30 Minute White Wine Sesame Chicken

This 30 minute White Wine Sesame Chicken is an asian inspired dish with a white wine sesame sauce over pan fried chicken and rice.

RECIPE INDEX

• About this recipe
• Alternatives
• Planet friendly points
• Recipe steps explained 
• More fun recipes to try
• Expiration & Storage

ABOUT THIS 30 Minute White Wine Sesame Chicken

It’s the best when dishes just come together seamlessly… Like magic! I originally was going to do cashew chicken, but realized I don’t have enough cashews! I started teaching my cabinets and thought ok sesame seeds have gotta be a no brainer and grabbed those out of the cupboard. Since I knew mushrooms were going to go into this dish so immediately I thought, holy crap, reduced white wine sauces taste amazing with mushrooms! Did the old sniff test with white wine next to what I had started of the sesame sauce and thought ummm yes, this is a no brainer. Thus White Wine Sesame Chicken was born.

ALTERNATIVES 

Green beans.

You can use lots of different veggies for this instead of green beans. Use what you have! Snap peas, broccoli, green peppers, onions... Give em a shot!

Chicken thighs.

A good sub for a white meat sub chicken breast or chicken tenderloins would be great substitutes. 

Mushrooms.

White mushrooms or large portobello mushrooms will work just fine! I personally love the baby bellas for their flavor and I'm a frequent Costco shopper. They tend to have those over the large Portobellos.

White wine.

I use chardonnay for its buttery nature. I love it's taste too so that's what I typically have around the house. You can pretty much use any white wine. Just keep in mind if you use a Reisling or Pinot Grigio, you might get those more tart green apple like notes slightly changing some flavors in the sauce. Some will be more noticeable than others.

PLANET FRIENDLY POINTS

I love this recipe for it's resourcful nature in being able to use what you have in your kitchen in terms of saving waste and using what you have instead of having to go out to the store. 

I don't know about you, but I love trying new wines. If I don't love them I'll just use them in recipes like this! No waste here!!

Mushrooms are also pretty cool because they can be used to create eco-friendly plant based packaging called Mycelium materials. Mycelium is the body and root of the mushroom plant. What's so cool about this, is in order to make this packaging, they have to grow it. Think about how naturally resourceful and healthy for the planet that sounds!

RECIPE STEPS EXPLAINED

1 Rice prep.

Add rice and water to your rice maker. Hit start.

• 2 cups rice
• 2 cups water

2 Sauce prep.

Get out all your sauce ingredients and measuring tools, whisk them together in a small bowl. Set aside. 

Mix your cornstarch slurry together in a separate measuring cup or bowl. Set aside.

Sauce

• 1 3/4c brown sugar
• 1/2c chicken broth
• 1/2c soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
• 1/4 c rice vinegar 
• 1/2 c white wine (I used a Chardonnay)

Cornstarch slurry

• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/4 c chicken broth 

3 Chicken Prep.

Add your chicken coating ingredients in a large bowl. Chop your chicken into bite sized pieces and toss in the coating till completely covered.

Chicken

• 1lbs boneless chicken thighs (breast or tenderloins will work)

Chicken Coating

• 1/2 cup corn starch
• 2 pinches of pepper
• 2 pinches salt

4 Garlic and mushroom prep.

Mince your 3 garlic cloves with a knife if you didn’t buy them pre minced. Cut your mushrooms into thin slices

• 3 garlic cloves

• 1 1/2 cups of baby Bella mushrooms
• 1 1/2 cups uncut green beans (about 2 large handfuls)

5 Green beans.

Chop your green beans into 1-2in pieces. I usually throw in the whole green bean because it’s so easy! But with this dish we want a quicker cook. We want the speed of the green bean cook to match the mushroom and the smaller size is how we achieve this! This is key in our time efficiency here.

6 Pans.

Add 2 medium to large pans on your burners and set heat to medium.
Try to find a pan for the chicken that allows each piece of chicken to have contact with the pan (as best you can). This allows for more of the chicken surface to cook evenly and crispy. If the chicken pieces are touching they won’t have the space they need and will most likely keep the cornstarch from getting nice and browned. Add 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil to your pans. No need to measure it out, give it a good eyeball! You’ll want a little more oil in your chicken pan. Make sure the pan is nice and hot to prevent your chicken coating from getting soggy and falling off. We want to sear it right away!

For your second veggie and sauce pan, Add the garlic and mushrooms. Once you hear a sizzle in your garlic and veggie pan, start stirring occasionally for five minutes.

7 Add green beans to the pan and cook, stirring occasionally for another five minutes

8 Add your sauce mixture to the pan.

Stir occasionally for 5 minutes, then add your cornstarch slurry once sauce is bubbling.

9 Add your cornstarch covered chicken to your second pan.

Be aware not to over mix the chicken. This will cause the cornstarch coating to come off. Let it brown. When it browns this allows it to “set.”

If needed add some extra oil to the pan if you think you start to notice the chicken sticking to the pan.
Try to add it to the pan directly and not on top of the chicken pieces to keep the chicken from getting soggy.

10 Once those 5 mins are up, Turn down heat to medium low on both chicken and sauce

11 Allow chicken to cook through and sauce to reduce for another 5 mins while you mix in your sesame seeds and toasted sesame oil.

12 Garnish.

Assemble your bowl. You can add an optional avocado garnish. Extra sesame seeds are also a plus! If you really want to get fancy, add Trader Joe’s Furikake Seasoning!

13 Eat!!

PREP TIPS

Don't forget to cook your rice! I tend to always skip over this step. Mom brain at it's finest lol.

COMPATIBLE RECIPES

For other fun dinners, try my Pink Tuna Tacos!

Building out your dinner list for the week? Try my Healthy Ham Stuffed Sweet Potatoes.

EXPIRATION & STORAGE

Best way to store is in an air tight container for up to 5 days after date made. I always put sauce on the bottom (with the veggies) then rice, then chicken on top to keep the chicken coating from getting soggy!