Cashew Chicken
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This cashew chicken with tender stir-fried chicken and roasted cashews in garlic sauce tastes just like take-out.
This cashew chicken, or stir-fried chicken with roasted cashews in garlic sauce, tastes just like take-out from your favorite Chinese restaurant. It’s easy to make at home. You don’t need a wok — just a large nonstick skillet — and, aside from the chicken, the only chopping involves garlic and scallions. The rest of the ingredients come out of bottles and jars. As with all stir-fries, the dish cooks quickly, so be sure to have all your ingredients prepped before you start cooking. Also, be sure not to cut the chicken pieces too small, or they will cook too quickly and overcook.
Looking for more Chinese take-out favorites to try at home? Try sweet and sour shrimp with broccoli, kung pao chicken, orange chicken, and beef and broccoli.
What You’ll Need To Make Cashew Chicken
Be sure to use a high-quality hoisin sauce like Kikkoman or Lee Kum Kee; it makes a big difference.
How To Make Cashew Chicken
To begin, place the cashews on a baking sheet in a single layer.
Toast in the oven until fragrant, about 5 minutes. (They will crisp up as they cool.) Meanwhile, prepare the sauce: in a small bowl, whisk together the water, cornstarch, hoisin sauce and soy sauce. Set aside.
Next, season the chicken with salt and pepper. In a large nonstick skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of the vegetable oil over high heat until very hot. Add half of the chicken to the skillet
Stir-fry until lightly browned but not cooked through, about 3 minutes. Transfer to a plate.
Add the remaining tablespoon vegetable oil to the skillet; then add remaining chicken, garlic and white parts of the scallions. Stir-fry until the chicken is lightly browned but not cooked through, about 3 minutes. Return the first batch of chicken to the pan. Turn the heat down to medium and add the rice vinegar; cook until evaporated, about 30 seconds.
Add the sauce mixture and cook, stirring frequently, until the chicken is cooked through, about 1 minute.
Remove from the heat. Stir in the scallion greens, cashews and sesame oil.
Serve with rice.
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Cashew Chicken
This cashew chicken with tender stir-fried chicken and roasted cashews in garlic sauce tastes just like take-out.
Ingredients
- ¾ cup roasted, unsalted cashews
- ¼ cup water
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch
- 4 tablespoons hoisin sauce, best quality such as Kikkoman or Lee Kum Kee
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 1½ pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts or tenderloins, cut into 1½-inch pieces
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 6 medium garlic cloves, minced
- 8 scallions (1 bunch), white and green parts separated, each cut into 1-inch pieces
- 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
- ¼ teaspoon Asian sesame oil
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Place the cashews on a baking sheet in a single layer. Toast in the oven until fragrant, about 5 minutes. Set aside; they will crisp up as they cool.
- Meanwhile, 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 toss to coat evenly.
- In a large nonstick skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of the vegetable oil over high heat until very hot. Add half of the chicken to the skillet and stir-fry until lightly browned but not cooked through, about 3 minutes. Transfer to a plate.
- Add the remaining tablespoon 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, about 3 minutes. Return the first batch of chicken to the pan. Turn the heat down to medium and add the rice vinegar; cook until evaporated, about 30 seconds.
- Add the sauce mixture to the chicken; cook, tossing, until the chicken is cooked through and the sauce is nicely thickened, about 1 minute. Remove from the heat. Stir in the scallion greens, cashews and sesame oil. Serve immediately.
Pair with
Nutrition Information
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- Per serving (4 servings)
- Serving size: about 1 1/4 cups each
- Calories: 464
- Fat: 24 g
- Saturated fat: 4 g
- Carbohydrates: 19 g
- Sugar: 7 g
- Fiber: 2 g
- Protein: 45 g
- Sodium: 855 mg
- Cholesterol: 125 mg
This website is written and produced for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and the nutritional data on this site has not been evaluated or approved by a nutritionist or the Food and Drug Administration. Nutritional information is offered as a courtesy and should not be construed as a guarantee. The data is calculated through an online nutritional calculator, Edamam.com. Although I do my best to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures should be considered estimates only. Varying factors such as product types or brands purchased, natural fluctuations in fresh produce, and the way ingredients are processed change the effective nutritional information in any given recipe. Furthermore, different online calculators provide different results depending on their own nutrition fact sources and algorithms. To obtain the most accurate nutritional information in a given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.
