This is one of my favorite Rachel Ray meals. It really only takes 20-30 minutes to cook and is delicious! It doesn’t taste like cashew chicken I have ever ordered from a restaurant but I really like it. This recipe is from her first book, 30-Minute Meals.

To start, cut up the chicken into bite size pieces and mix it with a few ingredients to marinate. This step can be as short as the few minutes it takes to cut up the vegetables or as long as a couple of hours.

1 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts

1 tbsp sesame oil (a pool about the size of a half dollar)

2 cloves of garlic, minced

2 tbsp rice wine vinegar (a couple of glugs from the bottle)

Crushed red pepper, to taste

Black pepper, to taste

Let the chicken marinate while you cut up and stir-fry the vegetables. This is also a good time to start some rice cooking according to the package directions. Jasmine rice is lovely with this dish but I am sure that regular long grain or brown rice would be good too.

1 tbsp sesame oil

1 large carrot (I tend to use baby carrots instead because I am more likely to eat the rest of them. I cut up 10-15 baby carrots. I think there should be about 1/2 as much carrots as bell pepper so you could cut up the pepper first and then approximate the amount of carrots based on that)

1 red bell pepper, seeded and diced

1 7 oz can sliced water chestnuts, drained and coarsely chopped

3 heaping tablespoons of Hoisin sauce (Hoisin sauce is like barbeque sauce and can be found on the Asian food aisle of the grocery store. I measure this with a tablespoon from the silverware drawer rather than the actual measuring spoon.)

Unsalted or lightly salted cashews

3-4 green onions, sliced

Pour the oil into a large frying pan or wok and heat over high hear until the oil smokes. Add in the carrots and stir-fry  2-3 minutes. By this time, the carrots should be lightly browned. Add in the chicken and stir-fry 3-4 minutes or until cooked through. Stir in the pepper and water chestnuts and cook until heated through, about 1 minute. Add in the Hoisin sauce and mix to coat.

Serve on a bed of rice. Top with a handful of cashews and green onions.

This recipe was adapted from “Cashew! God Bless You Chicken” from page 105 of Rachel Ray 30-Minute Meals.