Cashew Chicken

This Cashew Chicken recipe is an easy take-out style meal – stir fry veggies and chicken with cashew nuts, toasted to perfection and served with a simple stir fry sauce. It’s the best homemade Cashew Chicken that’s ready in 30 minutes or less!

 

Estimated reading time: 15 minutes

Skipping takeout and opting to make dinner at home is always a good idea. We know cooking at home is easier on the budget and it’s almost always a healthier option, but it’s also good for the soul. There’s something about taking one of your favourite restaurant dishes and turning it into a take-out style homemade dinner that’s just so satisfying.

This Cashew Chicken recipe is an old favourite that we’ve been making in our family for years! It’s an easy version of the Chinese restaurant-style Chicken Cashew dish we all love, and it’s so quick and simple to make so it’s great for a family dinner on a weeknight!

Cashew Chicken is a Chinese-American fusion dish that’s made with chicken, stir fried veggies, and a sweet Asian-inspired sauce and served over steamed rice. The Cashew Chicken most of us know and love is readily available at Chinese restaurants all over North America – it’s sometimes made with breaded chicken, sometimes with stir fry chicken, but it’s always made with deliciously toasted cashews and an equally delicious sauce. It’s a little bit sweet, a little bit savoury, and it’s hard to resist – it’s THE Chinese take-out dish for cashew lovers!

In Chinese restaurants in North America and Chinese take-out joints you’ll often find stir fry chicken with cashew nuts made with red peppers, onions, and green onions, but it’s sometimes made with green veggies like broccoli or bok choy too.

Here at The Busy Baker we’re always looking for new ways to get dinner on the table and this Cashew Chicken recipe is one of our family’s favourite easy meals to enjoy during a busy week. Here’s why we reach for this recipe for Stir Fry Chicken and Cashew Nuts over and over again!

• We love a good meal that comes together with minimal prep and effort, and this Cashew Chicken takes just a little bit of chopping and measuring, keeping dinner prep to a minimum. It’s easy enough that the kids can lend and hand, and it’s a great meal to make together as a family.
• Meals that are easy to customize to your family’s tastes, preferences, and even food allergies or intolerances are always a good idea, especially when you’re feeding kids or any picky eaters. Choose whatever veggies your family enjoys and serve it with white rice, brown rice, minute or instant rice, or even ramen or rice noodles – whatever you prefer!

• When it comes to customization, meals that allow you to improvise depending on what ingredients you happen to have on hand are always a fantastic choice. This stir fry recipe works with any fresh veggies that stir fry well; think carrots, celery, broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms, peppers, onions, snow peas, etc. Use what you have in the fridge and turn this Cashew Chicken into a fridge-clean-out recipe!
• Stir fry recipes require minimal kitchen equipment so if all you’ve got on hand are the basics, this is the recipe for you! Be sure to have some measuring cups and spoons, a chopping board and a knife, a good skillet or wok, and a cooking utensil like a wooden spoon or wooden turner.
• Meal prepping is one of our favourite ways to save time and this Chicken Cashew recipe can be prepped in advance to save even MORE time! We love preparing the chicken ahead of time, chopping the veggies, and mixing the sauce ingredients and placing everything in (separate) airtight containers in the fridge until it’s time to cook. This helps keep the ingredients fresh and gives you a delicious result with minimal prep time during the week.
• Freezing your leftovers to reheat on days you REALLY don’t feel like cooking is a great way to keep your stress level low when life gets busy. This Stir Fry Chicken with Cashew Nuts freezes fairly well in an airtight container – just thaw it in the fridge overnight and reheat it in a skillet with a splash of water before serving it over rice!

Stir fry is a common term used to describe a method of cooking that’s traditionally Chinese. It involves shallow-frying ingredients quickly in a small amount of hot oil while stirring continuously in a wok or deep skillet. Because it uses high heat and only a small amount of oil, stir frying creates a crisp texture and allows the food to keep its nutritional value by avoiding over-cooking. Stir frying combines multiple ingredients and therefore multiple flavours in a single dish.

Stir frying requires movement – constantly stirring the ingredients to expose them to the high heat evenly. Typically, ingredients are added in order of their cooking times with the longest cooking ingredients added first and the shortest cooking ingredients added last.

A sauce is often added to the ingredients once they’re almost cooked through to bring everything together. Stir fry can be served on its own, over steamed rice or noodles, or the noodles can be thrown into the pan with the sauce and for a truly one-pan meal.

Making your own stir fry sauce is the key to a delicious and healthy homemade stir fry. Buying conventional sauces from the grocery store may save some time, but they’re packed with sugar and preservatives. Here’s the best and simplest way to make your own stir fry sauce that’s easy to make with basic grocery store ingredients and tastes absolutely delicious!

