Authentic and Easy to Make Thai Cashew Chicken Recipe
Thai Cashew Chicken is a famous dish in Thailand, and now you can make it at home!
For a country that takes such great pride in its cuisine, Thailand, surprisingly, hasn’t seemed very enthusiastic about focusing the spotlight on its food in its cinematic endeavors. If it’s true that art imitates life, then it’s quite perplexing how the magnitude of the love the Thai people have for their food and the enormity of the role food plays in their lives.
This version of Thai Cashew Curry, which is crunchy, and salty, and full of caramelized onions and crispy cashews, is the authentic and healthy version.
This recipe will show you the authentic latter version, no shortcuts, but still very easy and quick to make, with ingredients you can probably find at your local supermarket.
Ingredients for Thai Cashew Chicken Recipe
One of the great things about this Thai cashew chicken recipe is that the ingredients are pretty basic, and you should be able to find just about everything you need any at a local supermarket.
200 grams chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces
1 tbsp. cassava flour or all-purpose flour
1/3 cup natural taste cooking oil (I used sunflower oil for frying everything)
1 tbsp. garlic, crushed and chopped (I used about 4 cloves)
1/2 cup yellow onions, sliced into wedges (I used 1 small onion)
1/3 cup dry Thai birds eye red chilies, deep fried
1/2 cup raw unsalted cashew nuts
1/3 cup fresh long red chili peppers, thinly julienned (I used red spur chilies)
1/3 cup fresh banana chili peppers, cut into thin strips
1/3 cup green onions (spring onions), cut in 2.5 cm pieces
For the seasoning sauce:
-1 tbsp. light soy sauce
-1/2 tbsp. dark soy sauce (I used sweet dark soy sauce, you can use kecap manis)
-1/2 tbsp. oyster sauce
-1/4 tsp. ground white pepper
-pinch of salt
-pinch of sugar
-3 tbsp. stock or water
Once you have all the ingredients prepared, all you have to do is quickly deep fry the chicken, cashew nuts, and dry chilies, set them all aside separately, and then stir fry the entire mixture together. But getting the steps right will ensure you have the best tasting Thai cashew chicken.
- Mix the seasoning sauce ingredients. Put everything in a bowl, stir it up, and set it aside for later.
- Dice up the chicken into bite-sized pieces, and mix it with a spoon of flour.Make sure all the chicken is evenly coated, and not caked on anywhere. In order to use the same oil to fry the cashew nuts, dry chilies, and chicken, yet all separately, fry the raw cashew nuts first.
- Add about 1/3 of a cup of oil to a wok or pan on a medium heat, and fry the cashews until they turn golden brown.
This will take shorter than you think, it can take only about 1 minute. You have to be careful, they are kind of like French fries, if you see them turning golden you need to take them out of the oil immediately, or they will burn fast. Drain the cashew nuts and set them aside.
The Thai dry chilies are also very quick to deep fry so you will want to toss them in the hot oil and fry them for only about a minute, stirring continually. You’ll see them turn crispy, and make sure you watch them close and take them out of the oil before they burn.
- Fry the chicken cubes.Fry the chicken for about 5 minutes or so, until they turned nice and golden crispy on the outside. Then drain the chicken and set it aside.
At this stage of making this Thai cashew chicken recipe, you should have all your vegetables chopped up and ready to go, the chicken, cashew nuts, dry fried chilies, and sauce mixture.
Now, you’re ready to stir-fry everything together.
- Add about 1/2 tbsp. of oil to your wokor frying pan and wait for it to heat up. Then toss in your garlic, stir-fry for about 10 seconds, and then add the onions. Stir-fry for a few seconds until the onions become translucent. Then add in the fresh green and red chilies. At this stage, you can add a few sprinkles of water if your work is getting dry, but don’t add too much water.
- Grab your seasoning sauce mixture, and add it to the wok. Keep stir frying and you’ll see that the sauce quickly begins to thicken and get sticky from the oyster sauce and dark sweet soy sauce. Once the sauce is thick and sticky, add the chicken, cashew nuts, and dried chilies, and gently stir-fry, making sure all the sauce evenly coats all ingredients.
The final step is to add the green onions and give your cashew chicken a few quick stirs, and then turn off the heat. The green onions will still cook a little from the heat of the other ingredients and you want them to remain crisp and fragrant.
That’s all the steps. Have a great time. Aroi Mak Mak! Don’t forget to visit us at Yummy Thai Flowermound, TX!