Gluten-Free Adaptable Note
To the best of my knowledge, all of the ingredients used in this recipe are gluten-free or widely available in gluten-free versions. There is hidden gluten in many foods; if you're following a gluten-free diet or cooking for someone with gluten allergies, always read the labels of your ingredients to verify that they are gluten-free.
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Absolutely Delicious!
It was Wonderful will make again. I doubled sauce recipe and it was perfect over rice.
This is absolutely delicious! It is also one of the most fragrant dishes I have ever experienced.
It was quick, easy and better than any asian take-out I could get at a restaurant. I served it with Jasmine Rice that I cooked with with more of a 1:1 water to rice ratio. I had to add a little more water at the end, but the rice had a little bite to it and I loved it.
That’s not a Thai recipe. Missing ingredients. A lot.
This recipe is titled: Cashew Chicken. Where do you see anything Thai about this recipe?
Your right this is not a Thai recipe because Cashew Chicken has never been a Thai recipe.
Another hit! This was delicious! My husband complimented it over and over as we gobbled it up. Perfect amount of sauce. Thank you for making me feel like I can really cook!
Oh. My!! I sooo LOVED This recipe Jenn! It just wasn’t quite enough sauce, but I added a lil more water as it cooked. Due to the cornstarch, it just thickened that extra water right up! BUT after dinner, I thought, the rice didn’t REALLY NEED to be covered in the sauce. It’s so flavorful, a lil goes a long way! Roasting those cashews first, ALSO made a lotta difference. My husband loved it and I’m hoping he doesn’t eatUP all the leftovers…before I come back in it!
Next time I may have to double this…
I made this last night and we all liked it, even my ten year old, who is a picky eater. It was quick, easy and had great flavor. I served it with rice and sauteed sugar snap peas. I will definitely make this again.
Some recipes have way too many ingredients. This did not and results were amazing. It was also easy to prepare.
REVIEW –
It was delicious and easy to make, the perfect combo.
Amazing! I made this last night for some guest and it was a huge success. My brother said it was restaurant level. 🙂 Except much healthier, right? I paired it with sticky sushi rice and boy choy with sake and sesame oil. Thanks, Jenn. I love your blog!
I made this for a family dinner. My father, who is a basic meat and potatoes man was really surprised to find he enjoyed this meal. Everyone wanted seconds! Thank you Jen for another smashing recipe.
My guests and family loved this (all 9 of them!) it was easy delicious and went very well with the steamed broccoli.
I have made this many times and it’s always delicious but this time I made the rice and steamed broccoli. Perfect meal for a busy week night. Love your recipes Jen. You make me feel like I can cook!!
All I can say is wow!!! I was a little skeptical and uneasy on how it would come out but it exceeded my expectations!! My picky boys wanted seconds my husband loved it and I loved it!!! I will be making it again next weekend. Thanks for this delicious recipe!!!
Easy and tasty… you’re a kitchen goddess !
Thank you for sharing🌷
💗
One of the first recipes I’ve used that I don’t need to change anything, except adding more because it goes so fast. Delicious and easy, thanks for this!
I followed the recipe exactly and my husband and I think it’s delicious. We especially enjoyed the roasted cashews. So flavorful!
Very good! Love the roasting of the cashews – definitely makes for a richer flavour. I am most familiar with the Thai cashew chicken flavours but this was a nice stand alone recipe when not comparing it to that. I did add more soy as we prefer more salt to sweet.
Very good! Love the roasting of the cashews – definitely makes for a richer flavour.
This was delicious! My family loved it and it came together nice and quick, which I like after working all day. Thank you!!!
I make this recipe regularly – it’s a family favorite at both mine and my Aunt’s house!
Made this tonight and it was a huge success! My husband went back for 3rds. I added water chestnuts and used low sodium soy. We moved out to the country and have tried all the restaurants that serve chicken and cashew, none were as good as this. Thank you so much!
This recipe is the dinner trifecta, quick, easy and delicious. Thank you Jen for another amazing recipe.
