Cheesecake Factory Orange Chicken: Price & Calories (2026)
At $24.95 to $27.95 for 1,750 calories, Cheesecake Factory Orange Chicken is the sweet-and-spicy one: deep fried chicken breast in orange sauce, with white rice and vegetables on the side. The price is read from 20 official location menus, and the calories come from the brand's published guide.
Sweet, spicy, and 77g of sugar: what Orange Chicken is
The official menu describes the whole plate in one line: "Deep Fried Pieces of Chicken Breast Covered in a Sweet and Spicy Orange Sauce. Served with White Rice and Vegetables". That is the entire dish, and there is nothing hidden in it. The chicken is fried, the sauce is doing the talking, and the rice and vegetables are there to soak it up and break up the sweetness. It sits in the Specialties section, which is where the kitchen puts its full-size chicken plates, and it is one of the few dishes here where the sauce is the point rather than an extra. If you like your chicken sweet first and spicy second, this is the plate built for that. If you want the chicken itself to lead, Madeira is the plainer plate, and if you want heat without the sugar, the spicy chipotle pasta is the one to look at.
How sweet is Orange Chicken, really?
Very sweet, and the number is blunt about it: a plate carries 77g of sugar, the second-highest of any chicken dish on the menu. Only Crispy Pineapple Chicken and Shrimp runs sweeter, at 92g. After that the gap is wide: Thai Lettuce Wraps with satay chicken sit at 69g, Jamaican Black Pepper Chicken at 69g, and Korean Fried Chicken at 66g. The rest of the chicken plates barely register by comparison, with Madeira at 11g, Costoletta at 9g, and Bellagio at 6g. So the sweetness is not a side note here, it is the dish. The sauce is sweet first, spicy second, and the 77g is where most of it lives, since the white rice adds carbs but not much sugar. If you order this plate expecting a savory chicken dinner, the first bite will correct you. That is not a flaw, it is the flavor, but it is worth knowing before the plate lands.
How much does Orange Chicken cost?
Dinner runs $24.95 to $27.95, $25.95 in the middle across 20 official location menus, and lunch undercuts it by about $7. Seven stores charge the $25.95 middle price, six charge $26.95, five charge the $24.95 low end, and two charge the $27.95 top end. Before you order, check for promo codes for your visit, since a live deal is the one thing that can move the number.
| Source | Price |
|---|---|
| 20 official location menus (range) | $24.95–$27.95 |
| 20-menu median | $25.95 |
| Lunch Chicken Specials choice (range) | $17.95–$20.50 |
| Lunch choice median | $18.95 |
The lunch version saves 420 calories
Yes, there is a lunch Orange Chicken, and it is a real saving: 1,330 calories against 1,750 at dinner, which is 420 fewer, and the sugar drops from 77g to 47g. It does not come as its own line on the menu, though. At lunch it is one of three choices in the Lunch Chicken Specials, next to Crusted Chicken Romano at 1,100 calories and Chicken Piccata at 1,340, and one location adds Spicy Cashew Chicken at 1,690 as a fourth choice. The price is the same whichever choice you pick, $17.95 to $20.50 with a median of $18.95 across 20 official location menus, which is about $7 less than the dinner median. So the lunch plate is smaller, lighter, and cheaper, and if the sugar is what worries you, the lunch version is the honest way to try the dish without the full 77g.
1,750 calories at dinner, 1,330 at lunch
A dinner plate has 1,750 calories, and the two numbers beside it tell the story. The sodium is 2,730mg, past the full 2,300mg daily value in a single plate, and the carbohydrates are 233g, which is the white rice doing its share alongside the sweet sauce. The fat is 69g with 620 calories from fat and 12g of saturated fat, the cholesterol is 80mg, the protein is 52g, and the fiber is 6g. Against the other chicken plates this site has covered, it sits in the heavy middle: Madeira is 1,300, Piccata is 1,420, Costoletta is 1,800, Korean Fried Chicken is 1,810, and Bellagio is 2,020. The dinner and lunch rows, sugar included, are both on the nutrition page under the orange chicken nutrition numbers.
| Measure | Dinner plate | Lunch plate |
|---|---|---|
| Calories | 1,750 | 1,330 |
| Calories from fat | 620 | 490 |
| Total fat | 69g | 54g |
| Saturated fat | 12g | 9g |
| Trans fat | 1.5g | 1.5g |
| Cholesterol | 80mg | 65mg |
| Sodium | 2,730mg | 1,810mg |
| Carbohydrates | 233g | 170g |
| Fiber | 6g | 4g |
| Sugar | 77g | 47g |
| Protein | 52g | 42g |
Orange chicken, orange cauliflower, and the other lookalikes
Four things about this plate are easy to get wrong, so here they are plainly. First, Crispy Pineapple Chicken and Shrimp is a different dish and the only chicken plate sweeter than this one, at 92g of sugar and 1,630 calories, with pineapple doing the sweetening instead of orange. Second, Korean Fried Chicken is the other sweet-and-spicy fried chicken on the menu, at 1,810 calories and 66g of sugar, but its sodium runs higher at 3,930mg. Third, Orange Cauliflower shows up in the nutrition guide at 1,390 calories, but it is not on the current online menus we checked, so do not go looking for it: the cauliflower dish you can actually order is Korean Fried Cauliflower, a small plate at 1,150 calories. Fourth, Fresh Orange Juice is a drink at 170 calories, not a dish. Two more things that are easy to assume wrong: the official menu gives this plate no gluten-free marker at all, and it is not on Happy Hour, so there is no cheaper evening price for it.
Frequently asked questions about Orange Chicken
$24.95 at the low end, $27.95 at the top, $25.95 in the middle, across 20 official location menus.
Dinner is 1,750 calories a plate, per the official Summer 2026 nutrition guide. The lunch version has 1,330, so 420 fewer.
Yes. It comes as one of three choices in the Lunch Chicken Specials, at 1,330 calories and $17.95 to $20.50.
No. The official menu gives it no gluten-free marker at all.
No, and no evening discount applies, because it never shows up on the Happy Hour menu.
White rice and vegetables, served with the plate.
77g of sugar, the second-highest of any chicken dish on the menu. Only Crispy Pineapple Chicken and Shrimp is sweeter, at 92g.
Sweet enough to order, heavy enough to share: the last word
1,750 calories, 77 grams of sugar, 2,730mg of sodium: the numbers are the verdict, because the sugar is the point of the plate, not a surprise, and the sodium alone is a full day. At $24.95 to $27.95 you are paying for sweet-and-spicy, and the lunch version at 1,330 calories keeps the flavor with 420 fewer behind it. It is not the sweetest plate on the menu, 92 grams of sugar in the other sweet plate takes that, so order this one for the balance, not the extreme.