Chicken with peanuts recipe is a very delicious Chinese dish. I usually make it for dinner as it is quick and easy to cook. The chicken meat have a delicate texture, so it can absorb the flavor of the chicken with peanuts. It could go well with plain rice, therefore add some shredded carrot or cucumber in it!

Stir-Fried Chicken with Peanuts

Serve this home-style version of kung pao chicken and peanuts with a side of steamed white rice. If you’re feeding a large crowd, stir-fry an additional batch instead of making one large serving at once; overcrowding the pan won’t allow the ingredients to cook properly.

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Recipe Summary

Servings:

4

Ingredients

Ingredient Checklist

• 1/3 cup soy sauce
• 3 tablespoons shaoxing cooking wine or dry sherry
• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar or white vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
• 1 whole boneless, skinless chicken breast (about 1 1/2 pounds)
• 1 1/2 tablespoons peanut oil or vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup unsalted dry-roasted peanuts or cashews
• 2 whole scallions, thinly sliced
• 4 whole dried Chinese red peppers
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch

Directions

Instructions Checklist

• Step 1In a bowl, whisk together the soy sauce, wine, vinegar, sugar, and sesame oil. Dice the chicken and toss it in the marinade.
• Step 2Heat a wok or skillet over high heat until very hot. Add the oil. Lightly fry the peanuts for about 1 minute and remove. Add the scallions, red peppers, and garlic. Stir-fry for about 20 seconds.
• Step 3Just before adding to the pan, coat the chicken in the cornstarch. Fry until the chicken is just cooked through, 3 to 4 minutes (depending on the pan and the heat). Return the peanuts to the pan and mix thoroughly to combine with the chicken. Serve immediately with white rice.

Cook’s Notes

Stir-frying requires only a good wok or saute pan, a long-handled spatula, some protein or vegetables, a heat source, and oil. Whenever making stir-fry, set the table, including the drinks, and prepare all the ingredients in advance, then start to stir-fry at the last minute. Use the highest heat possible and work fast in order to cook the food without “steaming” it and losing moisture. Work in batches, don’t overcrowd the pan.

Kung Pao Chicken With Peanuts

This Kung Pao chicken is an easy, authentic Chinese dish made with crisp chicken breast, peanuts, and chile peppers in a sauce made from soy sauce, black vinegar, and sesame oil.

Kung Pao chicken, for those who’ve only ever seen it on Chinese menus and not ordered it, consists of a lightly sweet-and-sour sauce infused with the complexity (and slightly lip-tingling qualities) of Sichuan peppercorns. The tastes and the textures are all different yet extraordinarily complementary in that balanced yin and yang sorta way, to say nothing of the dish’s impressive appearance when served straight from the wok

HOW TO PRONOUNCE KUNG PAO CHICKEN

Curious how to properly pronounce the classic Chinese dish you’re about to make? We certainly were. In seeking the pronunciation, we came to find that Kung Pao is sorta the Americanized slang for Gong Bao chicken, which is actually short for Gong Bao Ji Ding. Here’s its proper pronunciation. (Say again? We had to listen several times to nail it, so don’t feel bad if you don’t get it on the first try.)

Interested to learn more about the history of this dish? Author Fuschia Dunlop explains: “This dish has the curious distinction of having been labeled as politically incorrect during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. It’s named after a late Qing Dynasty (late 19th century) governor of Sichuan, Ding Baozhen—Gong Bao was his official title—who is said to have particularly enjoyed eating it. No one can quite agree on the details of the dish’s origins: Some say it was a dish Ding Baozhen brought with him from his home province of Guizhou; others that he ate it in a modest restaurant when he went out in humble dress to observe the real lives of his subjects; still others, rather implausibly, that his chef invented the finely chopped chicken dish because Ding Baozhen had bad teeth. Whatever the truth of its origins, its association with an imperial bureaucrat was enough to provoke the wrath of the Cultural Revolution radicals, and it was renamed ‘fast-fried chicken cubes’ (hong bao ji ding) or ‘chicken cubes with seared chiles’ (hu la ji ding) until its political rehabilitation in the 1980s.”

Kung Pao Chicken With Peanuts

This Kung Pao chicken is an easy, authentic Chinese dish made with crisp chicken breast, peanuts, and chile peppers in a sauce made from soy sauce, black vinegar, and sesame oil.

Prep20 mins

Cook5 mins

Total25 mins

Mains

Chinese

2 servings

753 kcal

Want it? Click it.

INGREDIENTS USMETRIC

For the marinade

• ▢1 1/2 teaspoons potato flour or 2 1/4 teaspoons cornstarch
• ▢1/2 teaspoon salt
• ▢2 teaspoons light soy sauce
• ▢1 teaspoon Shaoxing rice wine or medium-dry sherry
• ▢1 tablespoon water
• ▢2/3 pound boneless chicken breasts skin-on or skinless, cut into 1/2-to-3/4-inch (12- to 18-mm) chunks

For the sauce

• ▢1 tablespoon granulated sugar
• ▢3/4 teaspoon potato flour or 1 1/8 teaspoons cornstarch
• ▢1 teaspoon dark soy sauce
• ▢1 teaspoon light soy sauce
• ▢1 tablespoon Chinkiang or Chinese black vinegar
• ▢1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
• ▢1 tablespoon homemade chicken stock or canned chicken broth or water

