Thai Cashew Chicken Stir Fry - Khin's Kitchen (2024)

Easy Classic Thai Cashew Chicken Stir Fry recipe loaded with chicken, crispy golden cashew nuts and vegetables. Seasoned with a spicy, sweet, sour and savoury authentic Thai flavour. Incredibly easy to make at home, you just need to pair it with a bowl of jasmine rice to compliment the dish. Perfect dinner recipe that the whole family will love!

If you love quick and easy spicy stir fry dishes, you might also like our Thai Basil Chicken Stir Fry and Seafood Udon Stir Fry recipes.

What is Thai Cashew Chicken?

Thai Chicken Stir Fry or Gai Pad Med Mamuang is one of the most popular stir fry dishes in Thailand and is loved by people across the world. Basically made with tender chicken pieces, crunchy cashew nuts, vegetables and delicious stir fry sauce. Very similar to Chinese Cashew Chicken but Thai Cashew Chicken is spicy, sweet, salty, savoury and bold in flavour. Chinese cashew chicken is sweet, savoury and mild in flavour.

In this post, I'll share our recipe on how to make a Thai restaurant-style Cashew Chicken recipe, packed with authentic flavour. Taste just like you have had at your favourite Thai restaurant!

What do we need

Protein: You can simply use tender boneless chicken breast or thigh meats. If you are bored of chicken, you can swap it with beef, lamb, pork prawns/shrimps, or any protein you wish. Tougher meat takes extra time to be tenderized.

For the vegetarian option: you can simply substitute meat with firm tofu or Quorn meat. For stir fry sauce mixture, use vegetarian oyster sauce instead of oyster sauce and use regular soy sauce instead of fish sauce.

Vegetables: Onion, bell pepper, mushroom, spring onions, dry or fresh chillies are ideal to use. Feel free to add other stir fry vegetables like carrots, mushrooms, snow peas, baby corn, bird eye chilli, etc.

Cashew Nut: Crunchy roasted cashew nuts brings a rich nutty taste, which makes this dish very unique. We usually use unsalted raw cashew nuts and pan-roast with a bit of oil. You can also add ready roasted cashew nuts, roasted peanuts or almonds.

Dried Chillies: I usually use hot dried red long chilies, deseeded and cut into small pieces. Dried chillies has a smokey, spicy, sweet flavour which is ideal for this dish. You can also any of your favourite mild or hot dried red chillies.

Thai Stir Fry Sauce: Classic Thai stir fry sauce are salty, sweet, and savoury taste. To create this umami sauce you will need, light soy sauce, dark sweet soy sauce, fish sauce, oyster sauce, sugar and sesame oil. Add a dash of corn starch to thicken the sauce.

Dark thick soy sauce - Thai thick sweet soy sauce is ideal for this recipe, available in Healthy Boy, ABC, Lee Kum Kee brands. You can also use regular dark soy sauce or Kecap Manis ( Indonesian sweet soy sauce ).

Fish Sauce - is a liquid condiment used widely in Burmese, Thai, Lao, Vietnamese cooking, made from fermented anchovies or fish. The taste is salty, savoury, earthy and umami at the same time. You can add in many Asian soups, noodles and stir fry dishes. You can either substitute with light soy sauce or salt to taste.

How to make it

• First,add all the sauce ingredients in a small bowl. Mix it well and set it aside. Cut the chicken into small dices, gather and prepare all the ingredients.
• Next, marinate the chicken pieces with soy sauce, baking soda, corn starch, and sugar. Set aside for at least 15 minutes. If you have more time, you can leave for an hour.

• Heat the wok into low medium heat, drizzle 1 teaspoon of oil and saute the cashew nuts for 2-3 minutes until crispy golden brown. Then remove wok and set it aside.
• Drizzle a bit of oil in the wok and bring the heat over medium-high heat. Add the marinated chicken pieces and stir fry for 2-3 minutes until the chicken is cooked through. Remove the pan and set it aside.
• In the remaining pan, add more oil if needed and bring it to medium-high heat. Add onions and stir fry for few seconds, and follow with the dried chillies. Next add the garlic, red peppers and mushrooms.

• Place the cooked chicken back in the wok and pour the sauce mixture in. Toss well to combine everything evenly.
• Once the sauce become thick and glossy, turn off the heat, sprinkle cashew nuts and spring onions. Combine well with other ingredients. Serve immediately while hot with a bowl of plain rice or noodles.

Top Tips

• Do not skip the marinade process, marinating with corn starch and baking soda keeps the meat moist and tender.
• Prepare all the ingredients before you heat the wok, as this is a very fast cooking dish.
• Use large wok or pan to spead enough heat to all ingredients.
• Do not overload the pan, fry with batches if you are making for crowd.
• Make sure to stir fry over medium-high heat to prevent the dish from wet and soggy.
• Adjust the spicy level by reducing the dried chillies or use the mild chilli. If you cannot eat too spicy, deseed the chillies by cutting the top off and toss the seeds out. Then add the whole chilli instead of cutting into small pieces. If you love extra spicy you can also add fresh Thai birdeye chillies.

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