This easy cashew chicken recipe with crunchy asparagus and chilli makes a classic Cantonese-style stir-fried chicken with cashews with a few tweaks to accommodate those of us who prefer even more texture, flavour and spice. The beauty of the dish is that if you’re not a fan of fiery flavours, you can skip the chillies and enjoy the dish as it’s meant to be eaten.
If you’re going to be getting into the spirit of the two-week Lunar New Year holiday which starts next week and have been browsing our Chinese New Year recipes, then also consider this quick and easy Chinese cashew chicken recipe. And if you enjoy this, try our Cambodian stir-fried chicken with cashews, which is even more delicious.
If you adore Asian food and you’re a spice lover, but you’re cooking for people who can’t handle the heat, Cantonese food might be the answer. While Cantonese cooking is marked by clean flavours, crisp textures, light treatment with little more than a quick stir-fry in a hot wok, and a hint of umami, it’s versatile. Just don’t tell your Cantonese friends!
Take this Cantonese-style cashew chicken recipe, for example, which I’ve adapted from Chinese-Australian chef Kylie Kwong’s recipe for stir-fried chicken fillets with cashews from Simple Chinese Cooking. I’ve swapped her cucumbers for asparagus, boosted the flavour with more soy sauce and chilli – added at the table not to the wok – and skipped the whopping two teaspoons of salt, after a recent health scare.
And do browse our other Chinese recipes from China, Cambodia, Vietnam, and beyond, including our Chinese fried rice recipes and Chinese egg recipes, which include marbled Chinese tea eggs, Chinese egg drop soup, the Cantonese egg foo young and Chinese-American egg fu young with gravy.
Before I tell you more about this cashew chicken recipe, we have a favour to ask. Grantourismo is reader-supported. If you’ve enjoyed our recipes, please consider supporting Grantourismo. You could buy something on Amazon, such as classic cookbooks for serious cooks or cookbooks for culinary travellers; buy a handcrafted KROK, the best mortar and pestle ever; or shop our Grantourismo store for gifts for food lovers designed with Terence’s images.
If you’re looking for more cooking inspiration, we have many hundreds of recipes from around the world in our archives. Note that you can save your favourites by clicking on the heart on the right of any post to create your own private account. Now let me tell you more about this quick and easy cashew chicken recipe with crunchy asparagus and chilli.
Cashew Chicken Recipe with Crunchy Asparagus and Chilli
If I didn’t have a calendar, I’d know it was Chinese New Year or Lunar New Year by the fact that our longevity noodles recipe is currently more popular than my beef Stroganoff recipe – and it takes a lot to topple that retro Russian classic from the list of reader favourites, as our most popular recipe round-ups reveal year after year.
Sadly I’m missing Chinese New Year in Cambodia again this year. My return home to Siem Reap and Terence and Pepper has been delayed due to a recent health scare – as has my dream of a feast of Cambodian food. So after a year cooking mostly European and Middle Eastern food for mum here in Australia – from our family’s Russian-Ukrainian recipes to Mediterranean dishes – I’ve been desperately craving Asian food.
I’ve been making Chinese food, mainly Cantonese, as mum can’t eat spicy food. Terence and I have been cooking Chinese for as long as we’ve been cooking together – since we moved into the basement garden flat of a big Balmain terrace house, where we’d cook up everything from Malaysian to Thai food, from peanut-y chicken satay to Thai green curries packed with veg.
But when it comes to Chinese cuisines, while we love them all, our pick is Sichuan cuisine – which, ironically, Terence and I first tried in Hong Kong, home to Cantonese cuisine. Distinguished by the fiery flavours of the hot and numbing Sichuan pepper – unrelated to peppercorns or chilli peppers, but from a plant in the Rutaceae family, which includes citrus – Sichuan food is China’s spiciest cuisine.
And Sichuan cuisine is exactly what I’d love to be tucking into if it weren’t for mum – which is how I found myself sprinkling chilli flakes, drizzling chilli oil, spooning chilli crisp, and slicing fresh chillies onto Cantonese style dishes, starting with this easy cashew chicken recipe with crunchy asparagus and chilli.
So let me tell you more about this quick and easy cashew chicken recipe with crunchy asparagus and chilli for a Cantonese style chicken with cashews given a kick of heat and more crunch.
Tips to Making this Cashew Chicken Recipe with Crunchy Asparagus and Chilli
I only have a few tips to making this quick and easy cashew chicken recipe with crunchy asparagus and chilli, starting with the marinade.
