Sweet and Sour Chicken Balls (Hong Kong Style) Recipe

Sweet and sour chicken balls are crunchy, deep-fried battered chicken bites served with a sweet and sour dipping sauce. This Hong Kong-style dish also refers to deep-fried batter bites that are stir-fried with pineapple and peppers in a sweet and sour sauce. 

In our recipe, we'll show you both versions of this dish at home.

Jump to:

• Ingredients
• Sweet and Sour Chicken Balls (Hong Kong Style) | Chinese Takeaway
• Sweet and Sour Chicken Balls Stir-Fry
• Cooking Tips
• Air Fryer 
• Oven Baked
• How To Make Vegan Sweet And Sour Chicken Balls
• What to serve it with?
• Where did it come from?

Ingredients

Here are the ingredients you'll need to make sweet and sour chicken balls in Hong Kong style with a dipping sauce.

For the sauce

• tomato sauce
• white vinegar
• sugar
• cornflour
• instant chicken stock powder
• water

For the batter

• eggs, whisked
• self-raising flour
• corn flour
• cold water

For deep-frying

• chicken breast sliced to cubes, 1-inch sides
• salt, or to taste
• ground black pepper, or to taste
• vegetable oil for deep frying

If you want to make the stir fry deep-fried chicken balls with pineapple and sweet peppers, you can skip ahead to our second recipe below.

Get chicken breast or thighs and preferably cut into 1-inch cubes. From our experience, breast meat is better for making bigger and rounder ball shapes than thighs.

You can also substitute chicken for other meat, like pork or prawn. However, we don't think it'll go very well with beef. Let us know if you try it.

Sweet and Sour Chicken Balls Stir-Fry

There are typically two ways of enjoying this Hong Kong style dish. One is to deep fry the chicken balls and serve them with the sweet and sour sauce. Alternatively, it's to stir fry the deep fried chicken balls with toppings covered in a sticky sauce. 

Here's how to make the second stir fry style.

Additional ingredients you'll need:

• 2 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 120 grams pineapple slices
• 1 pc large onion, sliced
• 2 pcs red or green pepper, chopped (about 250 grams)

Pineapples are important to get the mix of sourness needed. But if you dislike pineapples, try pineapple juice which is more diluted. 

Alternatively, after you've cooked the sweet and sour chicken balls dish, serve it with pineapple slices. The faint taste of the slices will add that slightly tangy flavour. 

To add crunchiness, bamboo shoots or water chestnut slices can both add authenticity to your dish and a better bite.

Cooking Method

Using a clean wok, heat 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil in it. Then throw in the pineapple slices, onions and peppers. Stir-fry for a few minutes before adding in the meat and sauce. The mixture will bubble. Your sweet and sour chicken balls are ready once it is thick and covers the meat pieces.

Lastly, for the chilli fans out there, a little sweet chilli sauce will help spice those meatballs.

We would like to note that this fakeaway chicken recipe is the same for making sweet and sour prawns and pork. So, remember the tips above if you want to try cooking these, too.

Cooking Tips

So you've got all your ingredients ready, and you want to know how to cook this Chinese takeaway classic dish to perfection. Here are some tips to know before you dive in.

How to get a crispy layer

You need to use self-raising flour so that the batter expands and makes a round, fluffy shape as it fries. Just corn flour or all-purpose flour will not result in a round shape.

You can use a mixture of all-purpose flour with baking powder as an alternative. Add 1 teaspoon of baking powder to every cup of all-purpose flour to mimic self-raising flour.

The crispy layer of the batter is a perfect counterfoil to the sour sauce. To get it nice and crackling, cornflour or very fine bread crumbs mixed into the batter does the trick.

Amount of oil

You need to use enough oil for deep frying to get a nice rounder shape. We use between 3 to 4 cups of oil poured into a small pot for frying. Shallow frying will not work if you're trying to get a round shape.

Oil temperature

A high frying temperature is important as you want to cook the batter quickly and evenly once the meat is dropped into the frying oil. That will help in making a round shape. 

