This Easy DIY General Tso’s Hack Means You’ll Never Get Takeout Again

As a former New Yorker, current Angeleno, and longtime complainer, I have often carped about the lack of good, cheap General Tso’s chicken in L.A. In New York, it’s inescapable. Every corner Chinese takeout joint has General Tso’s chicken on the menu, and you can get it in a dinner combo deal with pork fried rice and a big, fat egg roll for $14. No such luck in Los Angeles. The few times I have found General Tso’s on a menu, it’s been only available as a massive, family-sized entree for more than $20. Boooo. Luckily, my mom has a DIY General Tso’s hack that I’m going to share with you. 

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What is General Tso’s?

Before we get into how to make General Tso’s with barely any effort, let’s quickly talk about the definition of General Tso’s chicken. It’s a dish of battered, crispy, fried chicken chunks tossed in a sticky, sweet-savory, sometimes spicy sauce, often paired with broccoli. It is not the same as sesame chicken or orange chicken, both of which are milder and sweeter and have completely different sauces. 

The DIY General Tso’s hack

Since General Tso’s is so hard to find here in Cali, my mother has perfected a DIY General Tso’s hack. All you need is some fast food fried chicken nuggets and a few ingredients to make an easy sauce at home. Fast food chicken + homemade sauce = delicious, semi-homemade General Tso’s. 

What’s the best fast food chicken for DIY General Tso’s?

This is where my mother has done the real hard work. She did all the testing for me (like mother, like daughter) and found out which fast food chicken works best. The answer, for better or worse depending on your political leanings, is Chick-fil-A. The Chick-fil-A nuggets hold their crispiness better than the others—plus they don’t have any seasonings that get in the way, like the chicken at Popeyes. I have good news, though. If you don’t want to buy from Chick-fil-A, you can air fry up some Just Bare frozen nuggets—they’re the best Chick-fil-A dupes we’ve found, and some of the best frozen chicken nuggets in general. 

How to make the sauce for DIY General Tso’s

Okay, here’s where you have to do a bit of work. To make your own sauce, you can follow your pick of the recipes online—I’m partial to Serious Eats. My mom makes hers with light and dark soy sauces, cornstarch, Shaoxing wine, distilled white vinegar, chicken stock, sugar, sesame oil, peanut oil, minced garlic, minced ginger, scallions, and hot chilies. 

What if I don’t want to make my own sauce?

We’ve got you covered. If you don’t want to make your own, just buy a bottle of House of Tsang General Tso’s sauce. We discovered it when taste testing sauces for our best stir fry sauce ranking and found it to be a great approximation of classic General Tso’s takeout. 

Pair your DIY General Tso’s with a frozen egg roll and some frozen fried rice, turn on a YouTube channel of “NYC traffic sounds,” let a few cockroaches loose, and revel in the nostalgia of life in the Big Apple.