While Thai Cashew Chicken is not as saucy as Chinese Cashew Chicken, what it lacks in sauciness it makes up for in big flavour. Crunchy golden cashews and chicken are tossed in a simple yet bold Thai stir fry sauce with as much or as little fresh chilli as you want!
This is a great Thai food favourite that’s incredibly quick to make.
Thai Cashew Chicken Stir Fry
Stir fries featuring cashews are a favourite across Asia and the Thai version is one of the best! Unlike Chinese Cashew Chicken which is generous on sauce, the Thai version is a drier style stir fry where the sauce flavour is much more intense. So you don’t need nor do you want a ton of sauce to soak your rice. There’s plenty of flavour coating the stir fry ingredients that stains and flavours the rice when you mix it through.
Honestly, just look at this. No one would see this wok of goodness and think, “It doesn’t look like there’s enough flavour in that,”… Right? 😂
What goes in Thai Cashew Chicken Stir Fry
Here’s what you need for this Thai stir fry with chicken:
Cashews – The nuts are actually the star ingredient in this stir fry! They bring texture, flavour and nutty richness to the party. It’s best to use raw so they get toasted freshly in the wok (or skillet) for maximum flavour development. It only takes around 3 minutes. If you only have roasted cashews, that’s fine too. Just toast them lightly for around 90 seconds, they don’t need to be as fully cooked.
Whichever you use, be sure to use unsalted cashews. Salted cashews will make the dish far too salty;
Chicken – Thigh is best, for the juiciest and most flavoursome chicken pieces. If you prefer to use breast, consider tenderising it the Chinese restaurant way to make it softer and more juicy. If you’ve never done it before, it will blow your mind – it’s a simple trick yet a total game-changer!
Onion and garlic – Essential aromatics. It’s hard to find a stir fry in my world that doesn’t start with these two!
Green onion – For freshness and colour;
Chilli – For a hit of spiciness. 100% optional;
The sauce – Here’s what you need:
Oyster sauce – This packs a ton of umami as well as acting as a the thickener for this Thai Stir Fry Sauce. You can use vegetarian oyster sauce, if you prefer;
Dark soy sauce – The most intensely-flavoured soy in the soy sauce family, and just a tiny amount packs a serious flavour punch. It also stains foods a gorgeously deep mahogany colour;
Fish sauce – Fish sauce is used in Thai cooking like soy sauce is used in Chinese cooking, ie. as a primary seasoning. While it might smell a bit (ok, very!) funky straight out of the bottle, once it’s cooked it is completely transformed. It adds an incomparable complexity and depth of flavour into any dish. No fishy flavours at all in the end result!
How to make Thai Cashew Chicken Stir Fry
As with all stir fries, once you start cooking, things move fast! The key when cooking stir fries is to make sure you have all the ingredients chopped and ready to toss in, including the Thai Stir Fry Sauce. Also cook the jasmine rice beforehand – it takes longer to make than this stir fry!!
Sauce – Mix the sauce in a small dish;
Cashews – Start by cooking off the cashews. If using raw cashews (which I recommend for better flavour), it will take around 3 minutes to cook through on a medium heat. They will change from a pale cream colour to deep golden brown, and they should be crunchy (yep, you’re gonna have to try one to check!🤷🏻♀️).
If you are starting with cashews that are already roasted, then you only need to toast them for around 1 1/2 minutes just to heat them through and bring out the flavour (as opposed to cooking them);
Remove cashews from the wok / skillet. Reserve the oil – we will use that to cook the stir fry;
Stir fry! – As with all stir fries, we add ingredients in the order it takes to cook.
Start with garlic and onion, the aromatics. Just tossed for 30 seconds is all that’s needed to get them started and to flavour the oil. Next toss the chicken in.
Once the chicken is mostly cooked, add the white part of the green onions (ie. the thicker part at the base of the stem) along with the chilli. We add the white part of the green onions before the softer green part because it takes longer to cook. Cook for a further minute, and by this time everything that’s currently in the wok should be almost cooked through.
Sauce – Next, the sauce. Pour in, then continue to cook for another 1 minute or until the sauce reduces and everything in the wok gets stained a beautiful mahogany colour; and
Green onion and cashews – And finally, toss the green part of the green onions in, plus the cashews. Give it a toss for around 20 – 30 seconds which is all that’s needed for the green onion to wilt slightly.
And you’re done! What was that, a grand total of 8 minutes? I told you it was fast!!
What to serve with Thai Cashew Chicken Stir Fry
The traditional rice of Thailand is Jasmine Rice which has a lovely, subtle perfume, making it decidedly more interesting than plain white rice! Though really, any kind of rice will work just fine here – brown, white, basmati, jasmine, and for those of you on a low-carb bender, Cauliflower Rice.
I’d also add a simple side salad just to up the vegetable quota. A quick Asian Side Salad is a staple for me (that’s code for “an easy dressing that goes with any vegetables”), Smashed Cucumbers is another personal favourite I obsessively inhale all year round, along with Chang’s Crunchy Noodle Salad (Australia’s favourite salad!).
