Simple Orange Chicken

We were given little jars of orange marmalade at Ruby's Pantry and I am not a fan. Those little pieces of orange zest suspended in the jelly just don't appeal to me. I didn't want it to go to waste though. I am really trying to not go grocery shopping unless I need to. We have a chest freezer and pantry full of food so ideally, I would only go to the store for produce and dairy.

So going along with that, I found a recipe for orange chicken. The recipe link claims that it is only 3 ingredients but that's not exactly true. It's 3 ingredients for the sauce but then you have to add in the chicken, flour, egg, and oil for cooking. I don't like when recipes to lie to me but I guess it's pretty close.

I will also mention that after reading through some of the comments on the recipe, I added in a few drops of sesame oil and some ground ginger. Apparently, I don't make recipes as written very often. I also took the original poster's suggestion and added in green pepper, after sauteing it first.

I used chicken thighs that David skinned and de-boned for me. This turned out just great. I never know how much it matters to use the part of the chicken that they ask for. I know the white meat vs. dark meat thing but especially when used for a recipe, I substitute in whatever part of the chicken I have.

This recipe really turned out great! David rated it a 9 out of 10 (but he isn't sure what he would change to make it a 10). The sauce made a nice coating for the rice, my chicken turned out crispy, and the peppers added a slight, nutritional crunch. It probably isn't but it actually did taste pretty authentic. I would make this instead of take out! It really is a simple recipe but I'm unsure about making it again because I don't see myself buying more marmalade.

I wonder if other flavors of jelly would taste good too or with other meats. Raspberry and pork might be yummy. I also used a pretty basic barbecue sauce so you could get a different flavor by altering that too. But don't get me wrong, nothing needs to change. I'm just always looking for alternatives.