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Last Updated on April 30, 2025
This is my mother’s recipe made in Paleo Sweet and Sour Chicken and well, it’s pretty dang yummy if I have to admit it. The first time I had this was at my wedding.
Mr. Bejelly and I had a small backyard wedding and my mother catered it as our wedding gift.
Most of the dishes that she made were ones I had eaten a million times – lumpia recipe, fried rice, pancet – which honestly when you grow up eating the stuff, can get boring.
But anyhow, after I had my first bite, to say I was disappointed that I didn’t have this growing up is an understatement. The food at our wedding was devoured.
No joke, every time I see certain friends they always talk about it and I’ve been married for almost 10 years.
The sad thing is Mr. Bejelly didn’t even eat any food at our wedding and spent all of his time entertaining and getting drunk as a skunk.
Yeah, a memorable wedding night to say the least.
Anyhow, all of my ravings about this recipe have fallen on deaf ears until today.
I’ve tried to recreate the recipe in the past and it always seems to come up duds because translating a recipe from “Kel, you put a dash of this and a little of that” is rocket science.
I’m glad it finally came together because oh mama, it’s good. It does take some work, though, but it’s so worth it.
One great thing about the recipe is that you can keep it simmering in the pan and the chicken never gets soggy (just like in this keto sweet and sour chicken recipe) (just like in this keto sweet and sour chicken recipe).
Ingredients
Battered Chicken
- 1 lb of chicken breast or thighs cut into roughly 1/2″ x 1/2″ pieces
- 1/4 cup tapioca flour
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- 1 egg white
- coconut oil for frying
Sauce
- 1 small onion diced
- 2 cloves garlic diced
- 1 tablespoon coconut oil
- 3 tablespoon B Grade maple syrup
- 2 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- 1 tablespoon coconut aminos
- 1 cup broth
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/2 green bell pepper diced
- 2 medium roma tomatoes diced
- 1 cup diced pineapple
Instructions
- In a medium bowl add the diced chicken, egg white, tapioca flour and sea salt and mix until well combined.
- Place the coconut oil in medium size pan and heat the oil to 350 degrees; drop the batter in and fry until golden brown – roughly 5 – 8 minutes.
- TIP – When you drop the chicken into the oil, it will stick to your pan. Scrape the bottom of the pan with a fork to loosen it after a minute.
- Remove from the pan and set on a paper towel to drain the oil. Repeat until all the chicken is done. Set aside.
- In a large pan add the coconut oil, diced onion and garlic.
- Saute until the onions are translucent and then add the broth, maple syrup, apple cider vinegar, coconut aminos and sea salt.
- Bring to a boil.
- Add in the battered chicken, pineapple, tomatoes and bell pepper.
- Mix to cover all the ingredients with the sauce, and allow to simmer for 10 minutes.
- Enjoy!
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Yum, I will have to try this with chicken.
Yummy! I will absolutely be making this at some point!
Sounds delicious! Battering the chicken first must be the secret, I’ve never done that.
wow I never made my sweet sour pork this way!!
Looks good. We love sweet and sour chicken but I have never tried to make my own. I will have to give it a go now.
Oh yummy! Sweet and sour anything is my just about my favorite when it comes to Chinese food.
YUM! I’m always looking for new ways to cook chicken. Thanks for the inspiration.
mmm I love this!!
I LOVE sweet & sour chicken so I’ll be trying this recipe.
This looks so yummy! PS I attempted to cut my first pineapple this summer — it may have been a mini disaster 🙂
This looks amazing and I love how there isn’t that mystery, sticky sauce slathering everything. Traditional sweet and sour sauce scares me.
Now that looks really good!
You are so clever for being able to make this healthy! Great idea to use tapioca flour! Yum who needs to order take out when they can make your delicious version!?
That sounds SO good! I am a huge fan of sweet & sour chicken.
Wow, this looks amazing! Makes me hungry!
Can you substitute the tapioca flour with coconut or almond flour? Thanks!
I would substitute arrowroot instead. Coconut and Almond won’t coat the same way 🙂
Does the sweet and sour tasted like maple at all? I’m o GAPS and use honey and it tastes like honey, for sure! But part of the reason is because my daughter is allergic to pineapple. I think that would improve it 🙂
*on
You could easily swap out the honey 🙂 I just prefer maple syrup because it’s less acidic. Truthfully Debbie, the pineapple flavors pulls it all together to give you the sweet and sour taste. You could try grapefruit maybe?
This is delicious! Scratch that, my son says, it’s Deeeeeelicious!!!!!! I need some tips with the frying as I had coconut oil flying everywhere! I don’t attempt it very often. There is also a lot of sauce in the pan that’s liquid. Should I have boiled it more, or does it not change consistency?
This was crazy good! I can’t wait for your cookbook.
Thank Jen! I’m so glad you love it!!