Orange Ground Chicken

I’m on a mission to use up everything in my chest freezer. For one thing, it sorely needs to be organized. I’m a nicer person when things are organized. For another thing, I’m the kind of weirdo that keeps an inventory posted on the front of my freezer so I know what I have. Except I stopped updating it several months ago, and now I have only the vaguest notion of what’s in there. All I really know is that the freezer is way too full.

To make the situation worse, I can’t pass up a great meat deal at the grocery store. I’m an early riser and I typically run grocery errands immediately after breakfast, often not too long after my neighborhood grocery store opens. This small store has an actual butcher, and when he comes in he marks stuff down that needs to sell pronto. I am physically unable to skip cruising past the meat case at 7:30 a.m. Marked down meat either gets cooked today, or it goes straight into the freezer.

I don’t buy everything that’s marked down, but I do score goodies fairly frequently. Now that I have something reliable to do with flank steak I grab one if I see it. Ground beef? I take that home, brown it immediately, and freeze it for speedy tacos, chili, Asian beef, etc. I will not walk past country pork ribs sporting a big orange sticker no matter what. But the real treat is chicken.

The marked down chicken I usually find there is a premium brand the store carries. I’ve never seen boneless, skinless breasts marked down, but legs and thighs? Yes. Whole chickens? Occasionally. Wings? Once in a blue moon. Ground chicken? Often enough that I need more good recipes to use it up. Happily, I have accidently discovered Orange Ground Chicken.

If I Google it, I see that everybody and their brother has an Orange Chicken recipe, usually with fried pieces of boneless thighs. Many are claiming to be Panda Express copycats. I’m happy for them, but here’s mine. It’s not as sweet as Panda Express. And since you don’t have to fry anything, it’s far less trouble. This recipe is super easy and will more than rival takeout, I promise. And I can have it on the table in 20 minutes.

Kids adore Orange Chicken! (Just ask Panda Express.) This recipe does have a little spice to it. You may want to start with a little less heat and add more if that suits your family. If you have very young children, you may want to try leaving the chili garlic paste out and bringing Sriracha–or even red pepper flakes–to the table instead.

I originally planned to use Orange Ground Chicken as a lettuce wrap filling, and I did and we loved it. It was also very good on steamed rice. And then as I was making egg rolls (yes, I make them here and those go in the freezer, too), I still had two egg roll wrappers left when I ran out of the stuff that goes inside. I filled the last two with Orange Ground Chicken, and nobody was mad.

Those Chinese food takeout boxes above are cheap on Amazon, and they make everybody taking lunch to school or work happy. Order some fortune cookies while you’re there.