Vegan Orange Chicken Recipe

This quick and easy vegan orange chicken recipe creates a flavorful dinner with simple ingredients. It uses frozen tofu as a chicken replacement and features a well-spiced orange sauce.

The orange chicken sauce is less sweet than typical orange sauce and features many spices for maximum flavor. Serve with a side of rice and vegetables for a tasty, balanced meal!

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Vegan Orange Tofu Ingredients

The ingredients for this recipe should be easy to find and many are staples in my vegan kitchen. I've divided them into two categories, ingredients for the tofu and ingredients for the sauce.

Seasoned Tofu "Chicken"

• Frozen tofu: Freezing and thawing (then pressing) tofu drastically changes its texture. This creates a chewier, almost spongy texture that’s closer to chicken or other meat - compared to the softer and silkier texture of unfrozen tofu. Freezing a medium or firm tofu is best. If you don’t want to freeze the tofu, select an extra firm variety.
• Corn starch: This recipe coats the tofu in starch and spices before pan frying. Doing this adds a slight coating to the tofu, like how orange chicken is often prepared. Starch also helps to thicken your orange sauce.
• Spices: For maximum flavor, I add many spices to the tofu. You can play around with what spices you like and how much to use. Add the spices directly to your sauce if you prefer! Turmeric is more for the orange color as opposed to flavor and is completely optional. Most orange chicken sauces or recipes are light on spices, but I prefer to add lots of flavor!
• Vegetable oil: To pan fry your tofu, use a couple tablespoons of your favorite cooking oil. This will help the tofu brown, creating additional layers of texture and flavor!

Vegan Orange Chicken Sauce

• Orange juice and zest: To create the orange sauce, you’ll need orange juice. While fresh squeezed is delicious, it’s easier and cheaper to use store-bought juice, so that’s what I did for this recipe. For maximum orange flavor, I highly recommend zesting at least one fresh orange. Orange zest is packed with flavor and truly enhances the taste of this orange sauce.
• Soy sauce: For salt and umami flavor in the orange sauce, I use low sodium soy sauce. Use regular soy sauce if desired. Tamari is also a great gluten free substitute if you need a gluten free recipe.
• Brown sugar: Orange sauce is typically quite sweet, so some brown sugar helps enhance the sweetness of the sauce. I haven’t tested this recipe with other types of sugars or sweeteners but assume most would work just fine. This sauce recipe is significantly less sweet compared to a more typical orange sauce; you can increase the sugar if you want extra sweetness.
• Rice vinegar: Balance the sweetness of the sauce with some acidity! Rice vinegar is perfect for this recipe; other types of vinegar like apple cider or white wine should be fine to use instead, if needed.
• Fresh ginger: Ginger powder is used to spice the tofu, but I couldn’t resist adding extra fresh ginger in the sauce too. This is optional if you aren’t a fan of ginger.
• Garlic: Like ginger, I love adding garlic to pretty much any recipe. Use as much or as little garlic as you like, but this strong flavor does tend to overpower the more subtle orange flavors. If you want this to taste like orange sauce and not garlic sauce, tread carefully!
• Black pepper: Pepper adds a nice flavor to the sauce. Use more or less according to your taste preferences.
• Chili flakes: Orange sauce is often sweet and mild in taste. I make this a more heavily spiced recipe and find adding some heat with chili flakes is a nice addition. This ingredient is optional; if you want a mild sauce, there is plenty of other flavors and a hot and spicy ingredient isn’t necessary. But, if you like spice, add up to ½ teaspoon to start (you can add more after tasting the final sauce if you want a very spicy dish).

How to Make Vegan Orange Chicken

This recipe is quite easy to make with just three simple steps. If you plan to serve with rice and/or vegetables, prepare those as well. Rice is best to start before making the tofu, so it’ll be done by the time your tofu is ready.

Step 1: Prep Sauce

Before cooking the tofu, whisk together your sauce. Simply combine all orange chicken sauce ingredients in a bowl and whisk together.

Set the sauce aside while you prepare the tofu.

Step 2: Prep and Pan Fry Tofu

If using frozen tofu as recommended, make sure it’s fully thawed before starting this recipe. To thaw the frozen tofu, place it into your fridge for a full day or two (overnight isn’t long enough).

When the tofu is thawed, press it. You’ll release large amounts of water from thawed tofu; a far greater amount than would come out of an unfrozen tofu block.

Press your thawed tofu by hand and squeeze out all the water you can. The tofu will start to break apart if you do this, but since the next step is to rip it into pieces, it doesn’t matter. Of course, use a tofu press if you have one!

Cut the tofu into bite-sized pieces (or rip it into small pieces), then coat it with corn starch. Toss until the tofu is evenly coated and the corn starch no longer appears dry (the starch looks like it disappears as you toss).

Next, add all the tofu spices and toss to coat the pieces evenly.

Warm some cooking oil in a pan over medium-high heat and add the tofu. Pan fry the tofu until it browns and appears crisp. The tofu won’t remain crispy in this recipe as you’ll cook it into the sauce.

Step 3: Combine and Serve

When you’ve browned the tofu to your liking, lower the heat to medium-low.

Add your orange sauce and toss to coat all the tofu pieces. Cook this for 3-5 minutes, until the sauce thickens and the raw garlic and ginger cooks.

When the sauce is thick, serve your vegan orange chicken with rice and vegetables, or your choice of sides!

How to Serve a Balanced Vegan Meal

I consider a balanced meal one that contains a good source of plant-based protein, carbohydrates, fats and lots of vegetables or fruits.

In this recipe, tofu provides plant-based protein and some healthy fats. Preparing tofu with some vegetable oil adds additional healthy fats.

The orange sauce offers plenty of flavor and some more simple carbohydrates.

This tofu is best paired with vegetables and a grain to round out the meal. Steamed broccoli and some rice is the easiest pairing but use any grain or starch and any vegetables you like.

It’s a saucy recipe, so the grain and veggies can get coated in all that delicious flavor!

How to Store and Reheat Leftovers

Refrigerate leftover orange chicken in an airtight container for up to 5 days. Reheat using a microwave or in a small pot or pan on the stove, over medium heat, until warmed through.

If you make this recipe, please rate and comment below to help others benefit from your experience!

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