Chinese chicken stir fry is a quick and flavorful weeknight dish for the whole family to enjoy! It’s so versatile and easy to switch up vegetable and meat combinations. The best part – it’s done in less than 30 minutes!
Meal prep tip: you can prepare the Chinese stir fry sauce up to a week in advance! Read more tips, such as the best stir-fry oil, below the recipe…
This Chinese chicken stir fry is made completely from scratch in less than 30 minutes!! Healthy, delicious and easy, this weeknight dinner will be your favorite!
If you know your evening is going to be extra busy then make the stir fry sauce in advance and meal prep your veggies! This simple chicken stir fry is filled with flavor and colorful vegetables and ready in minutes!
How do I make the perfect stir fry?
Use the correct pan
- While woks are ideal for stir-fries, you can still cook a delicious stir fry in your regular skillet. Reach for biggest one you have with a large cooking surface. For this recipe, I recommend 12-inch skillet.
Use the right oil
- Since stir-fries are typically cooked real fast on high heat, it’s important to use oil with high smoke point. Here’re the common cooking oils with high smoke point: vegetable oil, peanut oil, coconut oil, grapeseed oil, and avocado oil (<- my go-to oil!). Butter, extra virgin olive oil and sesame oil are not recommended, as they have low smoke points and ideal as a finishing oil.
Cook protein in batches
- If you’re cooking a large portion of protein, or your wok/pan is too small, cook the meat in batches to avoid overcrowding the pan. Otherwise, you’ll steam the meat, instead of searing, and won’t develop good flavor.
Batch cook the vegetables
- Batch the vegetables according to hard, medium and soft. See below for more details.
What do you put in a stir fry?
The beauty of a stir-fry is you can change it up to a different meal weekly just by changing the vegetable and meat combination.
- Vegetable options: broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, yellow peppers, red peppers, eggplant, mushrooms, bean sprouts, bok choy, gailan, tomatoes, sweet peppers or hot peppers.
- Meat options: shrimp, pork tenderloin, tofu or sirloin steak.
What vegetables do you stir fry first?
Vegetables are categorized into hard, medium and soft and cooked from hard to soft, in order to avoid overcooking. Hard vegetables take longer to cook, while soft vegetables cook faster.
- Hard – broccoli, and carrots.
- Medium – beans, mushrooms and baby marrows.
- Soft – spinach and cabbage.
How do you cut the chicken for stir fry?
You have 3 options, you can slice, julienne or cube the chicken for your stir fry.
- Slice – slice the chicken 1/4-inch thick with long even strokes.
- Julienne – Take the slices from slicing, and stack a few and slice them lengthwise. In the end, they should look like uniform match stick lengths.
- Cube – Slice the chicken into wider strips then cut crosswise for the cubes.
HOW TO MAKE CHINESE CHICKEN STIR FRY
- Slice the chicken and marinate in stir-fry sauce.
- Chop up all the vegetables.
- Brown the meat in a skillet and them remove onto a clean plate.
- Cook the vegetables in the same skillet and add the stir-fry sauce.
- Add the chicken back and cook until chicken is heated through. Serve!
What goes with a chicken stir fry?
- Stir-fry is traditionally paired with fluffy white rice but you can also pair it with sides like egg rolls, dumplings or spring rolls. Other great alternatives are quinoa, shirataki noodles, hulled barley or cauliflower rice.
Love stir-fries? Give my One-Skillet Shrimp and Cabbage Stir Fry a try too! Weeknight cooking made easy!
This’s going to be your go-to best chicken stir-fry recipe!! Please leave a review if you agree. 😉
Chinese Chicken Stir Fry
Ingredients
- 2 chicken breasts boneless and skinless
- 1 cup Chinese stir-fry sauce Note 1
- 4 baby bok choys washed (Note 2)
- 1 bell pepper Note 3
- 2 green onions
- 1 teaspoon avocado oil or any cooking oil
- Cooked white rice for serving
Instructions
- Thinly slice the chicken breast.
- In a bowl, place sliced chicken breast and pour half of the sauce. Mix well and rest while you prepare the vegetables.
- Meanwhile, slice bok choy’s. Core and slice bell peppers into thin strips. Cut the green onions.
- Heat a large skillet (I use 12-inch skillet) over medium high heat.
- Add oil. When it’s simmering add the chicken and spread it out evenly all over the skillet. Cook the meat, undisturbed, for 1-2 minutes, or until they’re nicely browned on the bottom. Then gently stir to cook other side, another 2 minutes. Transfer the chicken onto a clean plate.
- Add the white part of green onions, bok choy, and bell pepper and stir fry for 2-3 minutes.
- Pour in the remaining half of the stir-fry sauce and cook until thickened, about a minute.
- Stir in the chicken and cook until chicken is heated through, about another minute or so.
- Serve immediately with some rice and green part of green onions.
Notes
Nutrition
* Disclaimer: All nutrition information are estimates only. Read full nutrition disclosure.
Sharing of this recipe is encouraged and appreciated. Copying of full recipe to any social media is prohibited.
Stay connected and join Busy Cooks community:
FACEBOOK | PINTEREST | INSTAGRAM
Comments + Reviews