Thai Cashew Chicken (Gai Pad Med Mamuang)
Ready in about 30 minutes, it beats take-out on speed and flavor, lets you adjust the heat to taste, and keeps the oil and ingredients completely under your control.
Stir-fries are weeknight lifesavers: fast, flavorful, and endlessly adaptable. This Thai cashew chicken version packs juicy chicken, crisp vegetables, toasted cashews, red chili peppers, garlic, and ginger into one sizzling skillet. What seals the deal is the stir fry sauce—soy, oyster, and fish sauces stirred with rice vinegar, chicken stock, and a touch of brown sugar. It’s a sweet and salty perfection.
What Is Thai Cashew Chicken (Gai Pad Med Mamuang)
It’s a delicious Thai chicken stir fry! With that being said, this dish actually did not originate in Thailand. Thai cashew chicken was influenced heavily by Chinese stir fry, but instead made with traditional Thai ingredients and flavor palate.
“Maumang” actually means “mangoes” but the name “med maumang,” in Thai, refers to cashews. “Gai” means “chicken” and “Pad” refers to a stir fry. So the dish literally means chicken stir fry with cashews.
Key Ingredients and Substitutions
Chicken – My personal recommendation is chicken thigh meat because dark meat is more flavorful and much juicier than breast meat. You can use either finely dice the chicken meat or you can use ground chicken (ground chicken is often a combination of light and dark meat). Personally, I prefer diced chicken thighs for a much better flavor. But, for easier and faster prep, feel free to use ground chicken.
Thai Red Chili Peppers – They could use fresh or dried, minced, and have their seeds removed prior to using. (You can use fresh, but do take out seeds and membrane as well.) These are very spicy peppers! Use your judgment on how many you can handle.
Gluten free options – to make this recipe gluten free, use gluten free soy sauce or tamari and gluten free oyster sauce.
Other vegetables options
You can feel free to throw in some additional veggies since this is technically a stir fry! Feel free to include any combination of this fresh variety of vegetables:
- Chinese cabbage
- Broccolini
- Mushrooms
- Carrots
- Baby corn
How to Make Thai Cashew Chicken
- Prep all of your ingredients before starting to cook.
- Sear the seasoned chicken pieces in some oil in a preheated, hot wok.
- Take out chicken and roast cashews in the same wok.
- Take them out and sear shallots, garlic and ginger then add chicken and vegetables in.
- Add in remaining ingredients and then, pour in the sauce.
- Mix everything and cook for just a couple more minutes.
What to Serve with Thai Cashew Chicken?
Rice is always a great side dish for a saucy stir fry because it soaks up all of the wonderful sauce that escapes the chicken and veggies. You can use flavored rice like cilantro lime rice or coconut rice. And trust me, you won’t want any of that sauce going to waste! You can make it a bit healthier by serving it with Cauliflower Rice or roasted broccoli. You can also mix this chicken dish with rice noodles if you are really craving some noodles.
Need to Make It Spicier?
If you want your Thai cashew chicken spicier, you can use fresh Thai chili peppers or simply use extra dried chilis. Just be careful with fresh Thai chilis because they are quite spicy! Also, don’t breathe over them while they are sautéing – that hot spice entering the nose will not be pleasant and can make you cough a lot.
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Thai Cashew Chicken Recipe (Gai Pad Med Mamuang)
Ingredients
- 2 lbs boneless, skinless, chicken thigh meat or chicken breast meat
- 2 tbsp cornstarch
- pinch coarse salt
- pinch black pepper
- 2-3 tbsp peanut oil
- 3-4 dried Thai red chili peppers minced and seeds removed
- 1 1/2 cups cashew nuts
- 1 small onion
- 6 garlic cloves
- 1 tbsp fresh ginger minced, grated, or shaved
- 5 oz shiitake mushrooms
- 1 red bell pepper
- 1 bok choy
- 1/2 bunch scallions
Sauce*:
- 4 tbsp oyster sauce use gluten free if needed
- 2 tbsp low sodium soy sauce use gluten free if needed
- 2 tbsp fish sauce
- 1/4 cup chicken stock
- 2 tbsp rice vinegar
- 2 tbsp brown sugar
Instructions
Prepping the ingredients:
- Make sure prepare your ingredients before starting to cook! This is a fairly fast moving recipe, so you need to have everything ready to go.
- Slice chicken into thin pieces, cut your vegetables, smash and mince garlic, peel and mince ginger, and measure everything you need for the sauce.
- Combine all of your sauce ingredient's in a measuring cup and whisk to combine. (TIP: you may want to heat up the chicken stock for a few seconds in a microwave so that it helps melt brown sugar when mixed.)
- Combine chicken with cornstarch, salt, and pepper in a mixing bowl and mix well, until the chicken is evenly coated.
Cooking Cashew Chicken Stir Fry:
- Preheat a wok over medium to medium high heat and add about a tablespoon of the peanut oil.
- Sear chopped chili peppers for about 30 seconds, mixing several times so they don't burn. Take them out and set aside.
- Add cashews to the work and sear for a minute or so, tossing them a couple of times as well. Take them out and set aside.
- Add another tablespoon of oil and sear garlic and ginger for a few seconds. Add in chicken and sear until chicken is almost done, stirring often.
- Stir in sliced mushrooms and bell pepper. Stir and let it sauté until it starts to soften.
- Stir in chopped bok choy and green onions. Mix to combine and stir in cashews and chili peppers.
- Whisk the sauce one more time and pour it over the chicken and vegetables. Stir well, while scraping bottom and sides of the wok (or the pan). Stir slowly and cook until for just a couple more minutes.
- Take off heat and serve!
Video
Notes
Nutrition
More Thai Chicken Recipes Perfect To Make At Home
Categories:
30 Minute Meals, Asian Recipes, Chicken Dinner Recipes, Dinner Recipes, Gluten Free Recipes, Thai Recipes,All images and text ©Lyubov Brooke for ©Will Cook For Smiles. Please do not use my images without prior permission. If using my posts in collections and features, please link back to this post for the recipe.
Disclaimer: Nutrition information shown is not guaranteed to be 100% accurate as most ingredients and brands have variations.
This was very good!
It was a little work to get everything prepped, however, the end result was very tasty. It was a wonderful blend of tastes and textures.
I am so glad you liked it, Sharon!