Cashew Chicken
Tender diced chicken with toasted cashews and crisp vegetables in a light savory sauce. A gentle, kid-friendly stir-fry that still tastes like something.
Cashew chicken is the mildest dish in the standard takeout lineup, which is exactly why it is worth making well — there is no chili to paper over a boring sauce.
The sauce here is deliberately restrained: oyster sauce for savory depth, a little sugar, and just enough cornstarch to make it cling. What carries the dish is contrast, between soft chicken, crunchy celery and pepper, and the snap of properly toasted cashews.
Which means the cashews matter. Toast them yourself in a dry pan, take them out while they are golden rather than brown, and add them at the very end off the heat. Cook them into the sauce and you have spent money on nuts to make them taste like the ones at the bottom of the bag.
Instructions
- 1
Toast the cashews in a dry wok over medium heat for 4 to 5 minutes, tossing often, until evenly golden. Tip them out at once — they keep cooking in a hot pan.
- 2
Toss the chicken with 1 teaspoon cornstarch, the Shaoxing wine, and a pinch of salt. Rest 10 minutes.
- 3
Mix the sauce: oyster sauce, soy sauce, sugar, broth, and the remaining teaspoon of cornstarch.
- 4
Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in the wok over high heat. Spread the chicken in one layer, sear 1 minute undisturbed, then stir-fry 2 minutes until just cooked. Remove.
- 5
Add the last tablespoon of oil. Stir-fry the onion and celery 1 minute, then the bell pepper 1 minute more.
- 6
Add the garlic and ginger for 20 seconds, return the chicken, and pour in the sauce. Toss 1 minute until it thickens and glazes.
- 7
Off the heat, fold in the toasted cashews and the sesame oil. Serve at once, before the nuts soften.
Cook’s Notes
- Toast raw cashews yourself rather than buying roasted salted ones. You control the salt, and freshly toasted nuts have a sweetness that packaged ones lose.
- Cashews go in off the heat, last. Any time spent in sauce trades their crunch for sogginess.
- Dice everything roughly the same size as the chicken. It looks better and, more usefully, everything cooks at the same rate.
You might also like
Beef and Broccoli
Silky velveted beef and crisp-tender broccoli in a glossy brown garlic sauce. Twenty-five minutes, and the tenderness trick takes just fifteen of them.
Chicken Chow Mein
Pan-fried noodles with genuinely crisp edges, tossed with chicken and bean sprouts. The textural contrast is the whole point — and it's easy to get.
Cumin Lamb
Xinjiang-style lamb crusted in toasted cumin and chili, seared hard and fast. Smoky, aromatic, and on the table in twenty minutes.