1. Aim for a balance of salty, sweet, sour, and umami flavours. Using ingredients like soy sauce for saltiness (or gluten-free soy sauce if you’re gluten-free), rice vinegar for acidity, and hoisin sauce, oyster sauce or brown sugar or honey for sweetness creates a delicious flavour balance.
2. Cornstarch is essential for thickening your sauce and giving it that glossy, clingy quality. It’s important to mix cornstarch with a cold liquid like water before adding it to your sauce to avoid lumps.
3. For a tiny bit of heat, ingredients like Sriracha or chili flakes can be great additions to a stir fry sauce. We use the tiniest amount of Sriracha and it gives a lot of flavour with hardly any heat.
4. Fresh aromatic ingredients like garlic and ginger add a burst of flavour to the sauce. It’s best to use fresh garlic and ginger and to grate or finely chop them to distribute their flavours throughout the sauce.
5. Adding sesame oil as part of the sauce mellows its strong flavour that can sometimes be overpowering, and it adds a delicious Asian-style flavour to the sauce.
6. Adjust the thickness by adding more or less water or cornstarch.
7. Add the stir fry sauce towards the end of cooking. This allows the flavours to combine and the sauce to thicken without overcooking the meat and the vegetables.

Marinating the chicken in a chicken stir fry marinade is not a required step, but it’s a step that makes a big flavour and texture difference. We use the process of “velveting” which means creating a chicken stir fry marinade out of soy sauce, vinegar and cornstarch. Soaking the chicken in this marinade, even for a few minutes (although overnight creates a GREAT result!) creates the perfect texture on the outside of the chicken pieces as they cook.

There’s nothing worse than cooking a delicious stir fry and having to let it sit while your rice cooks. Be sure to cook the rice first so it’s hot and ready to go.

It’s crucial to have all ingredients prepped and ready before you start cooking. Stir frying is a fast process and there’s no time for chopping or mincing once you’ve started cooking. Chop all your veggies and prepare the meat and sauce before you turn on the heat.

Chopping your veggies and meat to the right size, into small, even pieces helps ensure they cook quickly and evenly. Chop the fast-cooking veggies like peppers in larger pieces and slower cooking veggies like carrots in smaller, thinner pieces. This will help the veggies cook evenly.

When preparing a stir fry, it’s important to use a wok or a similar pan that can handle high heat and has ample space for tossing the ingredients.

Oils with a high smoke point, like grapeseed, avocado, canola, or vegetable oil, are recommended for stir frying. Sesame oil is a great choice for flavour, but we recommend adding it to the stir fry sauce for flavour instead of using it to cook the meat and veggies.

Marinate and then cook the meat first, before the veggies. This will allow you to cook the meat in batches (avoid overcrowding the pan!) and just until it’s cooked through to the correct internal temperature.

Aromatic ingredients like garlic, onion, and ginger are delicious ingredients that add a TON of flavour. Be sure to use fresh garlic and fresh ginger if you can!

Stir frying requires that you cook over high heat and keep the ingredients moving in the pan. The veggies should begin to caramelize on the outside and be slightly tender but not soft. The veggies should retain much of their bright colour.

Mix the sauce ingredients together in a bowl and be sure to add the cornstarch to thicken the sauce while the sauce is cold (before adding it to the hot pan). The sauce will thicken in the pan as it cooks and it will coat the meat and the veggies, creating a delicious and saucy stir fry.

Be sure to add the sauce only after the other ingredients are almost finished cooking. Turn the heat down, add the sauce and let it thicken and cook for just a couple minutes. The other ingredients won’t overcook and you’ll be left with the perfect sauce.

You won’t need much kitchen equipment to make this stir fry chicken with cashew nuts recipe! Here’s what we recommend having on hand to make this recipe (paid links):

• a large skillet or wok
• a chef’s knife
• a Cutting Board
• measuring cups and spoons
• a wooden cooking utensil
• some mixing bowls

Here’s the list of ingredients you’ll need to make this easy stir fry Chicken with Cashew Nuts recipe (paid links):

• 1 pound chicken thighs or use chicken breasts
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
• 1/3 cup cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon white pepper
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil for frying
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 2 white onions
• 1 cup raw cashews
• 2 red bell peppers chopped
• 2-3 red chilies chopped
• 5 spring onions chopped

FOR THE SAUCE:

• 4 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons white vinegar
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon white pepper
• 1 teaspoon Sriracha optional
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch

Looking to switch things up? Try one of these delicious variations on the classic Chicken with Cashew Nuts Stir Fry!

1. Honey – Substitute the brown sugar for honey and increase the amount for an even sweeter sauce
2. Tofu – Replace the chicken with seasoned tofu for a vegetarian option.
3. Cabbage – Add several handfuls of shredded cabbage instead of serving over rice for a lower-carb option.
4. Wraps – Instead of serving over rice, serve in tortillas with lettuce or serve in lettuce cups to make lower carb lettuce wraps!
5. Beef – Substitute the chicken for lean beef for a delicious beef stir fry.

We hope you love this recipe for Cashew Chicken as much as we do! Let us know in the comments below, what’s your favourite take-out style meal to make at home? We’d love to know!

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