Caramelized red curry chicken sits next to a bed of hot, fluffy rice and steamed broccoli and then totally sauced up with the BEST spicy cashew sauce. Ooof, this is so, so good.
Red Curry Chicken Stir Fry with Spicy Cashew Sauce
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Ummm HELLO this was absolutely delicious! Will definitely be adding this to my arsenal of quick and delicious recipes. Yum, thank you!
Dani
This chicken stir fry is AMAZING – say hello to thin strips of chicken with caramelized red curry, served on steamy rice with broccoli and a big dollop of this garlicky, gingery, slightly spicy silky-smooth cashew sauce. It’s easy, it’s beautiful, it always has me going back for seconds (thirds).
In This Post: Everything You Need For Red Curry Chicken Stir Fry with Cashew Sauce
- Take Me to the Chicken Stir Fry Recipe
- Lindsay’s Notes
- Visual Walk-Through of the Recipe
- Video
- FAQs
- Reviews
Lindsay’s Notes
The way I love this recipe! Wow.
Red curry caramelized chicken stir fry, served with steamy rice and broccoli, and blanketed in a creamy, bright, super flavorful cashew sauce that makes this whole thing into a luscious, look-forward-to-it-all-day dinner dream.
We are in a phase in our family dinner life that calls for a lot of things: Bjork is eating a lot (A LOT) of protein right now, I like to try to get a lot of flavor into every meal (per usual), and the girls like to have some familiar, kid-friendly foods to choose from.
This has been our GO-TO for the last month or so! It hits what everybody wants.
Bjork gets his protein with lots of chicken, I get my flavor with all that sauce and curry-caramelization on the chicken, and the girls have steamy rice and broccoli to get excited about.
This was going to be the lead recipe for what will be our next run of the SOS series – yes, it’s coming! later this week – but I just couldn’t quite do it because of the sauce. That sauce has so much good flavor and I just couldn’t sacrifice anything to make the ingredient list shorter, so it doesn’t quite meet our SOS criteria. Which is fine. Here it is anyway, kind of SOS-y and kind of not, but delivering on that lick-every-drop-of-sauce feeling in such a big way.
How To Make Red Curry Chicken Stir Fry
Step 1: Make Your Cashew Sauce.
Gather up all your ingredients…
and blend them into a nice smooth sauce which looks about like this. It’s divine. (And if you don’t have the time or tools to make this sauce, I also love this Gochujang Sauce in this recipe instead!)
Step 2: Coat the Chicken Pieces with Cornstarch and Spices.
I like garlic powder, salt and pepper, plus the cornstarch to give it that golden brown exterior.
Step 3: Pan Fry the Chicken with Curry Paste and Brown Sugar.
Just like how you might make a normal curry, but rather than adding coconut milk, we are letting the chicken hold onto all that flavor. YES PLEASE!
Step 4: Serve with Broccoli, Rice, and Sauce.
Cut and cook it yourself, air fry it, or go the steam-in-the-bag route. Doesn’t matter. Just get it all on the plate together.
AND THEN SAUCE THE HECK OUT OF IT.
This combination is so bright, satisfying, flavorful… just so incredibly good.
Watch How To Make This Red Curry Chicken
The cashew-sauce-on-stir-fry idea came from the Chloe Flavor cookbook (affiliate link), which is a very delicious vegan cookbook by Chloe Coscarelli!
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Red Curry Chicken Stir Fry with Spicy Cashew Sauce
- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
Description
Caramelized red curry chicken sits next to a bed of hot, fluffy rice and steamed broccoli and then totally sauced up with the BEST spicy cashew sauce. Ooof, this is so, so good.
Ingredients
Units
Scale
Red Curry Chicken Stir Fry:
- 1 lb. chicken breasts
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- freshly ground black pepper to taste
- 2 tablespoons avocado oil
- 2 tablespoons red curry paste
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
Spicy Cashew Sauce:
- 1 1/4 cup roasted salted cashews
- 1/2 cup water (more as needed)
- 2 tablespoons maple syrup
- 2 tablespoons sriracha
- 1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 clove garlic
- juice of 1–2 limes (about 2 tablespoons, or to taste)
- 1 teaspoon ginger paste or fresh ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Veggies and Other:
- 2 cups small steamed broccoli florets (about 1 small head of broccoli or 1 frozen steam-in-the-bag)
- 2–3 cups cooked rice
Instructions
- Make the Spicy Cashew Sauce: Blend all ingredients in a high-powered blender until very smooth.
- Prep the Chicken: Cut the chicken breasts into very thin pieces. Toss with the cornstarch, garlic powder, salt, and pepper.
- Cook the Chicken: Add the avocado oil to a nonstick pan over medium high heat. Add the curry paste and brown sugar; cook for a few minutes to get it caramelizy and bubbly. Add the chicken. Toss once to coat in the sauce, then let it sit for several minutes to get the chicken nice and golden brown. Flip and repeat until chicken is cooked through. If needed, add 1-2 tablespoons of water to the pan to lift up any browned pieces that are stuck to the bottom.
- Serve: Serve the chicken on cooked rice, with cooked broccoli, with a lot of that yummy cashew sauce all over everything.
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Sauté
- Cuisine: Asian-Inspired
Keywords: chicken stir fry, red curry chicken, stir fry
Frequently Asked Questions For Red Curry Chicken Stir Fry
What can I use instead of cashews?
I would make a peanut sauce equivalent! You can find my favorite peanut sauce here. And if you need a completely nut-free option, this Gochujang Sauce is one of my favorites.
How long does the cashew sauce last?
This will last for 3-5 days in the fridge! Goes well on SO many things! I have never loved eating steamed broccoli more than I did when I dipped it into this sauce.
Can you make this vegetarian / meatless?
