Thai Cashew Chicken Stir Fry

• Sauce: Mix all the Sauce ingredients in a small bowl.
• Cook cashews: Heat oil over medium heat in a wok or large skillet. Add cashews and cook for 5 minutes until they become a dark golden color and crunchy (yep, you might have to eat one to check!). Remove from skillet with a slotted spoon.
• Garlic & onion: Turn heat up to high. Add garlic and onion. Cook for 30 seconds.
• Chicken: Add chicken. Cook for 1 minute until the outside changes from pink to white.
• White part of green onion & chili: Add white part of green onions and chili. Cook for 1 minute until chicken is just cooked through.
• Add Sauce: Cook for 1 minute until it reduces down to a syrup, coating the chicken nicely.
• Green onion & cashews: Add green part of green onions and cashews. Toss for 30 seconds.
• Serve: Transfer to serving dish. Serve with jasmine rice, or other rice of choice, garnished with extra red chili (if you can handle the heat!).

Recipe Notes:

• Cashews – Pan-toasting raw cashews has the most superior flavor. But if you only have roasted cashews, that’s fine too. Just cook for around 1 1/2 minutes until they are lightly golden, and they smell nutty.
• Do not use salted cashews, it will make the dish too salty.
• Chicken – Thighs will yield a juicier result than breast. But breast will also work just fine. Consider tenderizing the breast the Chinese way. It makes it so much softer and juicier! (No need to do it for thigh).
• Chili – A golden rule is the larger the chili, the less spicy it is (usually!) I’ve used large red cayenne pepper here which is not that spicy but still has a decent kick to it. You can omit or reduce the chili if you wish. If you want spicier, consider using Thai birds-eye chillis – BOOM! 🙂
• Oyster sauce – This can be substituted with vegetarian oyster sauce, sold in some large grocery stores. It’s actually not bad.
• Dark soy sauce – This soy has a more intense color and flavor than light soy and all-purpose soy. It stains the chicken an appealing mahogany color. If you use light or all-purpose soy, the dish color and flavor will not be as good! More on different soy sauces here, and when you can sub with what.
• Fish sauce – Fish sauce is a traditional ingredient in Thai cooking and has more complex flavors than soy sauce. You can sub with more soy sauce, but the flavor will not be quite as good. (The oyster sauce still goes some way to compensate if you don’t use fish sauce, as it too is packed with umami!).

More rice options:

• Plain white rice
• Brown rice
• Cauliflower rice
• Thai Fried Rice
• Thai Pineapple Fried Rice
• Storage – Leftover stir fry will keep for 4 days in the fridge. It keeps well! It will also freeze fine too.