This honey sesame chicken recipe combines a simple homemade sauce with air fried or baked Perdue Lightly Breaded Chicken Breast Chunks, yellow bell pepper, green beans, and toasted sesame seeds. The entire dish comes together in under 30 minutes and will make you forget about takeout quite possibly forever.
I’ll provide a recipe walkthrough below, a recipe for sesame cauliflower rice to serve with your honey sesame chicken, and a printable recipe card at the bottom of the post. Let’s dive in!
Honey Sesame Chicken Recipe Walkthrough
Thanks to the Perdue Simply Smart Chicken Breast Chunks I mentioned above, this recipe is an easy one! All you’ll need to do is throw the chicken in an air fryer or on a baking sheet in the oven, add some green beans and bell pepper slices towards the end of cooking, and make a simple sauce on the stovetop to toss the chicken in.
If you have access to Costco, they have a product from Just Bare (and their own Kirkland brand) that’s very similar. Check out my air fryer sweet and sour chicken recipe, chicken and cauliflower bowls, or high protein Costco guide for a look at it in action.
You can also make a one-pan version of this recipe using ground chicken. Check out my ground chicken stir fry for an example.
How to Make Honey Sesame Sauce
If you think making your own sauce is too difficult, think again! Simply mix the sauce ingredients together and add to a skillet or saucepan. Cook the sauce over medium-high heat, stirring often to avoid any burning, until it’s reduced to a sauce.
How do you know when it’s ready? Take note of the two far right photos below. When the sauce has thick bubbles almost resembling foam, remove from the heat and see if you can create a trail with your spatula or whisk (far right photo).
Depending on your cookware, this should take around 10-12 minutes. Just in time to briefly cool before tossing with your cooked chicken and veggies.
This is the same sauce method I used for my Baked General Tso Chicken and Orange Chicken recipes. And like I mentioned in those, making your own sauce creates a rice and bold flavor that’s SO worth it. If you love the sauce, you can use it for other recipes like my air fryer chicken meatballs or baked chicken meatballs.
Oh and by the way, you could totally use the Perdue Chicken Breast Chunks in those recipes!
Air Fry or Bake the Perdue Chicken and Veggies
You can go either route. I used a 6.5-quart Ninja Foodi during recipe testing for this honey sesame chicken. Cook times may vary slightly in other air fryers.
As for the veggies, the recipe calls for adding them towards the end of air frying/baking. You want them to resemble a stir fried vegetable, not green bean fries or fajita peppers. That said, don’t sweat perfect timing on the vegetables—they’ll be fine.
And yes, picky eaters, you can omit the vegetables altogether. But if you happen to be someone that likes broccoli but not green beans, my firecracker chicken bites go that route. Or my air fried black pepper chicken and peppers recipe skips the green veg altogether.
Once your chicken and veggies are good to go, add to a bowl with sesame seeds, pour the sauce over, and toss. You can add the chicken and vegetables straight to the skillet with the sauce if the skillet is not too hot.
And that’s it. Serve it up!
How to Make Sesame Cauliflower Rice
Speaking of serving, you can serve your honey sesame chicken any way you’d like. Since we try to keep things kinda healthy around here, I made a super simple sesame cauliflower rice to serve with mine. Here’s what you’ll need:
- 12oz bag of frozen cauliflower rice
- 1/2 tablespoon of toasted sesame oil, toasted sesame seeds, and toasted black sesame seeds
- 1/4 cup (12g) sliced green onion
Microwave the cauliflower rice and stir in the remaining ingredients. That’s it!
If you’re not a fan of cauliflower rice, you should try making the half calorie rice I mentioned in my hot honey sesame rotisserie chicken stir fry.
And if you prefer fried rice, check out my air fried cauliflower rice recipe.
Final Honey Sesame Chicken Recipe Notes
The nutrition information does not include any kind of rice. It’s for the chicken and vegetables only.
I’ve divided the recipe into 4 servings. If you’d like a specific weight for each serving, I’d suggest weighing the entire batch after cooking and dividing by 4 (or however many servings you’d like).
Scaling the Recipe
One bag of Perdue Chicken Breast Chunks contains 24 ounces of chicken. So if you wanted to use the entire bag for a meal prep batch of honey sesame chicken, multiply the sauce ingredients by 1.5.
All right, that’s all I have as far as notes go! If you have a question about this honey sesame chicken, drop a comment below or join my Facebook group with more than 10k healthy home cooks that would love to help you out!