I just tried this recipe, but I think it’s rather bland and has not much to do with Thai food. I would eat take-out “Chicken Cashew” any day over making this one. It’s not bad, but it’s just not what is expected. It tastes like a westernized version that removed all the signature ingredients that are usually found in Thai food, and replaced them with Hoisin Sauce.
Yeah! Snow day and home bound with my family. This recipe is AWESOME!! Thank you. Forever.
Found your blog yesterday and made this last night. It was pretty good, but I did adjust to my taste.
I found the hoisin made it quite sweet, so I would maybe back off that a bit, or experiment splitting the amount with another sauce next time (and there will be one!).
To adjust for the sweetness, as previous reviewers suggested, I added a little heat: a few dashes of sriracha and cayenne, and maybe a 1/4 t of chili paste. We don’t eat a lot of spicy food, so I had to layer those in a bit at a time until the heat level was just enough to balance out the sweetness of the hoisin.
With that slight adjustment, this was a really great dish.
Other note is that I should have broken up the cashews just a bit so that there was a piece in each forkful… maybe quarter them??
Looking forward to trying the pumpkin soup next. Very happy to have found your blog!
This sauce has way way too much hoisin in the recipe. I came looking here because I love the sauce used in every cashew chicken I’ve tried. This is not it
Everyone raves about this meal and it’s so easy to prepare! The only changes I make are to eliminate the corn starch and to add about 8oz of sauteed mushrooms (we love shrooms!) to the pan with the sauce mixture near the end of prep.
I love chinese food but was always disappointed with the food ordered from restaurants. So I’ve tried cooking my own chinese food with some mixed results but was still better than take out. Tried this recipe and it turned out exactly as advertised. It was delicious! Great with brown rice too. This definitely will be one of my goto recipes. Thank you for sharing it.
Is it ok to use seasoned rice vinegar or should I stick with regular?
Hi Rose, It’s best to use regular. Enjoy!
Disappointed in this recipe. Followed it to the “letter”. First time I ever had a recipe from this site that wasn’t spectacular. The sauce didn’t seem to have much flavor, there wasn’t enough sauce either, too garlicky (I definitely used the right size and amount too). I wish you could revisit this and tweak it. You are the best and my “go to” for recipes. Sorry.
If I want to make this dish veggie-heavy, I have a few questions: which of the ingredients in the sauce should I increase so there is enough sauce, should I steam the extra veggies first, and when do I add those veggies? Thanks!
Hi Barbara, Depending upon the quantity of veggies you are adding, I’d either make 1.5 or 2 times the sauce (the rice vinegar through sesame oil). And after stir-frying the second batch of chicken (with the garlic and scallions), I’d transfer it to the plate with the other chicken, add the vegetables to the pan and, after cooking them for a few minutes, add the chicken back and proceed with the recipe. Hope you enjoy!
The instructions above the ingredients list mention the soy sauce, but the instructions below do not. Neither section mentions the sesame oil.
Hi John, thanks so much for pointing that out–not sure how I missed that! I will add the mention of soy sauce to the recipe. The sesame oil, however, is mentioned in the recipe. It’s in the very last sentence of the instructions.
I was looking forward to making this Cashew chicken dish and when I tried to print it off, half of the directions were blocked off. This happened with another of your dishes a couple of days ago. Can you tell me what is happening? I love your recipes and have successfully made several of them. Also have you new book. Thank you! Sue
Sue, sorry to hear you’re having a problem with missing content when you print the recipes! I haven’t been able to duplicate the problem and haven’t gotten other complaints about it. You may want to try opening the blog using a different browser; I find that often times those odd glitches can be resolved by using a different browser. Hope that helps at least a bit!
This will be a go-to meal in our house! Followed the recipe and instructions exactly as written. Easy, delicious, and everyone loved it!
Needs more vegetables
Followed the recipe to the letter, including using the brands named. Sorely disappointed. Little flavor to the sauce and it was runny. It’s going to require experimentation to get the sauce to begin to taste ‘restaurant quality’ though.
I keep trying, but I’m becoming skeptical of anyone who touts their recipe as “just like take-out, only better.”