For the Kung Pao chicken

• ▢3 garlic cloves thinly sliced
• ▢Ginger (enough to equal the amount of garlic), thinly sliced
• ▢5 scallions white and green parts, cut into 1/2-inch lengths
• ▢2 tablespoons peanut oil
• ▢1 handful of dried red chiles (at least 10) preferably Sichuanese
• ▢1 teaspoon whole Sichuan peppercorns
• ▢2/3 cup roasted unsalted peanuts

DIRECTIONS 

Make the marinade

• In a small bowl, combine the potato flour or cornstarch and salt. Slowly add the soy sauce, rice wine, and water, mixing constantly with a fork. (If using potato flour, the marinade will be more of a paste than a liquid marinade. That’s okay.)
• Add the chicken and stir to evenly coat the chicken. Let it stand at room temperature while you make the sauce.

Make the sauce

• In a small bowl, combine the sauce ingredients.

Make the Kung Pao chicken

• Snip the chiles into 2 or 3 pieces. Wearing rubber gloves, discard as many chile seeds as possible.
• Add 2 tablespoons oil to the wok and place it over high heat. When the oil is hot but not yet smoking, add the chiles and Sichuan peppercorns and stir-fry briefly until crisp and the oil is spicy and fragrant. Whatever you do, be mindful not to burn the chiles and pepper. You can remove the wok from the heat if necessary to prevent overheating.☞TESTER TIP: Keeping the peppercorns whole and the dried chiles in larger pieces allows the heat-averse eaters at your table to pick around them.
• Plop in the chicken pieces and cook, stirring constantly. As soon as the chicken cubes have separated, add the ginger, garlic, and scallions and continue to stir-fry for a few minutes until everything is fragrant and the chicken is cooked through. (You may want to slice into one of the larger pieces of chicken to make sure it’s done.)
• Stir the sauce and then carefully swirl it into the wok, continuing to stir and toss. As soon as the sauce is warmed through and becomes thick and shiny, add the peanuts, stir to combine, and serve immediately.

NOTES

Kung Pao Chicken With Peanuts Variation

Kung Pao Shrimp Or Pork

You can substitute prawns (shrimp) or chunks of pork in place of the chicken.

Kung Pao Chicken With Cashews

Cashews can be used instead of the traditional peanuts for a slightly more grand-seeming version of this dish.

Kung Pao Chicken With Whatever’s In Your Fridge

We love this Kung Pao chicken recipe without changing a thing. However, if you’re the sort you prefers a little extra vegetable to make you feel a little more virtuous after having cold cereal for dinner last night, or if you happen to have some vegetables languishing in the fridge or canned items in the back of the pantry that you know you won’t use if they linger any longer, then go ahead and toss them in. Red bell peppers, water chestnuts, even asparagus, they all work here. Follow your bliss.

Sichuan-Style Stir-Fried Chicken With Peanuts

Also known as kung pao chicken, this 5-Star Sichuan classic boasts multidimensional hot-sweet and salty-sour flavors. As one user review put it, “It is, hands-down, the best stir-fry chicken recipe I’ve ever tried.” Serve this soon-to-be favorite with rice and a steamed vegetable.

Gallery

Recipe Summary

Yield:

6 servings (serving size: 3/4 cup stir-fry and 1 cup rice)

Ingredients

Ingredient Checklist

• Marinade:
• 2 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons rice wine or sake
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon dark sesame oil
• 1 ½ pounds skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces
• Stir-Frying Oil:
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided
• Sauce:
• ½ cup fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 ½ tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons rice wine or sake
• 1 tablespoon Chinese black vinegar or Worcestershire sauce
• 1 ¼ teaspoons cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon dark sesame oil
• 2 tablespoons minced green onions
• 1 ½ tablespoons minced peeled fresh ginger
• 1 ½ tablespoons minced garlic (about 7 cloves)
• 1 teaspoon chile paste with garlic
• Remaining Ingredients:
• 1 ½ cups drained, sliced water chestnuts
• 1 cup (1/2-inch) sliced green onion tops
• ¾ cup unsalted, dry-roasted peanuts
• 6 cups hot cooked long-grain rice

Directions

Instructions Checklist

• Step 1To prepare marinade, combine first 5 ingredients in a medium bowl; cover and chill 20 minutes.
• Step 2Heat 1 tablespoon of the vegetable oil in a wok or large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chicken mixture; stir-fry 4 minutes or until chicken is done. Remove from pan; set aside.
• Step 3To prepare sauce, combine broth and next 6 ingredients (broth through 1 teaspoon sesame oil); stir well with a whisk. Heat 1 tablespoon vegetable oil in pan. Add 2 tablespoons green onions, ginger, garlic, and chile paste, and stir-fry for 15 seconds. Add broth mixture, and cook 1 minute or until thick, stirring constantly.
• Step 4Stir in cooked chicken, water chestnuts, sliced onion tops, and peanuts; cook for 1 minute or until thoroughly heated. Serve over rice.

Nutrition Facts

Per Serving:

590 calories; calories from fat 25%; fat 16.7g; saturated fat 2.7g; mono fat 6.8g; poly fat 6g; protein 36.9g; carbohydrates 71.4g; fiber 3.3g; cholesterol 66mg; iron 3.8mg; sodium 591mg; calcium 75mg