Chinese Velvet Chicken Recipe

Velveting is a Chinese cooking technique often used in stir-fry recipes to retain the most flavor and moisture in chicken breasts, beef, and seafood. The technique locks in juices and keeps the meat moist once it hits the very hot wok. So if you are wondering why the chicken in your homemade stir-fry seems dry and tough, while the take-out version is always juicy and delicious, it's because restaurants do this and you don't, until now. To velvet means to "pass through oil," which is literally what you'd be doing when briefly cooking the chicken in a hot pan with oil. But fear not, velveting chicken is easy and totally worth your time.

The most common velveting techniques involve coating or marinating poultry or meat for stir-fries with egg white and corn flour or cornstarch. Some add baking soda and some add soy sauce, while many others marinate the meat or poultry with potato starch or sweet potato starch before stir-frying. The velveting technique is usually used with chicken breast because these contain less fat than other kinds of meat. Some cooks blanch the chicken in salted water to avoid additional calories from the oil, but most are inclined to use oil to precook it, as it yields the most flavor and doesn't wash out the marinade.

Use the precooked chicken in popular dishes like kung pao chicken, broccoli chicken, General Tso’s chicken, and in chicken noodle soup, stews, or other chicken preparations. Be mindful that velveting doesn't cook the chicken all the way through and an additional cooking time is needed to ensure the recommended inner temperature for safe chicken consumption—165 F. Additionally, this recipe contains egg, so be mindful of any egg allergies when having guests over.