Easy Honey Sesame Chicken
Ingredients
- 16 oz Frozen Perdue Lightly Breaded Chicken Breast Chunks
- 1 Yellow Bell Pepper, cut into thin strips
- 1 C 85g Green Beans
- 1 Tbsp 8g Toasted Sesame Seeds
For the Sauce
- 1 C 240mL Low Sodium Chicken Broth
- 3 Tbsp 63g Honey
- 2 Tbsp 30g Sweet Chili Sauce
- 2 Tbsp 30g Rice Vinegar
- 1 Tbsp 16g Toasted Sesame Oil
- 1 Tbsp 15g Soy Sauce
Instructions
- Air fry or bake the chicken at 400F for 12 minutes before adding the bell pepper and green beans. Toss and air fry for an additional 8-12 minutes until the chicken is crispy. For conventional oven, follow the same instructions using a baking sheet with a wire rack.
- While the chicken cooks, mix the sauce ingredients together in a bowl. Heat a saucepan or skillet over medium-high heat. Carefully add the sauce mixture to the pan and cook, stirring often, for 8-10 minutes until the mixture has reduced to a sauce. When a spatula leaves a trail behind it when dragged through the sauce, remove from the heat.
- Add the cooked chicken to a bowl (or straight in the skillet/saucepan) with the toasted sesame seeds and sauce. Gently toss together until evenly coated. Serve with rice and enjoy!
I didn’t have the correct chicken and this was a last minute meal tonight so I just went with regular chicken breast and roasted them (with a very light layer of olive oil) on a cooling rack over a baking tray in the oven. My sauce didn’t thicken (but I can never get sauces to thicken) so I added a slurry made with arrowroot flour and water and then it thickened up. I love how the beans stayed crisp by roasting them on the cooling rack with the chicken at the end. And the sauce had me licking my plate, it is that good. Served over a mix of banza and jasmine rice. I will be making this again for sure!
Nom, nom, nom…get in my belly
Just like all of his recipes….so tasty!
I was skeptical because I don’t like super sweet dishes usually for my main course but I made this tonight and it was amazing. I cut the recipe by a third bc I was just making for one and it turned out great. I did add some sriracha on when eating, but that was just because I wanted some heat! It was amazing!
This was so good and easy to throw together. I could have eaten the whole thing myself. Thank you, Mason! Another hit at home.
I made this, never tried this chicken but it was good! The sauce never thickened though and I left it on the stove for more than 20 minutes.
Glad you liked the chicken! Not sure what happened on the sauce. It definitely shouldn’t take that long!
I am making this right now and I also can’t get the sauce to thicken. Its been on the stove for 20 minutes. Don’t know what I’m doing wrong.
It could be the type of pan you’re using (not conducting as much heat) if all the ingredients are the same. It’s also worth mentioning the sauce will thicken once it’s off the heat. Once your spatula leaves a trail, you can take it off the heat and let the cooling do the rest.
Made this for my family when they visited, and it was a major hit! Even for the picky eaters. I got the only sweet chili sauce Kroger had at the time, and didn’t have rice vinegar so put in I believe either a different kind, or cooking sherry…. Regardless, it shows you it’s difficult to mess up, which is always a good thing!
I used the Purdue chicken Mason recommends for a quick recipe, and it definitely sped up the process and was also delicious! The only thing I would say is to be careful to not overcook it in the Air fryer if that’s the method you’re using. Mine turned out kinda tough on the outside due to that. Sauce was still amazing though.
I’ve made this recipe for my meal prep the past 2 weeks in a row, can’t help but want it for lunch and/or dinner everyday! Seriously, such a tie between this and orange chicken recipe. The sauce is amaaazing. I often make a double batch, cook the normal recipe for my boyfriend then airfry tofu for myself. ALSO perdue chicken in the airfryer is a GAME CHANGER, so simple and quick. No more dipping in eggs/breadcrumbs!
Saying goodbye to the days of only having Chinese food for cheat meals and helllllooooo to incorporating them day to day! This is super easy to prepare ahead of time and use in my meals. It’s delicious with rice, cauliflower rice, and on salads too! Awesome!
Love love love this recipe! Super easy and quick to make. For those of you having trouble with the sauce – give it an extra 10-15 min on the stove and I’ve found once you let it cool, it thickens up a bit too!