General Tso's Chicken Seasoning Mix - Sun Bird Brand

We eat a lot of chicken at our house as it is inexpensive, tasty, and relatively easy to prepare. But it can be challenging to find new and interesting ways to prepare it. So when my husband saw a packet of Sun Bird's "General Tso's Chicken Seasoning Mix" for about a dollar at Wal-Mart (it is also available at Hy-Vee), we thought it was worth a try. It promised "Authentic Asian Taste", and sounded like a nice change of pace.

"General Tso's Chicken Seasoning Mix " comes in a packet that looks to be about three by five inches. (So it could be easy to miss if you weren't looking for it). The package is edged in bright yellow. The upper half of the packet is doused in sunset colors and yellow "palm" fronds with the Sun-Bird logo of a setting sun and "General Tso's Chicken Seasoning Mix" on green and yellow and bordered in bamboo. (All in all someone went to great lengths to make this package "feel" Asian. And it works.) Beneath this is an enticing picture of the finished chicken.

There are a few other things needed to prepare "General Tso's Chicken Seasoning Mix", but they are things we usually have on hand: flour, chicken, sugar, soy sauce, water, and oil. The first step in preparing chicken using "General Tso's Chicken Seasoning Mix" is to cut up the chicken and coat it with flour. This is browned in oil in one pan while the sauce (seasoning, water, sugar, and soy sauce) is prepared in the other. This is added to the chicken at the end. We served the finished chicken over rice, but it could stand-alon

Chicken prepared in "General Tso's Chicken Seasoning Mix" is very good. It is flavorful and spicy hot (a little hotter than my husband likes, but perfect for me). It has a nice balance of sweet, savory, and spicy flavorings. The only qualm I had is that it was a bit too salty, but not so salty that I wouldn't enjoy having it again.

This is one inexpensive main dish that is also pretty good for you. (Though it does contain Monosodium Glutamate for those who are concerned with that. It doesn't bother me as recent studies have shown concerns with MSG were far overblown.) The whole packet of "General Tso's Chicken Seasoning Mix" only contains 100 calories, and though you add your own sugar (1/4 cup in total), you don't add a lot of fat in preparing the chicken. There's also a nice little dose of vitamin A (ten percent) and vitamin C (six percent) in each of the packet's four servings.

All total, preparing chicken with "General Tso's Chicken Seasoning Mix" only cost us about four dollars (including chicken and rice, but assuming you have the other ingredients on hand). And we had leftovers! So for a meal that only costs about a dollar a serving, I feel "General Tso's Chicken Seasoning Mix" is well worth having in your "bag of tricks"!

Enjoy!