Kung Pao Chicken
Calories: 420kcal
Adjust Servings Here: 4 servings
Description
Kung Pao chicken is a famous Chinese dish made with chicken, peanuts, spicy red chilis, and a sweet kung pao sauce. This stir-fry comes together in less than 15 minutes and is better than any take-away.
Ingredients
- 1 lb (500 g) Chicken cut into bite-size pieces
- 8 pieces Chinese bok choy or 2 sticks celery cut into pieces
- 1 Onion sliced
- 1 tablespoon Garlic minced
- 1 tablespoon Ginger minced
- 3 Red chilies dried, spicy, chopped
- 10 Cashewnuts or peanuts
- 2 tablespoon Cooking oil canola, sunflower grapeseed
- 2 tablespoon Cilantro for garnish
- ½ teaspoon Salt if necessary
Marinade
- ¼ teaspoon Salt
- ¼ teaspoon Pepper
- 1 tablespoon Rice wine vinegar
- 2 tablespoon Soy sauce
Sauce
- 1 tablespoon Rice wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon Soy sauce dark
- 1 tablespoon Hoisin sauce
- 1 teaspoon Sesame oil
- 2 tablespoon Sugar
- ½ teaspoon Scheuan peppercorns crushed
- 1 tablespoon Cornstarch
Instructions
Marinate chicken
- Cut the chicken into bite-size pieces.
- Season with salt and pepper ( use less salt).
- Add the vinegar and soy sauce.
- Cover and leave to marinate for 30 mins to an hour.
Saute
- Cut the bok choy in half - stalks and leaves separate - set aside.
- In a wok or cast-iron skillet, heat the oil.
- Add sliced onions, and saute for a minute.
- Then, add the ginger, garlic, and chilies - saute 30 seconds.
- Then, add the chicken and stir-fry on high for 2 minutes.
- Add the stalks of the bok choy (as they take time to cook) - saute 2 minutes more.
- Then, add the prepared sauce - stir-fry another minute.
- Next, add the bok choy leaves - continue to stir-fry.
- Sprinkle on the nuts - cashew or peanuts.
- Taste and adjust seasoning, add salt as necessary.
- Garnish with chopped cilantro.
Recipe Notes
Tips for making this Kung Pao chicken
- Stir-fry is a quick dish so have all the ingredients ready before you begin to stir-fry
- Prepare the sauce before you begin to stir-fry.
- Cut the chicken into even bite-size pieces so they cook evenly
- Heat the wok or skillet on high before you stir-fry. It's the cooking on high heat that enhances the flavor of stir-fry dishes
- Bok choy stalks take longer to cook so we add them ahead of time. But they take not more than 2 to 3 minutes.
- Add leaves at the last 2 minutes of cooking.
- Similarly, add nuts at the end of cooking so they don't become soft.
- If you don't have Sichuan peppercorns use black pepper powder.
- Kung Pao chicken is supposed to be hot and spicy but you can reduce the number of spicy chilies or use a non-spicy variety
The nutrition information and metric conversion are calculated automatically. I cannot guarantee its accuracy. If this data is important to you please verify with your trusted nutrition calculator. Thank you
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