I love chinese food, but it’s not always the healthiest choice when it comes to some dishes. I love the cashew chicken with broccoli I get from my local chinese take out, but its always covered with so much sauce and skimps out on the broccoli. I wanted to recreate my own version to get the same great flavor without the extra sodium, fat, and MSG and really pump it up with more veggies!
A healthier alternative to your favorite chinese food take out. Try this simple recipe the next time you’re craving chinese food.
Makes 6 servings
Ingredients:
3/4 cup raw cashews
1 tbsp olive oil
3 clove garlic, chopped
1 tbsp hoisin sauce
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp olive oil
4 scallions, sliced + more for garnish
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
2 bell peppers, diced (any color)
1/2 large onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup green beans, frozen
1 cup broccoli, frozen
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 tbsp light soy sauce
2 tbsp rice vinegar
1/2 cup low sodium vegetable broth
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp corn starch
Directions:
1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil.
2. In a medium size bowl, combine the ingredients for the marinade. Toss in the chicken and let it marinade for at least 20 minutes.
3. In a separate bowl, combine the sauce ingredients and set aside.
4. In a large wok or frying pan, heat the olive oil and add the chicken until fully cooked and evenly browned. Remove from pan.
5. Add the stir fry ingredients to the pan and cook until vegetables are tender. While vegetables are cooking put the rice noodles in the boiling water for about 5 minutes, until tender.
6. Drain the rice noodles and toss with 1/2 of the sauce until coated.
7. Add the cashews and cooked chicken back in the pan with the vegetables and toss with remaining sauce.
8. Serve cashew chicken over rice noodles and garnish with scallions.
(nutrition facts based on calorie count)
Enjoy!
This looks amazing J!
Asian take-aways are by far my favourite, and I usually go for the blackbean-whatever I feel like-at-the-time. It’s brilliant comfort food, without being drowned in too much sauce, mmm! They do skimp on the vegetables with most of the dishes though, and I remember having cashew chicken and broccoli on of the last times, and it was brilliant!
I am so glad you posted this, as it’s exactly the kind of food I want to be making myself, the secretcs in the sauce, but you don’t want it to be packed full with lots of bad stuff!
My favourite combination of stir fry sauce that I’ve cooked, is sesame oil, soy sauce and oyster sauce – it’s an amazing combination that works with most “sweet” vegetables like carrot, baby corn, mushrooms etc and all types of meat pretty much 😀
Will look into trying your cashew chicken though! YUM! Loving the colours in it too 😀
Yumm. I love to order steamed chicken or tofu and veggies when we get Chinese. My boyfriend however can not order anything healthy. I’ll file this into the healthy boyfriend recipe category 🙂
hahah same! My boyfriend always goes for the sesame chicken, which is fried and covered in this heavy sauce.. He liked this recipe .. so it’s boyfriend approved 🙂