already on the blog, but it’s so good I wanted to give it its own post! Whether we eat meat or not, I feel like most of are familiar with Panda Express orange chicken. I used to love it before I went vegetarian but now I make my own orange tofu using this sauce and it’s pretty amazing! (Orange Tofu recipe coming soon)
The recipe is pretty similar to my Best Stir Fry Sauce Recipe, so if you enjoy that one, you will love this one!
What You’ll Need To Make This Orange Sauce Recipe
Orange juice – It’s not necessary but I always like to use freshly squeezed orange juice when I make this. That way I know it’s just pure orange juice with nothing else added.
Fresh garlic and ginger – I have used garlic and ginger powder on occasion when I didn’t have the fresh stuff on hand and it did work, but I much prefer it when I have the fresh stuff on hand.
Pure maple syrup – You want to make sure that your maple syrup is pure maple syrup. You really don’t want to use the other stuff that you may see in the pancake aisle for this recipe!
Toasted sesame oil – Make sure you get the toasted sesame oil an not just regluar sesame oil. It adds so much good flavor!
Arrowroot powder or cornstarch – Don’t leave this ingredient out! It is what thickens the sauce so it’s really important. You can use either arrowroot or cornstarch.
I love this sauce has so much great orange flavor and it also has a really nice orange color. Once it’s heated it gets nice and thick and just coats anything you put it on. It does congeal a little bit if you refrigerate it, but you can fix that by just heating it up for a few minutes.
You can make this orange sauce ahead of time if you like. I would just suggest not adding in the arrowroot/cornstarch until ready to use.
How To Use This Homemade Healthy Orange Sauce Recipe
As a stir fry sauce – You just mix it all together and then add it to your stir fry and cook for a few minutes until thickened up. The first recipe I ever used it with was these zucchini noodle and chickpea stir fry and it was delicious!
On protein – This is basically like a stir fry sauce but I just sautéed up some tofu and chickpeas and then added in the sauce at the very end. It made some great meal prep bowls!
In a few days I will post the recipe for my Vegan Orange Tofu that combines my Crispy Baked Tofu with this Homemade Orange Sauce and it’s so good!
This Healthy Orange Sauce Recipe has so much flavor and is great for adding to a stir fry!
Ingredients
Scale
1/2 cup orange juice, I like to use fresh squeezed
1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons low sodium tamari
2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
1 clove garlic, grated
1/2 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
2 teaspoons arrowroot powder or cornstarch
Instructions
Add all ingredients to a jar, or bowl, and whisk until completely combined. Heat a skillet or small pot over medium heat and pour orange sauce in.
Cook until sauce is thickened and coats the back of a spoon, stirring consistently, about 5 minutes. Mix in or pour over desired foods.
This can also be used a stir fry sauce by pouring on top of your stir fry in the last few minutes of cooking and letting sauce thicken with your stir fry.
Prep Time:10 mins
Cook Time:5 mins
Category:Condiment
Method:Stovetop
Cuisine:Asian
Reader Interactions
Comments
Carol Deansays
Can I omit the oil?
Reply
She Likes Foodsays
You could try, If so I’d suggest adding in a little more water or orange juice so it’s the same amount of liquid.
To thicken the sauce, pour it into a small saucepan on the stove over medium-high heat. In a small bowl, combine 2 tablespoons cornstarch with 2 tablespoons water to make a cornstarch slurry. Once the sauce starts to bubble in the pan on the stovetop, add the cornstarch slurry and stir to combine.
How to make the orange chicken sauce. The orange sauce is made from a mixture of the orange juice and zest, sugar, soy sauce, garlic, ginger and rice vinegar. This is bubbled up in the wok until slightly thickened. The chicken is then added back in, and tossed in the sauce until fully coated.
No, it is not. Traditional orange chicken is full of fats, carbohydrates, added sugars and a lot of salt, all things that are not good for your body, weight management, or overall health.
Cornstarch! In his book How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, Mark Bittman recommends mixing 1-2 tablespoons of cornstarch with the same amount of water, and tossing this into the stir fry just when it's almost done. It thickens in seconds, picking up the flavors of everything already in the dish and coating evenly.
The most readily available sauce-thickener is flour. For a too-thin sauce, try adding a slurry (equal parts flour and water, whisked together) or beurre manie (equal parts softened butter and flour, kneaded together to form a paste)—both are ideal thickeners for rich and creamy sauces, such as steak sauce recipes.
Sauce is like gravy in that if it's not thickening as much as you want after you've added the cornstarch, turn the heat up a little and continue to cook. Keep an eye on it though, as it can thicken quickly.
Duck sauce (or orange sauce) is a condiment with a sweet and sour flavor and a translucent orange appearance similar to a thin jelly. Offered at American Chinese restaurants, it is used as a dip for deep-fried dishes such as wonton strips, spring rolls, egg rolls, duck, chicken, fish, or with rice or noodles.
Store-bought orange sauce, unopened, can last in your pantry for up to 12 months if stored at constant room temperature, but once opened needs to be refrigerated and typically lasts for 1-2 weeks after the printed date on the package. However, if you freeze it, the sauce can extend its life for up to 6 months.
The first is to cook your protein and your vegetable separately, and combine them only after both are fully cooked. A second rule of thumb for stir-frying: Choose one vegetable per stir-fry. Finally, always remember to add liquid only after everything is more or less finished cooking.
Much like French food, which relies on a roux for a perfect bechamel sauce or beef bourguignon and involves butter cooked with flour, Chinese and Cantonese cuisines use cornstarch to thicken sauces. However, it's predominantly added at the end of the cooking process rather than at the start.
Stir-frying is a healthful cooking technique because you just add a small amount of fat. Some people skip the fat altogether and stir-fry in broth. I used canola oil because it's high in heart-healthy monounsaturated fat and it doesn't add a particular flavor.
Sugar doesn't thicken in quite the same way as starch or fat, but it does make your sauce stickier, and getting your sauce to stick to the food is the entire point. Adding sugar to water creates a solution that is thicker than water, and further heating (boiling or simmering) makes it even thicker.
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