Chicken with Lobster Sauce

This Chicken with Lobster Sauce recipe takes that silky, savory sauce from our beloved Shrimp with Lobster Sauce and gives it a new home — nestled around tender chunks of chicken instead of shrimp.

Ingredients · Servings 4

1 pound boneless skinless chicken thighs ((cut into chunks))
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon neutral oil ((such as canola, vegetable, or avocado oil))
1 teaspoon oyster sauce
1½ cups low sodium chicken stock
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon sesame oil
⅛ teaspoon white pepper
4 ounces ground pork
2 tablespoons neutral oil
1 clove garlic ((minced))
1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine ((or cooking sherry))
½ cup frozen peas
2 tablespoons cornstarch
3 tablespoons water
1 egg ((beaten slightly))
1 scallion ((chopped))

Method

In a medium bowl, mix the chicken pieces, water, cornstarch, neutral oil, and oyster sauce, until the chicken has absorbed all the liquid. Set aside for 20 minutes. In a liquid measuring cup, combine the chicken stock, salt, sugar, sesame oil, and white pepper to make the sauce mixture.
Fill your wok ⅓ full with water and bring it to a boil. Stir in the ground pork. Break up any clumps and cook for about 1 minute, until the pork is no longer pink. Drain the pork in a mesh strainer and give it a quick rinse. This will give you a much clearer, cleaner sauce.
Wash your wok and place over medium-high heat until smoking. Add 2 tablespoons of neutral oil and the chicken in one layer. Stir-fry until it’s 70% cooked. Stir in the garlic and ground pork, and stir-fry for 15 seconds. Add the wine, and stir-fry for another 10 seconds. Add the sauce mixture and the peas.
Bring the mixture to a simmer, and combine the cornstarch and water into a slurry. Stir it into the sauce a little bit at a time. Let the mixture bubble and thicken. It should be able to coat a spoon, but it shouldn’t have a gloopy consistency. If it gets too thick, add a little more chicken stock. If it’s too thin, add more slurry.
Spread the slightly beaten egg and scallion across the mixture and let simmer for 5 seconds. Use your spatula to fold the egg into the sauce with a few strokes. Serve over white rice.

Growing up, I was not a seafood kid, which meant I spent many years watching everyone ELSE eat shrimp with lobster sauce. If you’ve ever been there — wanting the sauce, not the shrimp — this one’s for you!

A Quick Refresher: What Is Lobster Sauce?

In case you’re new here: lobster sauce contains no lobster. (Womp womp.) It’s actually the same sauce we use for Lobster Cantonese, a classic restaurant dish made with whole lobsters. That silky, translucent sauce — built from ground pork, egg, and a savory chicken stock base — is totally delicious, but lobster isn’t exactly takeout-friendly.

So Chinese takeout restaurants started using the sauce as the base for Shrimp with Lobster Sauce, and the name stuck!

It’s a little like ordering a Chicken Fried Steak and getting beef — a technique named for one protein, applied to another. The sauce is the star, regardless of what’s swimming in it.

Why Chicken?

Shrimp with Lobster Sauce is a dish my dad mastered from his years helping out at his parents’ Chinese restaurant. Over many years and a gradual warming up to seafood dishes of all kinds, I too have grown to love it.

But my inner child really just wanted that sauce — minus the seafood. I think it’s fair! Not everyone is a shrimp person. Chicken thighs turned out to be a natural fit here. They’re juicy, don’t dry out in a hot wok, and their mild flavor lets the sauce do the talking — which it absolutely does.

The ground pork adds savory depth, the egg folds in at the last moment into silky ribbons, and the whole thing comes together in a glossy, lightly thickened sauce that is genuinely one of the most comforting things you can spoon over a bowl of white rice.

We marinate the chicken briefly before cooking, which helps it stay tender and tasty. The sauce itself comes together in minutes. This is a weeknight-friendly dish if there ever was one.