Recipe: 15-Minute Chinese Orange & Sesame Prawns

It’s Chinese New Year on February 12th and I think you should celebrate by making these sticky, saucy, tangy and speedy Orange Sesame Prawns – they’re absolutely delicious served over fluffy, aromatic Jasmine rice and with a side of my sesame pak choi. Oh, and did I mention they only take 15 minutes to make?

This is the dish I’ve been making recently whenever I need to put something together super quickly. Inspired by something I saw in BBC Good Food, it is also delicious made with seasonal blood oranges, and with any combination of sides, though I do caution against straying from the Jasmine rice into something fancier like egg fried or even coconut rice – it is the perfect foil for the tangy orange sauce.

Looking for some other ideas for Chinese New Year?

My Better Than Takeaway Sweet & Sour Chicken is also an excellent Friday night dinner idea, as are my Crispy Sweet & Sour Rhubarb Pork with Egg Fried Rice, my 15-Minute Five Spice Pork, and my Weeknight Chinese Chicken Noodles.

If you’re looking for some starters or sides, this is How To Make Homemade Sesame Prawn Toasts, and a Spicy Chinese Cucumber Salad.

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15-minute Chinese Orange & Sesame Prawns

  • Author: Rachel Phipps
  • Prep Time: 10 minutes
  • Cook Time: 5 minutes
  • Total Time: 15 minutes
  • Yield: Serves 2
  • Category: Dinner
  • Cuisine: Chinese
  • Diet: Gluten Free

Description

These quick and easy Chinese prawns are cooked in a sweet, tangy orange sauce before being served with fluffy Jasmine rice and a pile of sesame pak choi.


Ingredients

Scale
  • 3 tbsp runny honey
  • 2 tbsp soy sauce
  • 4 tsp Chinese rice wine vinegar
  • 2 tsp toasted sesame oil
  • 1 orange (1/2 zest, whole juice)
  • 1 1/2 tbsp cornflour
  • 2 tsp Furikake (see note, or toasted sesame seeds)
  • pinch five spice powder
  • 1 x 250g (9 oz) frozen raw king prawns, defrosted 
  • 1 large spring onion
  • 1 tbsp light oil
  • jasmine rice, to serve
  • baby pak choi, to serve 

Instructions

  1. Prepare and cook the pak choi and Jasmine rice.
  2. To make the stir fry sauce, whisk together the honey, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, toasted sesame oil, the juice of the orange and half its zest. Set aside.
  3. Combine the cornflour, Furikake or sesame seeds and a pinch of five spice powder in a small shallow bowl. Pat the prawns dry and with a sharp knife butterfly them down their spines to give them a larger surface area for the sauce to cling. Toss them in the cornflour mixture and set aside.
  4. Prepare the spring onions by either trimming them and finely slicing them, or by shredding them and making curls in a bowl of ice water. Set aside.
  5. To cook the prawns, heat the oil in a medium non-stick frying pan over a high heat. Add the prawns and toss around the pan until they’ve separated. Once they’ve coloured on one side add the sauce, cooking on high for a further minute or two until the sauce is thick and sticky, and the prawns have only just cooked through. Serve immediately with the Jasmine rice, pak choi, and sprinkled with spring onion pieces. 

Notes

Furikake is a Japanese mixture of toasted sesame seeds, dried seaweed, and sometimes herbs, fish flakes and MSG. You can find it on Ocado or on Amazon.

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