You can find sweet and sour pork on pretty much any Chinese takeout menus because it is that fire! It’s a personal fave of mine because this sauce just hits different. I love it so much that I used it to make this incredible seafood chow mein! This sauce is super awesome with rice dishes like boiled rice or fried rice. But it goes great with noodles and even baked potatoes, I daresay.
I coated the pork with starch because I really wanted it to bear semblance to the original takeout recipe. I don’t recommend skipping this step. The starch I went for was potato starch but cornstarch is super popular. The cornstarch coating gives the pork a nice crunch which doesn’t get soggy when soaked in the sweet and sour sauce. So for this reason, I don’t recommend using all-purpose flour because the results are not the same.
If you want to toss the noodles in the sweet and sour sauce, I recommend tossing only as much as you will eat that day. Meaning, don’t dump all the noodles in the sauce at once. What happens is, the next day the sauce dries up especially with the starch coating the noodles and becomes too thick. The entire saucy vibe is lost that way. This sweet and sour sauce thickens up when it gets cold, so try to serve this hot!
If you’re looking for other Chinese takeout-inspired recipes, have a look at these:
- Crispy pork fried rice
- Pineapple General Tso’s chicken
- Sweet and sour shrimp & kale chow mein
- Steak udon stir-fry
Ingredients
Crispy Pork
0.8kg/1.7lbs boneless pork, cut into 2 inch chunks
1 cup potato starch or cornstarch
2 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 cup cooking oil to fry pork
Sweet and sour sauce
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons water
1/2 cup brown sugar, tightly packed
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 cup ketchup
2 tablespoons vinegar ( I used rice vinegar)
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1&1/2 cups water
1- 2 bell peppers, seeds removed
1 large onion
Instructions
Pork (follow ingredients list)
- Mix the potato starch with salt, garlic powder, black pepper and ginger in a shallow mixing bowl.
- Pat the pork dry with paper towels, and roll in the seasoned starch. It should be thoroughly coated.
- Heat the oil in a shallow frying pan (I used a 12-inch skillet) and fry the pork in batches on medium heat for 5 minutes, flip and continue frying for another 4 minutes. I fried mine in 3 batches (see notes below).
- The pork should look browned and crispy looking.
- Let the fried pork cool on a wire rack to maintain its crispiness.
Sweet and sour sauce (follow ingredients list)
- Chop the onion and bell pepper into large squares, and set aside.
- Whisk the cornstarch and water in a large bowl to get a thick, smooth slurry.
- Then whisk in the brown sugar, soy sauce, ketchup, vinegar and lemon juice until it is one color. This is your sweet and sour mix.
- Drain some of the oil that you used to fry the pork and leave about 1/4 cup behind in the pan.
- Heat this oil on medium heat and add the onions and bell peppers, stirring occasionally.
- After about 10 minutes, the onions and bell peppers should look soft and browned.
- Pour in the sweet and sour mix into the pan, followed by the 1&1/2 cups water. Lower the heat and let it simmer for 10 minutes, uncovered.
- Add the fried pork and let it continue to simmer for another 15-20 minutes. Garnish with sesame seeds or green onions.
- Serve hot with boiled rice or noodles.
Notes
-When frying anything, avoid overcrowding the pan with whatever you are trying to fry. When the pan is crowded, the temperature of the oil lowers, so you end up with soggy stuff. Hot oil combats this weakness. -Leftovers are great refrigerated for about 4 days.