Make the Marinade
Prepare the marinade by combining the marinade ingredients in a small bowl: a tablespoon of Shaoxing cooking wine (or dry sherry), a tablespoon of soy sauce (we like to use these light and dark soy sauce brands), two tablespoons of corn flour, a tablespoon of cold water, and a pinch of salt (optional).
The marinade might not seem like enough, but it’s plenty. I’ve only added soy sauce to Kylie Kwong’s marinade recipe, as I felt it needed an added boost of umami after I made the dish the first time.
Marinate the Chicken
To a large bowl, add the chicken thigh pieces and marinade ingredients, and stir to combine well so the chicken pieces are fully coated in the marinade then refrigerate it for 30 minutes or so – longer is okay, but not less than that.
Kylie Kwong’s recipe calls for chicken thigh fillets, sliced into roughly 2cm wide pieces, and we’re with her on that choice: the brown meat of the chicken has so much more flavour than chicken breast, and retains its juiciness.
Stir-fry the Chicken
An Asian kitchen essential, a wok is a must for stir-frying. We recommend a cast iron wok with a long handle, but for effective stir-frying you really need high heat. A compromise is a round flat-bottomed non-stick wok.
It’s best to stir-fry the chicken in two batches, even if you’re using a large wok. To the hot wok, you’ll add two tablespoons of vegetable oil, heat it until shimmering, then add half the marinated chicken and stir-fry it for a couple of minutes.
Kylie Kwong’s recipe only calls for stir-frying the chicken for a minute, but that wasn’t long enough and I tested her recipe a few times. Unless you’re in a commercial kitchen you might not be able to get your wok hot enough, so use a digital kitchen thermometer to be sure.
Use a slotted spoon to remove the chicken strips from the wok and transfer them to a bowl, then add the rest of the chicken, stir-fry for two minutes, then transfer those pieces to the same bowl.
Reduce the heat to medium and to the same wok add the other two tablespoons of vegetable oil, heat until shimmering, add the cashews and garlic and stir-fry for a minute, stirring constantly to ensure the garlic doesn’t burn.
To the same wok, return the chicken strips, increase the heat to high once more, add the Shaoxing wine, and harder asparagus pieces and stir-fry for a minute or two, before adding the softer asparagus tips, and stir-frying for another minute or two.
To Serve
Transfer the stir-fried chicken and asparagus to a serving plate, garnish with sliced spring onions and optional chilli slices, and serve immediately with steamed jasmine rice or fried rice –and, if you’re like me, bowls of chilli flakes, chilli oil and chilli crisp, because you can never have enough chilli.
Cashew Chicken Recipe with Crunchy Asparagus and Chilli
Ingredients
Marinade
- 1 tbsp Shaoxing wine - or dry sherry
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- 2 tbsp corn flour
- 1 tbsp cold water
- 1 pinch salt - optional
Stir-Fry
- 600 g chicken thigh fillets - sliced into roughly 2cm wide pieces
- 12 asparagus spears - trimmed, cut into quarters
- 4 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 cup unsalted roasted cashews
- 4 garlic cloves - finely diced
- 2 tbsp Shaoxing wine - or dry sherry
- 1 cup spring onions - finely sliced
- 1 bird’s eye chilli - sliced, optional
Instructions
- Marinate the chicken: to a large bowl, add the chicken thigh pieces and marinade ingredients, and stir to combine well so the chicken pieces are fully coated in the marinade and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- Stir-fry the chicken in two batches: to a hot wok, add the 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil and heat until shimmering, then add half the marinated chicken and stir-fry for a couple of minutes.
- Use a slotted spoon to remove the chicken pieces from the wok and transfer them to a bowl, then add remaining chicken, stir-fry for 2 minutes, then transfer them to the same bowl.
- Reduce the heat to medium and to the same wok add the other 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil, heat until shimmering, add the cashews and garlic and stir-fry for a minute, stirring constantly to ensure the garlic doesn’t burn.
- To the same wok, return the chicken pieces, increase the heat to high again, add the Shaoxing and harder asparagus pieces and stir-fry for a minute or two, add the softer asparagus tips, and stir-fry for another minute or two.
- Transfer the stir-fried chicken and asparagus to a serving plate, garnish with sliced spring onions and optional chilli slices, and serve immediately with steamed jasmine rice or fried rice.
Notes
Please do let us know in the comments below if you make this quick and easy cashew chicken recipe with crunchy asparagus and chilli. We love hearing how our recipes turn out for you and welcome feedback and tips.
