Is General Tso’s Chicken Healthy? (3 Tips For Weight Loss) 

General Tso’s Chicken is definitely the staple American Chinese Food dish that has taken the hearts of many individuals across the nation.

It’s essentially a fried piece of dark meat covered with a sweet and savory sauce made from a variety of different ingredients. 

Although General Tso’s Chicken is delicious, is it healthy?

General Tso’s Chicken is, unfortunately, a dish that is difficult to fit into a healthy diet. It is a chicken dish that is battered and fried in oil which means that many calories will be coming from saturated fats and carbs. Using chicken breast instead of chicken thighs can help the balance of macronutrients by lowering the amounts of fat in the meal.

It is possible to eat General Tso’s Chicken while losing weight so let’s go over some of the steps to take to make sure we still stay fit while eating our favorite Chinese American dish.

Here are the three steps you need to take in order to eat General Tso’s Chicken while staying fit.

1. Understand What Goes Inside General Tso’s Chicken

2. Understand How Many Calories Are In General Tso’s Chicken

3. Make Sure To Consistently Workout & Build Muscle 

Now that we know the three steps to eating General Tso’s Chicken while staying fit, let’s get into the details of what we should do. 

Tip 1: Understand What Goes Inside General Tso’s Chicken 

General Tso’s Chicken is essentially a fried chicken dish with an extra layer of sauce on top of it.

Just like fried chicken, you can expect many of the calories to come in the form of fats and carbs since the batter is thick and it is fried in oil. 

Let’s take a look at the process of making General Tso’s Chicken and which ingredients are used in order to make this delicious American favorite.

The Proteins 

Just like many fried chicken recipes, chicken thigh is used as it has a higher fat content which makes for a tastier, juicier chicken.

Dark meat is a very fatty piece of the chicken and can add onto the fats that will be gained from frying in oil.

If you’re trying to be healthier while eating General Tso’s Chicken, the best option would be to substitute chicken thighs for chicken breast as you can save a ton of calories on fats and still get a delicious meal. 

Fats are the highest macronutrient out of the three so you should be getting the least amount of this macronutrient in the foods you eat.

Fat is totally fine to eat but it must be controlled and be eaten in moderation compared to carbs and protein. 

Here is a recipe that you can use to make some General Tso’s chicken.

If you want to lessen the fats, then make sure to swap the chick thigh for chicken breast as you’ll be getting more protein per serving with less calories. (1) 

The Batter 

Unlike most fried chicken recipes, General Tso’s chicken uses cornstarch as its batter which makes for a crispy and crunchy bite.

Just like flour, however, corn starch contains lots of carbs so you can expect each chicken to have a layer of carbs within each bite. 

Carbs are totally fine to eat but are easily overeaten as they are delicious and are hidden everywhere.

Our tip here is to simply be mindful of how many carbs you are eating in a day.

Carbs fuel our movements and activity in a day so it's crucial that we eat them within a safe range. 

The problem with eating something like General Tso’s Chicken while dieting is the potential for too many carbs coming from a single meal.

You’ll most likely be eating some rice or chow mein with the meal so you can really go overboard without even knowing.

Our tip with this dish is to add some really fibrous veggies so you can ease up on the carbs while staying satiated throughout your meal. 

The Sauce 

The sauce in this dish is another form of carbs as there is a lot of sugar and hoisin sauce present within it.

Although there is sugar, there is not much of it as only 3 tablespoons go into a 4 serving batch.

However, there is a slight addition to carbs from the sauce so be wary of how much you add onto your chicken. 

Overall, you can expect this dish to be fats on top of carbs on top of fats.

There are a lot of layers within the dish with each layer adding more and more calories as the food is made.

It’s packed with calories so eating this with your other favorite American Chinese options will definitely lead to some excess calories. 

Let’s take a look at how many calories goes into a single serving of General Tso’s Chicken and the importance of looking at the nutrition labels of our favorite foods. 

Tip 2: Understand How Many Calories Are In General Tso’s Chicken

Now that we know what goes into a typical General Tso’s Chicken, let’s take a look at the nutrition label to see what we can find.

In a serving of 146 grams of General Tso’s Chicken we get 24 grams of fat, 35 grams of carbs and 19 grams of protein. 

There are many things that aren’t ideal when it comes to implementing this dish into a healthy diet.

Let’s start with the fats. Fats are the highest macronutrient in terms of calories which means that it should be the least in gram amounts.

We see here that fat is 24 grams which is higher than the protein. 

This means that 216 calories come from fats per serving while you only get 76 calories coming from protein.

Only 25% of your calories should come from fats and eating this means that you’ll be getting a higher number than that. 

Next, we can see that the carbs are the highest amount of macronutrients in this dish.

The problem is that General Tso’s Chicken is never eaten alone and is usually enjoyed with some rice or chow mein.

This means that our protein of choice offers carbs as well which will put us at a tremendous disadvantage towards eating a balanced diet. 

Carbs are fine to eat but must not be overeaten.

Same with the other macronutrients as well so make sure you keep track of these numbers as you eat your favorite foods. 

Lastly, we can see that the protein in this dish carries the smallest gram amount compared to the other two.

This is not optimal with a healthy diet as it neglects the protein which is a vital macronutrient for creating, repairing, and sustaining muscle. 

Overall, there really is no balance when you eat General Tso’s Chicken so it will be very hard to fit into a weekly healthy routine.

