Easy Sweet and Sour Chicken

August. The word alone makes my hands itch. August means canning season. August means sweet corn and green beans and the rhythm of blanching and cutting and filling and sealing that is as much a part of my year as Christmas or birthdays. Marlene canned forty quarts every August on the farm — sweet corn, green beans, bread-and-butter pickles, salsa from the garden tomatoes — and I've done it with her every year since I was old enough to hold a jar funnel. This will be my first August canning in Des Moines.

The kitchen is wrong for it. I know that already. The counters are too small, the stove is electric instead of gas, and the ventilation is a hood fan that sounds like a helicopter and moves approximately zero air. Canning requires space and heat tolerance and a stove that responds when you adjust the burner, and this kitchen has none of those things. But the jars are Marlene's jars. The canner is Marlene's canner. The funnel and the tongs and the jar lifter are all hers, packed in a box I haven't opened since the move. I'll open it this week. I'll start.

Mom called Monday to discuss the canning schedule. She and Dad are coming down next weekend to help — by which I mean she's coming to do it the right way and I'm going to hand her jars and try not to cry when I see her hands moving the way they've always moved, fast and sure and efficient, in a kitchen that isn't the right kitchen but has the right person in it.

In the meantime, I made sloppy joes for dinner Monday. Ground beef, ketchup, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, a pinch of cayenne. Served on hamburger buns, eaten over the sink by at least two members of this family because sloppy joes are structurally unsound and everyone knows it. Emma ate hers with a fork and knife, which is technically proper and spiritually wrong. You eat a sloppy joe with your hands or you eat something else. Those are the rules.

Jack's sunflowers are a foot tall. He measures them every morning before breakfast, which means I have daily sunflower reports delivered with the urgency of a stock ticker. "Twelve inches, Mom." "Twelve and a half, Mom." He waters them himself. He talks to them, though he denies this. The marigolds are still going strong in the corner. My son has a garden. My father would be proud. My father is proud. He just expresses it by asking about soil drainage.

The sloppy joes on Monday were exactly right for where my head was — something saucy and a little chaotic, eaten fast, no ceremony required. That’s the kind of cooking this stretch of the calendar calls for: simple, hands-on, something that satisfies without asking too much of you before the real work begins. This easy sweet and sour chicken has that same energy — quick to pull together on a weeknight, tangy and a little sticky in the best way, the kind of dinner that lets you save your focus for the forty quarts of corn that are coming.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 1/2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch pieces
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 red bell pepper, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 green bell pepper, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 cup pineapple chunks (fresh or canned, drained)
3/4 cup ketchup
1/3 cup rice vinegar
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon garlic powder
Cooked white rice, for serving

Instructions

Coat the chicken. In a large bowl, toss the chicken pieces with cornstarch, salt, and pepper until evenly coated.
Brown the chicken. Heat vegetable oil in a large skillet or wok over medium-high heat. Add the chicken in a single layer and cook for 5–6 minutes, turning occasionally, until golden on the outside and cooked through. Transfer to a plate and set aside.
Cook the peppers. In the same skillet, add the bell peppers and cook for 3–4 minutes over medium heat until slightly softened but still crisp.
Make the sauce. In a small bowl, whisk together ketchup, rice vinegar, brown sugar, soy sauce, and garlic powder until smooth.
Combine and simmer. Return the chicken to the skillet with the peppers. Add the pineapple chunks and pour the sauce over everything. Stir to coat and cook for 3–4 minutes over medium heat until the sauce thickens and everything is heated through.
Serve. Spoon over cooked white rice and serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Easy Sweet and Sour Chicken — When the Weeknight Calls for Something That Works