Easy crispy sesame crusted chicken breast is quite easy to prepare and one of the best ideas for quick meals.
Firstly, I love chicken thigh more than chicken breast. Basically I do not like to cook chicken breast in my kitchen since it is so tender and so easily to be overcooked. In most of the heavily flavored Sichuan dishes, chicken thigh, even with bones can perform really nice like this mala chicken. However for milder flavored dishes like chicken and cashew, chicken breast works better since it has less raw taste due to the lack of the bones. So I learnt to cook with chicken breast.
After lots of testing, I find various secret of making the chicken tender including cornstarch, using lower temperature (oven) and this magic weapon -oyster sauce.The deep reason has not be decoded, but it really works. I believe oyster sauce has a thickened comparing with other common seasonings and can form a very good protection for chicken breast.
Then match it with steamed rice, lemon wedges, blanched vegetables and a light soy sauce drizzling. A quick meal is well prepared.
Steps
Cut the chicken breast into three thin slices. Marinating oyster sauce, ground pepper for 15 minutes. Dust with a very thin layer of starch
Brush some egg liquid on each side of the chicken breast. Pat sesame seeds on. 
Heat pan firstly and spread some oil. Reduce the fire to medium fire. Place chicken breast in and fry each side for 2-3 minutes over slow fire.
Ingredients
- 1 chicken breast
Marinating
- 1 tbsp. light soy sauce
- 1 tbsp. oyster sauce
- pinch of black pepper
- 1 tbsp. cornstarch ,for coating
Coating
- 1/4 cup black sesame seeds
- 1/4 cup white sesame seeds
- 1 egg
Sauce
- 1 tbsp. light soy sauce
- 1 tsp. sesame oil
- 1 tsp. ginger juice
- 1/4 tsp. sugar
Instructions
- Cut the chicken breast into three thin slices. Marinating with soy sauce, oyster sauce, ground pepper for 15 minutes. Then dust with a very thin layer of cornstarch
- Brush some egg liquid on each side of the chicken breast.
- Heat pan firstly and spread some oil. Reduce the fire to medium fire. Place chicken breast in and fry each side for 2-3 minutes over slowest fire covered.
- Cut into smaller pieces and serve with steamed rice, sauce and lemon wedges.
Hi Elaine,
that’s a quite interesting observation you made about chicken breast and oyster sauce. I observed a similar effect using teriyaki sauce as marinade for chicken breast. Somehow the meat was much more compact and did not dry out while cooking. I guess there are chemical reactions during marinating that modify the structure of the meat. But I haven’t found out which elements of the marinade caused this either.
Hi Elaine,
I Have been using your site for years and I think that it is great. But recently I have noticed that the adverts are appearing right in the of the list of ingredient or even in the middle of the cooking instructions. I am afride that this in not really acceptable, and needs you attention
Thank you Rebecca
Thanks for posting this recipe! My favorite Asian restaurant made a wonderful Chinese chicken salad with their chicken prepared similarly (if not exactly) using regular sesame seeds and not black. They fried the chicken, cut it into slender pieces, and added it to the salad mixture. Since I’ve moved away, I have not found any recipe remotely similar to the preparation of the chicken in that salad. I’m going to try your method tonight to see if it is the answer to my long search!
Remember to tell me your results. 💗