Recipe video above. Crunchy and creamy cashews are the star in this popular Thai chicken stir fry! Tossed with a bold and savoury Thai stir fry sauce, make this as spicy as you want – or not at all.Thai Cashew Chicken is a dry-style stir fry so there's not a ton of sauce like with Chinese Cashew Chicken. But the flavour in this one is much more intense so you don't need nor do you want more sauce, it will be too salty!SPICINESS: Nice buzz to it from 1/2 a fresh chilli, not blow-your-head-off spicy.
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 colour 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 & chilli: Add white part of green onions and chilli. 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 chilli (if you can handle the heat!).
Notes
1. Cashews – Pan-toasting raw cashews has the most superior flavour. 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.2. Chicken – Thighs will yield a juicier result than breast. But breast will also work just fine. Consider tenderising the breast the Chinese way. It makes it so much softer and juicier! (No need to do it for thigh).3. Chilli – A golden rule is the larger the chilli, 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 chilli if you wish. If you want spicier, consider using Thai birds-eye chillis – BOOM! :)4. Oyster sauce – This can be substituted with vegetarian oyster sauce, sold in some large grocery stores. It's actually not bad (no offence to veggo's)!5. Dark soy sauce – This soy has a more intense colour and flavour than light soy and all-purpose soy. It stains the chicken an appealing mahogany colour. If you use light or all-purpose soy, the dish colour and flavour will not be as good! More on different soy sauces here, and when you can sub with what.6. Fish sauce – Fish sauce is a traditional ingredient in Thai cooking, and has more complex flavours than soy sauce. You can sub with more soy sauce, but the flavour 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!).7. More rice options:
8. Storage – Leftover stir fry will keep for 4 days in the fridge. It keeps well! It will also freeze fine too.9. Nutrition per serving, excluding rice.