Cashew Chicken (Better-Than-Take-Out)

Name: Cashew Chicken (Better-Than-Take-Out)
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 10 min
Ingredients: 1 ½ tablespoon hoisin sauce; 1 ½ tablespoon low sodium light soy sauce; 1 tablespoon rice vinegar; ¾ tablespoon granulated sugar; 1 tablespoon Asian chili sauce or sriracha sauce; ½ tablespoon corn starch; 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil; 1 lb boneless chicken thighs or breasts (cut into 1 inch pieces); 1 cup cashew ((whole)); ½ tablespoon corn starch; 2 tablespoon vegetable oil (like sunflower oil or canola oil); ½ teaspoon pepper; ½ teaspoon salt; 3 tablespoon vegetable oil; ½ cup white part of spring onions (chopped); 1 teaspoon ginger (minced); 1 teaspoon garlic (minced); Green onions; Sesame seeds

Last updated July 7, 2022. Originally posted April 12, 2021 By Jyothi Rajesh 39 Comments

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Homemade saucy stir fry cashew chicken is better than your take out version. It’s so easy to make, you can bring dinner to the table in less than 30 minutes. Served with rice, it satisfies your craving for stir fry chicken any day!

Forget your take out, make healthy and better tasting stir fry chicken recipe at home. Don’t get intimidated with the number of ingredients. You most probably have some of the ingredients already in your pantry.

Stir fry sauce is what makes this dish taste delicious. The sauce has wonderful balance of sour-sweet-hot. You can slightly customize the sauce depending on what you have in hand and what you like to include in your stir fry chicken with cashew nuts dish.

Better Than Take Out Cashew Chicken Stir Fry

Don’t even bother the take out version, you can make better than that at home.
This saucy chicken stir fry is easy to make.
You can bring dinner to the table in less than 30 minutes.
Stir fry sauce has a wonderful combination of sweet, hot and sour.
You can also customize the sauce slightly depending on what you have in the pantry and what you like in your stir fry sauce.
If you never mixed chicken with nuts, you got to try this chicken with cashew nuts. Roasted cashews and stir fry sauce chicken is amazing with rice. For low carb healthy options, serve this stir fry chicken with cauliflower fried rice.
Got a sudden craving for Asian stir fry chicken? No problem. Try this recipe; it’ll satisfy your cravings.

Ingredients Needed

Don’t get intimidated with the array of ingredients that you need to make this recipe. Most of the ingredients are most probably in your pantry.

ingredients for casjew sauce arranged on board

Cook’s Tip: If you want to make a Chinese version of cashew chicken, use Chinese cooking wine or mirin. If access to Chinese cooking wine isn’t very easy you can use dry sherry or rice vinegar instead. You are in total control of what you want to add to your stir fry sauce in this recipe. Chinese version or Thai version depending on what you use for the sauce.

Hoisin sauce gives a wonderful sour taste. To add in more flavors mix hoisin sauce and oyster sauce together.

Note: Some prefer to add ginger and garlic into their sauce, I personally like to stir fry it in oil at the beginning so it removes the raw smell and taste of ginger and garlic. You do have option to add it to your sauce which gets poured over cooked chicken almost towards the end.

How To Make Cashew Chicken (Step-By-Step Instructions)

Step 1: First make the stir fry sauce. Simply whisk together hoisin sauce, soy sauce, rice vinegar, sugar, chili sauce, corn starch, sesame oil in a bowl. Keep it aside until use.

Step 2: Dry roast whole cashew nuts in oven. Pre heat oven at 300 degree F. Dry roast cashews for 3 to minutes giving it a stir in between. Do not let cashews brown. You want to roast not brown it. Remove roasted cashews from oven and let it cool down.

dry roast cashews in oven on bakign tray

Step 3: Prepping Chicken – Cut chicken breasts into 1 inch pieces. Add all chicken into a zip lock bag or a wide bowl.

Season it with pepper, salt and corn flour. Shake well to coat all chicken pieces evenly. Let chicken sit in the marinade for 7 to 10 minutes.

chicken marinated with salt pepper and corn flour in zip lock

Step 4: Heat oil (divide oil so you can add oil for every batch) in a skillet or wok. Add few marinated chicken pieces on to the skillet, without overcrowding it. Immediately stir fry it for about a minute on medium high heat, flip and cook it on other side.

Don’t cook chicken completely. We only want to sear it or fry it lightly in oil. Remove cooked chicken into a bowl and repeat the same process with remaining chicken. Once done remove all chicken to a bowl.

Step 5: Pour remaining oil to the skillet.

Note – don’t worry about the brown bits, you scrap it off the pan as you stir fry chicken and cashews. Those brown bits are all flavors. I do like to have them in my stir fry.

If you aren’t comfortable, use another clean skillet before you start stir frying chicken.

Add white part of spring onions along with minced ginger and garlic in. Stir for about a minute on medium high heat.

cooking white spring onion and ginger garlic in skillet

Step 6: Add back partially cooked chicken pieces give it a stir.

Step 7: Pour in the sauce into the pan. It may look like a lot of sauce and the dish can look too saucy with liquids, but it’ll evaporate as you cook for few minutes.

Note – If you find the sauce to be too thick and the chicken is turning thick and dry, add chicken stock or water to the pan as required to help cook chicken.

Step 8: Stir in everything and cook for about a minute or two tossing it frequently.

It’s time for cashews. Add in dry roasted cashews and stir again.

Step 9: Turn off heat after a minute.

Garnish with green onions and toasted sesame seeds.

Serve this saucy stir fry chicken with cashew nuts over rice.

saucy cashew chicken cooked in black skillet

Cashew Chicken Sauce

The recipe for sauce is customizable. You can alter the flavors slightly. Most ingredients that goes in making the sauce are commonly available ingredients like corn starch, soy sauce, rice vinegar, chili sauce.

Hoisin sauce and if using oyster sauce is something you may or may not have in your pantry.

Stir fry sauce has hoisin sauce, low sodium light soy sauce, rice vinegar, chili sauce, granulated sugar, corn starch and sesame oil all mixed in together.

Tips For Best Cashew Chicken Recipe

Using boneless chicken thighs will give you tender chicken. Don’t worry, chicken breasts will taste good too.
Do not crowd the pan while frying chicken pieces. Do them in batches if you have to.
Soon as you add the chicken to oil, stir it immediately, else it will stick to the pan (Like you see in the video, I got distracted for a minute and chicken pieces were stuck, but I got it out of pan without breaking successfully with some effort haha!)
Use low sodium light soy sauce in this recipe. Dark soy will have strong taste and will taste bitter.
If you find the sauce to be too thick and the chicken is turning thick and dry, add chicken stock or water to the pan as required to help cook chicken.
Whole cashew nuts are better choice. Brown ones can do, but it won’t look as pretty as whole nuts and you won’t get a mouthful taste of cashews when you bite in.
Don’t use raw cashews directly in the dish. Also don’t use salted and roasted cashews. Buy raw whole cashews and dry roast them at home in oven or on stove top. Do NOT brown cashews, roast for just about 3 to 4 minutes and remove from heat just when it starts to brown.
The recipe for sauce does not make the dish spicy. If you like spicy stir fry chicken, add more chili sauce. You can also reduce the amount of sugar by half in the recipe to make it spicy. But do it with caution so you are able to handle the heat you add to the sauce.