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The next time you’re craving takeout from your favorite Chinese restaurant, but want something that’s better for you, try this Healthy Sweet and Sour Chicken! It has all of the flavors you want, but is lower in calories, gluten-free, and soy-free, and it comes together in minutes and cooks in one pan.
One of the best parts about ordering dinner out is that you skip the hassle of cooking. With this healthier sweet and sour chicken recipe, you can enjoy an alternative to takeout that’s better for you and doesn’t require much work!
All you need is a sheet pan and 20 minutes to make this protein and vegetable-packed dinner. This is sure to become a dinner favorite for busy weeknights or Fridays at home.
If you like healthier versions of your favorite takeout dishes, you will love my Healthy Cashew Chicken recipe, and Copycat PF Changs Chicken Lettuce Wraps!
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Better Than Takeout: This healthy sweet and sour chicken recipe tastes just as good as any takeout dish, but it’s better for you! This recipe has all of the flavors you want from takeout without all of the grease, excess calories, and sugars.
- Only Takes 20 Minutes to Cook: One of the reasons I love takeout is because it’s fast and easier than cooking. This recipe only takes 20 minutes to make, which is less time than it would take to go pick up your dinner somewhere else or wait for delivery.
- Easy Sheet Pan Meal: This Asian-inspired dish bakes in the oven on a single baking sheet. That means less cleanup, and most of the cooking time is passive. It doesn’t get any easier than that!
Table of Contents
Ingredients
- Chicken Breasts: Boneless, skinless chicken breasts are best for this recipe because you can easily cut them into a uniform size for even baking. You could also use boneless, skinless chicken thighs. For chicken lovers, try this healthy fried rice too!
- Onion and Peppers: This low-calorie sweet and sour chicken recipe uses white onion, green bell pepper, and red and yellow bell peppers for added crunch and flavor.
- Pineapple: Chunks of juicy pineapple add both the sweet and the sour components to this dish! You can use fresh pineapple chunks or thawed frozen pineapple.
- Coconut Aminos: Makes a gluten-free alternative to soy sauce with a similar flavor. You can use regular soy sauce if you need to, but be sure it is low-sodium and gluten-free if you need it to be. You can even make your own homemade soy free stir-free sauce at home too.
- Tapioca Flour: This is used as a gluten-free thickening agent for your sauce. You can also use cornstarch.
See the recipe card below for exact ingredient amounts, nutritional information, and detailed instructions.
Variations & Dietary Modifications
- Make It Vegetarian: Instead of chicken, you can make this recipe with tofu or tempeh for a vegetarian option.
- Swap the Meat: You can also make this dish with diced pork or shrimp though you may need to adjust the cooking time slightly.
- Add More Veggies: Asian dishes are great for switching up the vegetables that you cook with. Try adding broccoli, snow peas, carrots, mushrooms, or bok choy to your low-calorie sweet and sour chicken to really pack in the vegetables.
- Spice It Up: If you like spicy Asian food, you can add crushed red pepper, chili oil, or a chili paste like gochujang to your sauce to increase the heat of the dish.
How to Make a Healthier Sweet and Sour Chicken
This baked chicken meal with a healthy sweet and sour sauce is the perfect dinner for a busy weeknight. It only takes 20 minutes to bake and doesn’t require much prep, plus it’s good for you! Start by preheating your oven to 375°F and covering your sheet pan with parchment paper. You also want to slice the vegetables and dice the chicken.
Step 1: Add the Veggies. Spread the sliced vegetables evenly across the sheet pan.
Step 2: Add the Chicken. Add the chicken and pineapple to the pan with the vegetables. Spray everything with extra virgin olive oil and sprinkle with garlic, ginger, salt, and pepper. Pop the baking sheet in the oven and bake at 375°F for 20 minutes.
Step 3: Prepare the Sauce. Whisk the coconut aminos, rice wine vinegar, sugar, and tapioca flour together in a small saucepan. Bring the sauce to a boil while whisking, then reduce the temperature to low. Let it simmer and thicken while the chicken and vegetables are cooking.
Step 4: Drizzle the Sauce. Once the chicken is cooked through to 165°F, remove the sheet pan from the oven. Slowly drizzle the sauce over the chicken and vegetables before serving with simple sides like this healthy Asian broccoli salad.
Expert Tips
- Cut Into Uniform Pieces: Try to cut your chicken breasts and pineapple into similarly sized pieces. This will help everything cook evenly and at the same rate.
- Preheat the Pan: If you want to sear your chicken and veggies a bit you can leave your parchment-lined sheet pan in the oven while it preheats. Then carefully remove the hot pan and add your vegetables and chicken to it. Place it back in the oven and let it cook for 20 minutes. Preheating the pan starts the cooking process immediately and will result in slightly seared chicken and vegetables, which enhances the flavor.
- Stir Halfway Through: Ensure that the chicken and vegetables cook evenly by removing the pan from the oven halfway through cooking and stirring them. Flip the chicken and rotate the vegetables so everything cooks evenly and thoroughly.
- Storing: Keep leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. You can also freeze leftovers for about a month.
- Make Ahead: This is a great dish for meal prepping since it stores and freezes so well. Many of my healthy meal prep recipes are Asian-inspired dishes. You can also prep your sauce and cut up all of the ingredients a day in advance to make dinner even faster and effortless!
Serving Suggestions
Fakeout takeout Asian dishes are some of my favorite hassle-free dinners! They are loaded with veggies and protein, and the sauces are thick and delicious. This healthy gluten-free sweet and sour chicken with pineapple has an easy 4-ingredient sauce that tastes amazing! Make this versatile dish for dinner, lunch, or meal prep it for the week and pair it with your favorite sides or appetizers.