This would be great with cauliflower or tofu! Chloe uses seitan and broccoli in the cookbook recipe that inspired this recipe.
How do you make this chicken stir fry dairy-free?
This is naturally dairy-free! Hip hip!
How do you make this chicken stir fry gluten-free?
First, make sure your curry paste is gluten-free. Secondly, use a tamari or coconut aminos instead of soy sauce in the cashew sauce.
What’s the fastest way to make this chicken stir fry?
Have your chicken cut up in advance, have your sauce made in advance, and use steam-in-the-bag broccoli plus steam-in-the-bag rice! Comes together in a snap.
Recipes For The Sauce Lovers Among Us (It’s Me)
Filed Under: All Recipes Broccoli Dairy-Free Dinner Fall Main Dishes Meat and Chicken Most Popular Recipes Rice Stovetop Winter
September 18, 2023
Nice to meet you!
I’m Lindsay and I ♡ FOOD. I used to be a teacher, and now making food and writing about it online is my full-time job. I love talking with people about food, and I'm so glad you're here.
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This is my favorite new weeknight dinner, my sauce was a little thin but omg me and my husband are obsessed
This sauce is AMAZING. With the perfect amount of spice for me personally. I wanted to lick it out of the bowl. My older/average blender worked just fine. Your recipes are my go-to, thank you!
Question : Which rice is recommended for this one? Jasmine or a long grain one?
We like jasmine!
We loved this – it was delicious! I and sautéed the chicken by itself until almost cooked through, then added the curry sauce. The only red curry I could find was mild, so I added more Sriracha.
So delicious! The sauce is amazing.
We added chopped pineapple because we had some that needed to be used and that was a great addition.
Absolutely delicious. My new favorite dinner recipe. Thanks for all your hard work & sharing!
This is the 4th PoY recipe I’ve tried in as many weeks, and this is another banger. I actually just used some leftover grilled chicken, and it worked perfectly (as I’m sure rotisserie chicken would too). The layering of the red curry and the cashew sauce is so delicious – I feel like either/or would have also been fine, but together it’s next level.
Absolutely delicious. Great blend of flavours. I heated the sauce and it really bought out the flavors. Definitely be making this again.
This was SO delicious!! The cashew sauce is amazing, definitely don’t skip it. My whole family loved it, and I could show them that healthy food can also be yummy which they are often skeptical about! My 10 y/o is kind of sensitive to spice but didn’t complain that it was too spicy. I used boneless chicken thighs and frozen stir-fry veggies that I had on hand and it worked great. Very easy!
I don’t think I’ve left a recipe review in 20 years but I had to for this one! I loved it and was still thinking about it this morning 🙂 The only changes I made were to use honey instead of maple syrup (what I had on hand) and Sambal oelek instead of sriracha (daughter’s not a fan). I’m sad there’s no leftovers.
Thank you so much, Carol!
Wonderful recipe. Sauce really tasty and a perfect complement with the chicken. I think getting a really good caramelization on the chicken adds an additional layer of flavor. My wife can be a bit picky, but she says this is a dish to definitely add to our rotation of meals. One thing that I did that you didn’t mention is soaking the roasted cashews in hot water. Apparently it allows the cashews to puree to a smoother consistency. Thanks for the recipe. I have a couple of your other recipes in my rotation as well.
So excited to try this… have you ever done it with chicken thighs instead of breast? We already have it in the freezer so trying to make use!
works great with thighs!
can you freeze the cashew sauce?
Wow, I made this tonight and it was beyond amazing. Cannot wait to make again. Did everything as noted in the recipe, no changes needed. Thanks so much!
This is Delicious! Big hit in our house. I cooked 2lbs. of chicken and we still had loads of the cashew sauce leftover. Next time I will make half as much sauce.
We liked it, but it was really spicy. I probably won’t make it again, but it was a decent dish. If you love things flavored with Thai curry paste , then I would recommend the recipe.
Superb!
I finally got around to making this dish tonite- definitely very tasty. I made the cashew sauce easily in my nutribullet- worked great!
This was a great meal! I love broccoli, hubby not so much but this was a bit hit for both of us. The sauce is very tasty!
Wonderful! Easy and delicious. Made exactly according to the recipe. We devoured it! Thank you for your wonderful recipes 🩷
This was so delicious! Like a flavor explosion, not too spicy, but had the right kick. We left the sauce off for my toddler and just gave her the chicken, rice and broccoli and she gobbled it up. Even the dog was joyfully eating what fell from the high chair! Came together very easily and quickly and this is one I will be keeping in my back pocket, because it sounds harder than it is!
This was absolutely delicious and will be added to our recipe rotation! The cashew sauce was sooo tasty. The only small change I am going to try next time is to cook the chicken first and then add at the curry paste and brown sugar at the end of cooking. It didn’t really coat the chicken the way that I would have liked but that really could just be a me problem. I’m also going to try with tofu sometime because I think it would be wonderful as well. Thank you for sharing this awesome recipe 🙂
This meal is everything I love!!! Perfect as written. Do yourself a favor and make this. Thank you for all your great recipes.
I was looking for a good broccoli and cheese soup recipe; I came across yours and I am sure I’m going to love it; I love that so far that it seems like your recipes are healthy; I also love that you’ve included the important info such as nutrition about the recipe and the frequently asked questions about the recipe; I’m sure I’ll be making your recipes all the time; I also love that you’ve mentioned you use what’s in the fridge; thank you so much; with love from me to you
I made this tonight with tofu and served with steamed green beans. Absolutely delicious. The tofu browned up beautifully following the instructions as written. The only other thing I did different was I halved the sauce (made approx 3/4 cup) which is more than enough for me.
I wish I could leave a picture! Beautiful dish.