Hello everyone,

Back when John and I were in Thailand, we took a Thai cooking class. One of the things we got to cook were Thai stir fries. Our cooking instructor described these stir fries as “Thai fast food, faster then McDonald’s!”

I’d say she’s partially correct with this statement, as the prep takes a few minutes for sure. But once you have all the ingredients ready to go it’s super quick.

John was craving stir fry the other day, so we decided to bust out our little Thai cookbook. John and I altered the recipe a bit, but it’s pretty close to the original. The nice thing for me that evening was that John spoiled me and did most of the cooking. I sat back, relaxed, and watched my man cook. (Then I cleaned up.)

Unfortunately, John and I don’t yet own a wok so we cooked ours in a cast iron pan. The pan worked great, but if you own a wok I encourage you to fire it up as you’ll have this meal cooked in less then 5 minutes as we did in our cooking class.

What I like about this recipe is that none of the ingredients are too exotic so you shouldn’t have to make any special trips apart from your usual grocery store run. In fact, we already had them all in our fridge when we decided to try this dish. Chicken, cashews, mushrooms, carrots and green onion are the main ingredients – just make sure you have fish sauce and oyster sauce! (see photo for our preferred brand of Oyster sauce, recommended by our cooking instructor)

We served our cashew chicken on a bed of rice, with a side of broccolini sauteed in sesame seed oil and a little bit of soy sauce.

John did a great job cooking up this stir fry, and was probably done in 20-25 minutes including the chopping for prep time. The stir fry is really nice and light, as well as healthy.

If you need a quick and healthy meal, this cashew chicken is just the ticket!

Bon appetit,

Julie

To view printable Word version of recipe, click here:
Cashew Chicken

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Cashew Chicken – Thai Style
Inspired by Thai Farms Cooking Class

Serves 3-4*

INGREDIENTS:

Oil and salt for frying
2 chicken breasts, cut into thin strips for stir fry – may replace with tofu
6 gloves garlic, minced
1 onion, thinly chopped
2 carrots, peeled and thinly sliced into rings
1 cup mushrooms, sliced
2-5 birds eye chili peppers, minced
5 stalks green onion, coarsely chopped
½ cup unsalted cashews

SAUCE INGREDIENTS:

1/3 cup water
3 tsp fish sauce – may substitute with soya sauce
2 tsp sugar
¼ cup oyster sauce

DIRECTIONS:

1. Have sauce and all ingredients prepared in advance.
2. Heat oil in wok or large frying pan
3. Add chicken and garlic. Season with salt and pepper until almost cooked.
4. Add onion, carrots and mushrooms, chili peppers. Fry for 1-3 minutes.
5. Add sauce. Mix well and salt to taste. Cook until vegetables are ready to eat. You can cover to steam the veggies faster
6. Turn off heat. Add cashews and green onions. Mix well.
7. Serve with rice.

Note: If you are serving 4, you may want to bolster the mushrooms and carrots a bit. You can top the sauce off with an extra dab of oyster sauce if this is the case.