One of the most popular “classic Chinese food” dishes (and by “classic,” I mean “not actually Chinese”) is orange chicken, the sweet, tangy chicken dish that’s managed to keep Panda Express around for all these years. But what are you supposed to do if you start craving some citrusy poultry and you’re not at your local strip mall or trapped in a mall food court? Enter frozen orange chicken. And, lucky for you, we did the legwork (mouthwork?) and found the best frozen orange chicken.
You might be surprised to find out just how many frozen orange chicken brands are out there. Your grocery store’s frozen food aisle has a bunch that you can cook up at home. And to find the best of them, we sampled eight, judging them on sauce, chicken, and overall taste. So, here are our picks for the five best frozen orange chicken meals you can find.
- Great Value Orange Chicken
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An orange chicken frozen meal tends to fall into one of two basic categories: chicken pieces cooked/covered in a frozen sauce or basically chicken nuggets with some orange dipping sauce. And Walmart’s brand of frozen orange chicken is definitely in the latter group, with batter-coated chicken pieces packaged with a big bag of frozen orange sauce to use after you heat the rest up, which makes it a great air fryer orange chicken candidate. The white meat is light and the crispy tempura coating has the delicious taste of the finest McNugget. But the real draw is the orange sauce, which uses orange juice concentrate and rice vinegar to give a great, tangy taste that had me swearing there was pineapple in it. (There isn’t. I checked.)
Credit: Merc / Walmart
- InnovAsian Orange Chicken
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This bag of frozen orange chicken straddles the line between the two versions I mentioned in the last entry by having a separate sauce packet that you pour onto the chicken pieces before or after cooking, giving it a kind of citrusy glaze. Like the previous brand, it’s made with white meat with a tempura coating, but the sauce here (made, again, with orange concentrate) is extremely orangey, rather than tangy. Though it comes with instructions for pan-frying or air-frying, this is the best frozen chicken for the microwave, which you can do because it’s made with pre-cooked chicken (Great Value is, too). Pop the sauce pouch into a bowl of water to thaw, toss the chicken into the microwave for three minutes, and then combine the two. It’s perfect for those moments when you need orange-coated chicken STAT! (Which for me, is “always.”)
Credit: Merc / Target
- Crazy Cuizine Mandarin Orange Chicken
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If you’re craving orange chicken that’s the type of orange chicken that you normally see ladeled from a steam table into a styrofoam container, then this is the best frozen orange chicken for you. It’s got some tasty white meat covered in a light, crunchy breading and a sauce that’s a delightful mix of sugar, vinegar, and soy sauce that answers the question, “What if McDonald’s made an orange-flavored sweet-and-sour sauce?” (Unfortunately, it doesn’t answer the question, “Wait, why haven’t they done that?”) And, sure, it’s not the greatest dish in the world, but it’s tasty and you really can’t stop eating it. You know, the type of dish that puts the “pleasure” in “guilty pleasure.”
Credit: Merc / Walmart
- Hart Authentic Orange Chicken
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Most orange chicken recipes call for white meat, presumably to avoid upstaging the sauce, which we all know is the real star of the show. But this orange chicken frozen meal is made with “battered dark meat fritters” that give the dish a richer, meatier flavor than you’d expect. And while it comes with a pretty standard corn syrup-based sauce, the batter and chicken still make it worth frying for yourself. Oh, and I do mean fry, as this and the rest of the top three aren’t fully cooked meat, so you can’t just heat them up in the microwave like numbers four and five. But if you’ve got an oven, a stovetop, or a deep fryer (and twenty minutes to kill), it’s definitely worth the wait.
Credit: Merc / Instacart
- P.F. Chang’s Home Menu Orange Chicken
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If you’ve tried P.F. Chang’s Orange Chicken in the restaurant, this is a pretty faithful home version, with some tasty chicken pieces covered in an equally tasty coating and a nice, thick orange sauce. And while the sauce is a little less sweet than some of the others (it’s hard to compete with corn syrup), it does have a more interesting and layered flavor, with notes of ginger, red chili paste, and oyster sauce. It’s also probably the best looking of all the orange chicken I tasted. It even includes some vegetables like carrots and edamame, which makes it feel even more like a real restaurant dish. All in all, it’s just a great meal. And it’s the best frozen orange chicken you can buy.
Credit: Merc / Target
Best Tangy Sauce
Best for the Microwave
Best Food Court Quality
Best Chicken
Best of the Best
Other Frozen Orange Chicken flavors we tried: Foster Farms Orange Chicken, La Choy Orange Chicken, Tai Pei Orange Chicken
