The simple sauce for this chicken was inspired by my favourite food writer, Nigel Slater. A bit of garlic, some 5-Spice powder and soy sauce. So easy and really delish. I can get Chinese 5-Spice at my local supermarket but if you can’t, an online spice merchant will be able to help you out. Or see the variation below for an alternative.
Easy Chinese Chicken
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoons Chinese 5-Spice or 1/2 teaspoon all spice
- 2-3 cloves garlic finely chopped
- 500 g chicken thigh fillets slice into bite sized pieces
- 250 g snow peas (mange tout) trimmed
- 1-2 tablespoons soy sauce
- handful cashews
Instructions
- Combine 5-spice (or allspice), garlic and 2 tablespoons oil. Toss in the chicken and allow to marinate for as long as you’ve got. A few minutes is fine but for anything longer than an hour, keep it in the fridge.
- Heat a little oil in a wok or large frying pan on a very high heat. Add snow peas and stir fry until bright green and just cooked but still very crunchy. Remove to a clean bowl.
- Heat a little more oil in the wok and stir fry chicken until well browned and just cooked though. About 5-10 minutes.
- Return snow peas to the pan to warm through. Remove from the heat and toss in the soy sauce.
- Serve in two bowls with cashews on top.
Variations
vegetarian – replace chicken with sliced hallomi and pan fry until golden instead of stir frying.
vegan – replace chicken with sliced eggplant. Allow more time stir frying for the eggplant to cook properly. Undercooked eggplant is one of my least favourite things.
no Chinese 5-spice – make your own approximation with equal parts ground cinnamon, fennel seeds, black pepper and star anise. Or at a minimum just use cinnamon and fennel.
different veg – asparagus, sugar snap peas, bok choy, carrots, broccolini, broccoli, Chinese broccoli, red capsicum (bell pepper), zucchini (courgettes).
more veg – serve on a bed of cauliflower ‘rice’ (grated raw cauli).
carb-lovers – serve with steamed rice or rice noodles cooked according to the packet.
different meat – minced (ground) chicken, chicken breasts, pork fillet, steaks – any tender cut that will stir fry well.
Waste Avoidance Strategy
Chinese 5-Spice / soy sauce / cashews – keep them in the pantry.
garlic – keeps in the pantry in a brown paper bag
chicken thigh fillets – freeze them.
snow peas – can be frozen but best to use for another meal.
Add to my Old Favourite Recipes
Hi Jules
I have chosen Easy Chinese Chicken to cook this week because I already have the ingredients and also try the lemon flesh salsa on our fish this week
They look simple to remember and quick to prepare
Jaynee
Excellent Jaynee
I have all the spices to substitute for the 5 spice mix, so I’ll be trying this, using winter friendly regionally available Chinese cabbage instead of snow peas. I have both tofu and turkey, not sure which protein will appeal on cooking night. It won’t be until Tuesday or Wednesday, after my farm veg delivery.
Needed a quick an easy meal to use the chicken I had in the fridge. Saw this one and had to try it. Another beautiful meal that was quick and easy to make after my wee man’s football practice, which finishes at dinner time and is in the ‘fast food’ danger zone! Thanks Jules!
Wonderful Jim!
So glad you liked it 🙂
Yum, yum, yum! This was like going out to a Chinese restaurant for our farm kids, they were very impressed (as was I). We got out the chopsticks, soy sauce dips and pickled ginger to glam it up for a night in! Thanks for the always inspiring recipes, great for the whole family and me who’s short on time but wanting to be healthy.
Wonderful Julia!
And great idea to use the chopsticks and accompaniments to get in a theme… I love having a glam night in now that I have a little one 🙂
Jx