Then of course, my fallback that works with literally anything: simple, classic Asian Sesame Dressing. Use this for any vegetables – raw, roasted, steamed, blanched. You just can’t go wrong with it! – Nagi x
Watch how to make it
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Thai Cashew Chicken Stir Fry
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp peanut oil (or canola or vegetable oil)
- 1/2 cup raw cashews , unsalted (Note 1 for roasted)
- 1 garlic clove , finely minced
- 1/2 onion (brown, yellow, or white), cut into thin wedges
- 200g/7oz chicken thighs , skinless and boneless, sliced into 1cm / 1/3" thin strips (Note 2)
- 2 green onions , cut into 2.5cm / 1” lengths, white part separated from green part
- 1/2 red cayenne pepper , deseeded and finely sliced on the diagonal (omit or reduce if preferred) (Note 3)
Sauce:
- 1 tbsp oyster sauce (Note 4)
- 1 tsp dark soy sauce (Note 5)
- 2 tsp fish sauce (Note 6)
- 1 tsp white sugar
- 3 tbsp water
Serving:
- Red chilli , finely sliced (optional garnish)
- Jasmine rice , for serving (or other rice of choice)
Instructions
- 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!).
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
Thai Stir Fry and Noodle Favourites
Life of Dozer
What Dozer ate this Easter – Beetroot Cured Salmon!!! 🙀
So yummy, also really good stirring in some fresh Hokkien or Singapore noodles if you can’t be bothered making rice! The ones from Aldi are pretty good….family loves this one, thank you Nagi xx
Perfect recipe! This is going to be a weekly cook for sure. Like others mentioned, not a super thick sauce but I prefer it that way to soak into the rice a little. I used chicken breast as that’s what I had on hand, used the velveting technique that was linked in this recipe and it turned out so tender, was just like the restaurants! Added mushroom, capsicum, spinach for the last minute – basically whatever I needed to use from the vege drawer – this recipe is a winner!
So delicious! Amazing flavors!
Been making this at least once a fortnight for months and has became a family favourite, this is my go-to recipe site now, even bought the book!
Another brilliant recipe, Nagi! I added a red bell pepper to the stir fry, and some garlic chives from my garden at the very end, and it was fantastic. Thanks for another home run.
Delish, really easy to make and tastes so good. I garnished with coriander and served with jasmine rice – so nice !
Nagi strikes again, this is amazing!! I find it quite saucy and delicious. Threw in a bunch of veg – carrot, capsicum, mushroom and broccolini and it was one of the best stir fries I’ve ever had. Thanks Nagi!
Thank you for all your amazing recipes. You are my go to search for new cooking inspiration!
I have a question regarding your Thai chicken cashew stirfry. I cook it all the time but really struggle to get the sauce sticky. It’s always a little soupy. Nothing like the pictures. I have tried cooking longer and reducing the water content but I still cannot get it to the syrup consistency.
Fabulous recipe.
Quick and easy, plus so delicious.
Better than any takeaway.
Quick, easy and wonderful.!!. I added carrots, red capsicum and green beans to up the veggie factor, fresh basil (as our garden is teeming it) and fresh ginger. Served with brown basmati rice (boiled and rested as per Nagi’s excellent instructions), tonight’s dinner was a feast of colour, flavour and nutrition. Many thanks Nagi. I will definitely be making this a lot.
Have cooked this 3 times now in different quantities (very handy serving size scale just above the recipe). Each time is easy, delicious and a hit with my family.
Delicious recipe! Like others our sauce didn’t thicken in the time (we did scale up the recipe), we just cooked it longer till it was thick. Next time I’d lower water quantity slightly.
Yum! Tastes just like a Thai restaurant. I’ve made it with chicken thighs (the best) but also with chicken breast tenderised with 1t of cornflour (also really good)! I’m don’t usually have a 2nd helping of a meal but I’ll make an exception for this one!
I made this tonight and the flavour was lovely but my sauce didn’t thicken the way it should have. Not sure what I did wrong.
Perfect weekday dinner, so tasty and better and quicker than takeout.
Yum! I used chicken breast, tenderised. So juicy and goes so well with the sauce and cashews. Delicious. Great dinner with some white rice.
Another delicious, easy to prepare recipe. I doubled the sauce, used pork instead of chicken and added zucchini for extra veg, then stirred through some udon noodles. It was fantastic!!!!
Yum, yum, yum!
Super simple and is now on regular rotation in our house. I skip the onion because I’m not big on “chunky” onion and I don’t think it detracts from the dish at all.
Slightly altered the recipe to veganise it – vegan ‘chicken’ & vegetarian oyster sauce (+ extra, alongside MSG and some more soy to sub fish sauce). Came together surprisingly quick and is really really flavourful! Great weeknight meal if you have some leftover rice and veggies 🙂
Amazingly yum. Simple to prepare great reward!