Cashew Chicken

This cashew chicken recipe with stir fried chicken and roasted cashews in garlic sauce tastes like take-out from your favorite Chinese restaurant. It’s a perfectly easy weeknight meal and I added Jasmine Rice but any rice will do .

It is pretty healthy and if you don’t have all the ingredients just improvise — if nuts are an issue leave them out and add some crunchy cut up water chestnuts. You can also add baby corn , broccoli or peppers or whatever vegetable you have in the house and would like to use. Sometimes I add the vegetables and sometimes I don’t– totally up to the cook. This is the basic recipe and add or don’t whatever you’d like.

Enjoy!

Ingredients:

3/4 cup roasted unsalted cashews

1/4 cup water

2 teaspoons cornstarch

4 Tablespoons hoisin sauce

1 Tablespoon soy-sauce

1- 2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken breasts or tenderloins, cut into 1 – 1 1/2 inch pieces

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 Tablespoons Vegetable Oil

6 medium garlic cloves, minced

8 scallions — 1 bunch white and green parts separated , cut into 1 inch pieces — a rough chop and I like the flavor of the green onion but use as much or as little as you like or none at all

2 Tablespoons Rice Vinegar

1/4 teaspoon Asian Sesame Oil

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

Place the cashews on a baking sheet in a single layer, toast in the oven until fragrant –app. 5 minutes. Set aside they will crisp up as they cool. Be careful — as soon as you smell them take them out because they will burn up quickly

Prepare the sauce in a small bowl; whisk together the water, cornstarch, hoisin sauce and soy sauce–set aside

Place the chicken pieces in a large bowl, sprinkle with the salt and pepper and with clean hands make sure chicken is coated as evenly as possible

In a large nonstick skillet, heat 1 Tablespoon of the vegetable oil till very hot. Add half of the chicken to the skillet and stir-fry until lightly browned but not cooked through, about 4-5 minutes should be good depending on the thickness of the chicken.  Transfer to a plate and set aside.

Add the remaining tablespoon of the vegetable oil to the skillet –then add the remaining chicken, garlic, and white parts of the scallions. Stir fry until the chicken is lightly browned but not cooked through ( app. 4 – 5  minutes). Return the first batch of the chicken to the pan with the rest of the chicken. Turn the heat down to medium and add the rice vinegar ; cook for a few minutes to allow vinegar to evaporate. Add the sauce mixture to the chicken; continue cooking and tossing until the chicken is cooked through and the sauce is nicely thickened — a few more minutes to thicken and be hot.

Remove from the heat, stir in the scallion greens, cashews and the sesame oil.

Delicious served over Jasmine Rice , brown rice, white rice whatever you like. Perfect with simple steamed broccoli stirred in or stir fry the broccoli right in there with the chicken!