We recommend frying at about 180°C (355°F) but don't go any lower than 170°C (340°F) nor any higher than 190°C (375°F).

Over time as you add more meat to the oil to fry, you might see more fried bits (the Japanese call these 'tenkasu') floating in the oil. Remove these from the oil from time to time as they may burn over time.

Air Fryer 

To make sweet and sour chicken balls in an air fryer, you can follow our main recipe. However, instead of deep frying you can add the battered balls to an air fryer.

As the balls aren't suspended in oil, you'll get flatter chicken balls using an air fryer.

Here are the air fryer temperatures to use:

Preheat your air fryer for 2 to 3 minutes at 200°C or 400°C degrees Fahrenheit.

Then add your battered balls to the air fryer basket for 30 minutes. Make sure to flip at the half way point after 15 minutes to get a crispy texture on all sides.

Because no oil is added, the air fryer version of our classic Chinese takeaway dish is healthier and has fewer calories. Some may also prefer the convenience of just cleaning up the air fryer rather than the wok and stove.

Oven Baked

You can also make a baked version of sweet and sour chicken balls. Baking the meatballs means that the surrounding air heats the meat. Similar to the air fryer method, you won't be able to get round ball shapes as the meat isn't suspended in oil. In contrast, there's less oil, and it will cook faster in the oven. You also won't get an oily or greasy aftertaste.

To bake meatballs, just preheat your oven to 210 degrees Celsius (410 degrees Fahrenheit). Grease your pan with cooking spray. 

Then mix the ingredients for cooking the meatballs together. Then bake for 20-30 minutes. Once baked, serve with the sauce.

How To Make Vegan Sweet And Sour Chicken Balls

If you are on a vegan diet, then this section will be important for you. You can actually recreate vegan sweet and sour chicken balls using seitan, a type of flour made from vegan ingredients.

We can recreate the dough with wheat gluten, chickpea flour, and nutritional yeast. A bit of salt will help bring out the savoury flavour of meatballs.

For the sauce, cooking the 'meatballs' in a vegetable broth and adding apple cider vinegar will cause a little kick of the tastebud.

Once the dough has been shaped into 'meatballs' and soaked in broth, just deep fry and serve with marinara sauce or add pineapple rings. This will emphasise the sour and sweet flavour which is the highlight of this dish – except now it is meat-free.

What to serve it with?

Typically this dish is served with sweet and sour sauce on the side for dipping. However, here are some more filling sides and mains to serve it with. 

We recommend pairing it with the scrumptious Singapore fried rice. 

You can also opt for healthier choices, such as steamed brown rice or cauliflower rice. Some cooks also use the sauce to fry up some shrimp chow mein (flat yellow Asian rice noodles), adding extra water to make sweet and sour chicken noodles. 

Where did it come from?

The sweet and sour sauce itself originates from China. The sauce is commonly used as a condiment for meat, vegetables, fish. When Western traders first visited China in the early 18th century, they too took a liking to the sauce. But there was one problem.

The Chinese cooked ribs with the sauce, and the bones were a turnoff for their Western visitors. A chef in Chencun used well-marbled pork shoulder instead. Apparently, their Western customers liked it so much, they exclaimed "good!". Unable to understand English, the Chinese chefs termed the dish "gu lou" which means 'sweet and sour' in Chinese. 

With mass migration taking place in the late 19th to early 20th century, many Cantonese immigrants moved to Hong Kong. They reinvented this dish. 

Using chicken instead, they chopped the meat into bite-sized pieces, deep-fried it, and then coated it with the sticky sauce. The major difference between the Hong Kong version of sweet and sour chicken balls is the batter. The meat is battered first, then fried.

Now you have created your own "fakeaway" sweet and sour chicken balls in Hong Kong style. Whether you eat on its own, or with some steamed rice, it is a great addition of protein to your meal. 

Did you successfully cook this recipe at home? Show us a snapshot of your delicious dish by tagging us on Instagram @honestfoodtalks. We would love to see what you made.

If you liked this recipe, do check out our other easy-to-follow Asian recipes on our website.