Bite-sized sweet-and-sour chicken breast pieces in the Sicilian style, creamy and very tender, perfect for a flavorful main course that’s accessible to everyone and great if you don’t know How to cook chicken. The Sweet-and-sour chicken is a tempting and flavorful main course that can be prepared in many ways; for example, there is sweet-and-sour chicken from Eastern cuisine or sweet-and-sour chicken with onions, but today I suggest an all-Sicilian recipe: Sicilian sweet-and-sour chicken breast with raisins, onions, celery, carrots and onions, very tender and delicious. With this new recipe for cooking chicken breast, the texture of the meat remains tender and the tasty sauce that wraps it makes everything irresistibly good. There are many ways to prepare a good sweet-and-sour chicken; today I decided to present you my grandmother Fernanda’s sweet-and-sour chicken. A easy, quick and super economical recipe that will amaze you with its unique goodness! Ready to prepare these tasty chicken bites in sweet-and-sour sauce with me? Let’s go to the kitchen, gather all the ingredients and get cooking, but first I remind you that if you want to stay updated on all my recipes you can follow my Facebook page (here) and my Instagram profile (here).

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Difficulty: Very easy
Cost: Very inexpensive
Preparation time: 20 Minutes
Portions: 4
Cooking methods: Stovetop
Cuisine: Italian
Seasonality: All seasons

Ingredients to make Sicilian sweet-and-sour chicken breast

2.2 lb chicken breast (whole)
2 carrots (large)
2 onions (large, white or red)
2 stalks celery
3 tbsp white wine vinegar (or apple cider vinegar)
1 tbsp sugar
as needed salt
2/3 cup water
10 green olives in brine (or black)
as needed all-purpose flour
as needed extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp capers in oil
1/4 cup raisins
2 tbsp pine nuts (or sliced almonds)

Tools

Frying pan
Stove

Steps to make Sicilian sweet-and-sour chicken breast

To make the sweet-and-sour chicken bites, buy a whole chicken breast, it’s a bit cheaper and lets you cut the pieces to the size you prefer. Remove the bones and cartilage from the breast and cut it into chunks. Coat all the pieces in flour so it adheres well. Pour a generous amount of oil into a heavy-based skillet and brown the chicken over high heat. A golden crust should form on the surface of the pieces; turn them from time to time and in about 10 minutes they should be done.
Gather the almost-cooked chicken in a bowl and keep it warm. Meanwhile, peel the onions and carrots and chop them not too finely. Remove the leaves and outer strings from the celery stalks and cut them into very small pieces as well.
Put all the vegetables in a very large pan with a good splash of oil, season with salt, sauté them and let them soften a bit. Add the desalted capers, the raisins, the pine nuts and a few pitted olives (which I unfortunately didn’t have). Once seasoned, add the chicken that you had previously cooked in the pan.
Over high heat pour in the vinegar, add the sugar and stir. Let it cook until the vinegar has completely evaporated, then pour in the water. As soon as a flavorful, thick cream forms, turn off the stove, let it rest for 5 minutes and plate.
The Sicilian sweet-and-sour chicken breast is ready to enjoy. You can prepare it a few hours in advance and in that case you just need to pour another glass of water over the cold chicken and bring it back to a boil, stirring often, then let it rest briefly before serving.
Leftover chicken should be stored in the fridge in a sealed container for up to 2 days and should be thoroughly reheated with a little water before serving.