However, if you are craving it, then make sure to simply enjoy it on a cheat day where you’ve been responsible for the week and have stuck to your goals.

Cravings are best when satisfied as it keeps our relationship with food stable and allows us to stay sane.

So, go out there and enjoy your chicken!

Just make sure you’ve been sticking to your overall fitness goals! 

Let’s get into the importance of staying active while eating General Tso’s Chicken. 

Tip 3: Make Sure To Consistently Workout & Build Muscle 

Working out is so important when dieting as it allows us to burn more calories, build muscle, and take care of our bodies.

Activity level is crucial as it is one of the biggest factors of the calories we burn in a day. 

There is something called TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) which is the amount of calories our bodies burn in a day.

Each TDEE is unique to the individual and depends on many factors such as BMR and activity level. 

Within your TDEE there is something called TEPA (Thermic Effect of Physical Activity) which is the amount of energy burned from movements and activity.

This accounts for 15-30% of our total daily calories burned which means we are in control of 30% of our calories!

Keeping a consistent workout schedule is a perfect means of increasing TEPA which will increase the amount of calories you can eat in a day.

Our goal is to always be adding more food into our diets as we can live happier while keeping up with our goals. 

The other factor that is in our control is the amount of muscle we carry on our bodies.

Muscle burns calories at rest which means you burn more calories throughout your everyday life.

I like to think of it as leveling up in a video game as you add more muscle to your frame.

It’s amazing what muscle can do and it looks great too! 

It can be intimidating to start working out when you haven’t learned about resistance training or isolation movements.

So, we created a basic workout plan that you can follow as it will ease you into a good schedule while teaching you all the functions of each muscle. Here is the workout plan down below. 

WOMEN 

Monday (Full Upper):  

• Seated Shoulder Press: 4x20 

• Lateral Raises: 4x15

• Lat Pulldowns: 4x12

• Dumbbell Row: 3x10

• Dumbbell Fly: 3x10 

• Knee Push Ups: 4x20

• Weighted Crunches: 3x35 

Wednesday (Back/Hamstrings/Biceps) 

• Assisted Pull Ups: 3x10

• Lat Pulldowns: 4x12 

• Cable Row: 4x15

• Stiff Leg Deadlift: 4x15

• Hamstring Curl: 4x15

• Bicep Curls: 3x10

• Hammer Curls: 3x10

Friday: (Legs/Butt/Abs): 

• Squats: 5x5 

• Goblet Squats: 4x20

• Glute Bridge: 4x20

• Glute Kickbacks: 4x20 each leg

• Jump Squats: 4x20

• Weighted Crunches: 3x35 

• Leg Lifts: 3x35

MEN 

Mon: Chest, Shoulders, Triceps, Abs (Push Day) 

• Bench Press: 3 sets 10 reps

• Dumbbell Press: 4 sets 12 reps

• Shoulder Press: 3 sets 10 reps

• Lateral Raises: 3 sets 15 reps

• Triceps Rope Push Down: 3 sets 15 reps

• Cable Crunches: 4 sets 15 reps 

Wed: Legs & Abs

• Goblet Squats: 4 sets 20 reps

• Weighted Walking Lunges: 2 sets 20 steps

• Stiff Leg DeadLift (Romanian Deadlift): 4 sets 15 reps

• Glute Bridges With Weight: 4 sets 20 reps

• Jumping Squats With Resistance Bands: 5 sets 20 reps

• Weighted Sit Ups: 4 sets 25 reps

• Weighted Toe Touches: 4 sets 25 reps

Fri: Back & Biceps (Pull Day)

• Assisted Pull Ups: 3 sets 10 reps

• Lat Pulldowns: 4 sets 12 reps

• Dumbbell Rows: 4 sets 10 reps (Each Side)

• Seated Cable Rows: 4 sets 15 reps

• Bicep Curls: 3 sets 10 reps

• Hammer Curls: 3 sets 10 reps

You can follow the workout plan by looking up the workouts online and learning each movement.

It will take some time to master these movements but the results will be amazing once you stick with it for a long time. 

Getting stronger in these movements means building more muscle so don’t be afraid to push yourself along the journey.

Muscle is a great tool that will allow you to eat more and have a better relationship with food.

It takes time and effort to build it so make sure you stick with it for at least a year: or forever! 

Now that we know the importance of muscle we need to make sure we stay on track with our workouts.

Consistency and longevity are the two key factors when building muscle so there will be some commitment involved.

You can either go to the gym or build one for yourself.

It really just comes down to 3 pieces of equipment that you need to do most workouts.

These three are the workout bench, dumbbells, and gym flooring.

Check out our recommended gear page to see our best picks for these pieces of equipment here.

https://www.aspirefitnesswalnut.com/home-workout-equipment

If a home gym is not for you then getting a membership somewhere works too.

As long as you are starting your muscle building journey, we’re happy! 

Stick with it for the long run and you’ll see how amazing the results can be. 

There It Is! 

In this article we talked about what goes inside a typical General Tso’s dish and what you can expect to find inside the nutrition label. We found that General Tso’s Chicken consisted mainly of carbs and fats with little protein within the dish.

So, make sure to eat this dish in moderation or on days where you can have a cheat meal. 

We also discussed the importance of looking at the nutrition labels of certain foods and understanding what ratio of macronutrients we should be eating.

If you want to know more about your favorite Asian foods, then make sure to check out our other articles where we go over what goes in them, how many calories they have, and how you can eat them to stay in shape! 

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