- The most common pairing for any Asian-inspired meal is rice. You can serve it with a side of brown rice, healthy fried rice, or cauliflower rice if you need something low-carb. Get more low-carb substitutions here.
- Edamame or this Thai Asian salad makes a great side or appetizer to go with this gluten-free sweet and sour chicken.
- I also love a lettuce wrap as an appetizer for dinner parties! These Thai chicken peanut lettuce wraps are a fun crowd-pleasing option.
Recipe FAQs
Absolutely! Make this dinner even easier to make by using frozen vegetables and pineapple! You can find several varieties of Asian stir-fry vegetables in the frozen food section of the grocery store. Many of them also include onions and peppers, so they will save you from a lot of chopping!
No, the nutritional info provided on the recipe card is only for the sweet and sour chicken itself. You’ll need to calculate the nutritional information for your rice separately and add it to the recipe card for the most accurate information.
Absolutely! It’s more hands-on to make it on the stove instead of the oven, but it takes about the same amount of time. You’ll need to heat some oil in a large skillet over medium to medium-high heat. Once the skillet is hot, add the onions and peppers. Cook for 2-3 minutes until they start to soften, then add the chicken and pineapple. Spread them in an even layer and let them cook for 3-4 minutes, then stir. Continue this process until the chicken is cooked through to 165°F, then pour the sauce over and serve.
The easiest method is reheating leftovers in the microwave in 60-second intervals. Be sure to stir them every 60 seconds so they reheat evenly. You can also reheat them in a skillet on the stove over medium heat. You may want to make a little extra sauce for your leftovers because it will absorb into the chicken and vegetables as they’re stored. Be sure to thaw frozen leftovers for 24 hours in the refrigerator before reheating them.
More Healthy Asian-Inspired Meals
If you tried this Healthy Sweet and Sour Chicken Recipe or any other recipe on my website, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it goes in the 📝 comments below.
Healthy Sweet and Sour Chicken
Ingredients
For the Sheet Pan:
- 1 lb Chicken Breasts, diced
- ½ cup White Onion, sliced
- 1 Green Bell Pepper, sliced
- 1 Red Bell Pepper, sliced
- 1 Yellow Bell Pepper, sliced
- ½ cup Pineapple, fresh or thawed
- 1 tablespoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil, or use an oil sprayer
- ½ teaspoon Garlic Powder
- ½ teaspoon Ginger
- Salt and Pepper to taste
- Optional Green Onions, sliced
For the Sauce:
- 1/8 cup Coconut Sugar, or sugar of choice
- 1 1/2 tablespoons Coconut Aminos, or low sodium soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons Rice Wine Vinegar
- 1 tablespoon Tapioca Flour, or cornstarch
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 F. Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Spread the sliced bell peppers and onions evenly across the sheet pan then add the diced chicken and pineaple throughout.
- Drizzle the extra virgin olive oil over the veggies and chicken. Then sprinkle the seasonings, salt and pepper.
- Bake at 375 F for 20-25 minutes until chicken is cooked through.
- While the recipe bakes, add the ingredients for the sauce to a small saucepan and bring to a boil while whisking together the ingredients. Once boiling reduce temperature to low then simmer until the sheet pan is done.
- Remove the sheet pan from the oven and immediately drizzle with the sauce. Garnish with sliced green onions and serve over brown rice or cauliflower rice.
Notes
- Cut your chicken breasts and pineapple into similarly sized pieces to help them cook evenly and at the same rate.
- Preheat the lined sheet pan in the oven to sear the chicken and vegetables and enhance the flavor.
- Remove the pan from the oven halfway through cooking and stir the chicken and vegetables to be sure they cook evenly.
- Nutrition data does not include the rice.
- Serving is 1/4th of the recipe: 1 pound of chicken is 16 ounces so 1/4th equals 4 ounces approximately.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I notice you mentioned vinegar in the post, but I don’t see it in the ingredients, unless I’m missing it? Thanks!
It’s there. Thanks for catching that!
Oh, I see it now! I thought it would be in the sauce 😉 Thanks!
love that you lightened up the sugar. I always thinks asian takeout is too sweet, but i do love it! great idea for one pan!
I don’t understand why there’s so much sugar in everything? Food is naturally sweet!
Is the sauce missing an ingredient? It taste like vinegar
No, the sauce is not missing. The section in the recipe card that says “SAUCE” has all the ingredients underneath it. It should taste like coconut aminos. If it tastes like vinegar, then you may have missed adding the coconut aminos. You can always reduce the vinegar by 1 tablespoon or add more coconut aminos as some people are sensitive to vinegar flavor.
Yummo, what a good looking meal! Especially for busy weeknights.
Exactly!
He sounds so much like Vegas, it’s scary! I love this idea though. And my little Asain junkie will too!
That is scary!
Seriously, this is perfect for meal prep this week!!! I can’t wait to try this 🙂
Thanks! I hope you like it.
Yay! Sheet Pan dinners for the WIN! I love the easy clean-up most! 🙂
Me too! We’re so on the same page.
This looks so good! I don’t eet chicken, but could easily switch it out with tofu. Also, your dishes are always to awesome for photographs. Love the color contrasts you create!
Thank you! Definitely easy to swap the protein!
#tweeting #youKNOWIlovethis #riiiiiightupmyalley
Aww… thanks friend!