The cashew chicken was delicious and quick to prepare. We aren’t too fond of onions so I added some sliced red pepper instead. I like one of the reviewers suggestion of water chestnuts as well.
Another great recipe from your website. I make your apple cake often.
Thanks
EH
This was delicious and quick. I’m slowly working through your website. This is a great week night dinner!
Hi Jenn,
Could shrimp be a substitute for chicken in the Cashew Chicken recipe? I’m a big fan of your website and cookbook too!
Sure, Sheila, I think that will work. So glad you like the recipes! 🙂
I made the cashew chicken, the flavor was amazing! I substituted the onions with celery and water chest nuts. I will not buy this dish from a restaurant again! Thanks for the recipe.
I have now made this recipe 3 times and each time it gets better and better. My super picky kids love it (even the 4 year old who swears she doesn’t eat meat lol). My only problem is I can’t seem to get my husband to leave the toasted cashews alone before adding them to the mix :). But this is definitely a go-to weeknight meal, done in 30 minutes or less! Thanks Jenn!
This recipe is amazing! My go to whenever we have friends over for dinner. The sauce is so flavourful. It tastes just like take-out but better. It is super simple to make. I always add red peppers and/or zuchinni for more nutrients.
Well this recipe is easy and soooo delicious! Seriously the best cashew chicken I have ever made. We cook our own Chinese food because in this college town, Bloomington, IN, we haven’t found anything to compare with what we were used to in Chicago. We used the Hoisin sauce Jenn recommended and I love its flavor – the only change I will make next time is to a lower sodium soy sauce (Tamari). And I will be making this again soon.
This is the third recipe I have made and all three were great. Spaghetti pie,Segal burgers now cashew chicken.
I have tried at least ten of Jenn’s recipes and have been blown away every single time. Her recipes seriously rock. Restaurant quality taste and easy to follow, thorough instructions. We just didn’t enjoy the taste of hoisin with this one. To be fair, I used Dynasty rather than the two brands she suggested so that was probably part of it, but it seemed like four tablespoons was excessive. I would suggest to anyone interested in this recipe to consider using half the amount of hoisin and to smell it before you add it. If you don’t like the way it smells, you probably won’t like the way it tastes.
Loved this recipe. It was easy to make and so delicious! After making it per the recipe, I played around a bit and added our personal likes to it. A little crushed red pepper, a bit of ginger and some veggies.
This has become one of our favorites. Thanks for sharing.
This was delicious! Thank you! I am not a good cook and this came out amazing, followed all of the steps and did not change anything. One thing I would recommend to basic skill level people like myself is to measure out and have all ingredients handy, because it’s all happening fast on high heat. That was some intense cooking compared to the boring stuff I usually make, but it came out so amazing. Will be checking out your other recipes.
Really nice recipe. I basically followed the script, but I like things spicy, so I added a tbsp of Schiracha, a pinch of cayenne powder, and some red pepper flakes. This did amp up the flavors very nicely for those who like it spicy. Also, I added a tbsp of Oyster sauce just because I really like the taste of Oyster sauce and always add a tbsp of that LOL I like that this recipe is so simple that it’s easy to improvise on the theme without it becoming a major project. This one’s in my rotation now. PS – like another reviewer, I always add a tbsp of corn starch to the chicken and shake it up in a bag, just to make the meat a little more tender.
Family favorite, make this when the family is craving Chinese takeout, much healthier! I mix in broccoli.
Just made this for the first time, and it was really delicious! I added 1/2 of a large onion and a whole red pepper, which added a nice color to the dish. Since I was out of Jasmine rice, I used organic brown rice Pad Thai noodles instead, and liked it with them much more than I thought I would. The noodles soaked up the flavor of the sauce and was really yummy! I also made 1/2 more sauce, since I was adding more vegetables. Thank you so much for an outstanding recipe that I’m sure will become a regular meal at our home!
Another terrific recipe enjoyed by all – even our daughter who doesn’t love chicken dishes. Another keeper.
My husband is typically a picky eater (but we both love Chinese). Was hungry for something home cooked and simple and this was delicious!! His plate was clean in no time. Will be making again!!
I really wanted to love this recipe but there was just way too much garlic. It over powered the whole dish and I couldn’t taste anything else.