Mandarin Orange Chicken…Trader Joe’s Frozen Version vs. The Homemade Version

This week on my Trader Joe’s recipe remake, I initially started out thinking I was going to find a dessert to copycat. Full disclosure, desserts, like pies and cakes, are cool to look at, but certainly not my strong suit. I didn’t see anything in the sweet section that was very inspiring to me, but I did see a popular savory item. The moment I laid eyes on it, I knew it was my next remake.

Did you know the Mandarin Orange Chicken is the best selling frozen item from the popular supermarket chain? Well, now you do! I had never tried it, so I was curious to do so.

The ingredients aren’t horrendous, but the added soybean and vegetable oils, flour, egg and of course, the use of chicken thighs over chicken breasts are going to make this dish inherently way more fattening. I knew I could find a way to make this dish still taste delicious, but use less ingredients and potentially use some healthier ingredients as well. One of the changes I made was I used boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into pieces instead of chicken thighs. I know chicken thighs are richer in taste, but I wanted to see how this dish would taste with a lighter, leaner meat. Below are the breasts cut into pieces and seasoned with salt and pepper before cooking in avocado oil in my cast iron skillet.

Below are a few other items I used for the sauce, which, as usual, was the part I was most skeptical about creating. Using items like LIGHT soy sauce helped with the sodium content. Cornstarch is what ultimately helps to thicken the sauce and coat the chicken.

Also, using fresh green onion adds some flavor as well as color to the dish.

I meant to take more still pictures of the sauce, and other items, but those are all in the recipe story on Instagram instead.

Below is a close up of the final homemade product. I will show you the frozen item close up as well. The chicken consistency is obviously very different. The colors of the sauces came out pretty similar, while mine tastes more orange-y and less sweet than the frozen sauce, probably because of the actual orange juice and real orange zest added to it.

This next picture is the frozen Trader Joe’s chicken. This first picture is the chicken, frozen, getting ready to cook for a few minutes in avocado oil. I wanted to be fair and use the same oil to cook both.

This is a the final product after cooking and adding the sauce to the Trader Joe’s chicken.

I figured that the frozen version would taste good. How the heck would it be at the top of the frozen list all this time if it didn’t?

I didn’t remake this particular meal to see if it would taste better. I made this meal because I wanted to see how similar I could get it to the frozen version using less ingredients, some also being healthier for the heart and lower in sodium.

As a recap, the main differences between the frozen and homemade version:

-The homemade version uses avocado oil instead of soybean and vegetable oil (although I did warm up the Trader Joe chicken on a skillet in some avocado oil). Although the Trader Joe’s label does not say whether or not the soybean or vegetable oil they use is hydrogenated (I will assume not), these oils do happen to be the cheapest quality. Not to mention, the fat found in soybean oil is Omega-6, which, while we need some, most Americans are far from deficient, as it is found in most processed foods already. It can promote chronic inflammation in your body, which in turn promotes more disease/illness.

-The homemade version uses boneless, skinless chicken breast instead of chicken thighs. Not that the thighs are horrible for you, but 3 ounces of chicken breast meat contains about 3 grams of fat and 1 gram of saturated fat, and 3 ounces of chicken thigh contains 9 grams of fat and 3 grams of saturated fat. It may not seem like a big deal for some, but for those who might need to watch their saturated fat intake, it can make a big difference in the long run.

-The frozen version has breading on it, and the sauce is very sweet and sticky, so clearly it is going to taste more like the orange chicken many of us know and love from Asian restaurants. If you really love it, every now and then to have the frozen one is not a big deal, but the homemade version is also delicious and healthier.