10-Minute Kung Pao Chicken

Hey, what's up my friends? I've got another very easy recipe for you today. It is Kung Pao Chicken. This is one of those perfect recipes for the spicy food lover because it's so easy to make. It's wok fried delicious chicken, super easy sauce that all comes together in minutes. It's definitely a favorite in our home and I think you're gonna love it. You're gonna love the way I make mine. So, all right, let's do it. First thing we wanna do is marinate our chicken. So to get that going, I have two teaspoons of cornstarch. Set it into a bowl here. And I have a tablespoon of soy sauce and a tablespoon of rice wine. So go ahead and just whisk this together to create a real simple slurry. And I have chicken here. I have a pound of boneless chopped chicken. I cut it to bite size. And you can use chicken breast or chicken thigh. Today I have a combination. So I'm just gonna go ahead and add this to the bowl and just kinda get it all mixed together. Make sure everything's nice, evenly coated. All right, I'm gonna set this aside and then we'll make our sauce. The kung pao sauce is very easy to make. It's just whisking a bunch of ingredients together. So here I have two tablespoons of light soy sauce and a tablespoon of dark soy sauce, which is like a thicker, richer soy sauce. And I have a teaspoon of Chinese black vinegar. You can use balsamic vinegar as well. And I have a couple tablespoons of hoisin sauce. It's kinda thick. Into the bowl. And I have a teaspoon of sesame oil. I like to use a hot sesame oil. And I have a teaspoon of honey. Nice, thick honey adds a little touch of sweetness. And I have about a teaspoon to a teaspoon and a half of some ground Sichuan peppercorns. The Sichuan peppercorns are very unique. They're not exactly, actually they're not like black peppercorns at all. I like to grind them myself after lightly toasting them, but they add a nice little, like a numbness to it. So if you're not used to cooking with them, you can omit them, but they're outstanding. I really think you should try it. Excellent for spicy food lovers. And I have a teaspoon of spicy chili flake, some red chili flake. And go ahead and whisk it all together until it's nicely mixed and uniform. Like so, very easy, very easy. And we'll set it aside and get cooking. All right, let's make some spicy Kung Pao chicken, my friends. I have a wok heated up to a good medium high, close to high heat. And I'm gonna add a couple tablespoons of vegetable oil. And you can use sesame oil is good for this. More of a neutral oil is good. Get that nice and hot. And we're gonna add our spicy chili peppers. This is the heat factor right here. So I have some dried pods and I have some fresh pods. And I'll talk about that as they're cooking. So really gonna cook these down, stir frying for about a minute. And ideally this recipe would use some spicy Chinese pepper, some dried Chinese pods and some fresh Chinese pods. But today I'm using chili de arbol, which are easier for me to find. And some fresh peppers that I grew in my garden, particularly serranos and some ahis. But you can really use your favorites, whatever you can get that's available to you. So, all right, cook these down for about a minute or so, stir frying, keep stirring. And I'm gonna go ahead and add my chicken, my marinated chicken, add that to the pan. And we're gonna stir fry this for about three minutes until the chicken is mostly cooked through. And then we will continue. All right, chicken is looking good here, mostly cooked through. So next go ahead and add your garlic and scallions, fresh garlic. I have about three or four cloves of minced garlic. And you can add more if you'd like, gorgeous garlic. And about four scallions that I chopped into the pan and give them a quick stir fry. With this recipe you wanna be constantly, constantly stirring to stir fry. Keep going about a minute here and you can smell that gorgeous garlic blooming in the room, I love it. Deliciousness. And I have a half a cup of chopped roasted peanuts and my reserve sauce that we made earlier, the Kung Pao sauce. Just go ahead and add that to your pan. And we're gonna stir cooking for about a minute or so until everything's nicely incorporated and your chicken finishes cooking all the way through. And look at that, oh look at that, it's already thickening up deliciously. Looks amazing. Isn't this a really fast recipe? It cooks up super quick. Beat your pan nice and screaming hot and everything's gonna cook up beautifully, quickly. Very easy to make. Hey, a good variation on Kung Pao chicken, you can add some good vegetables to this recipe. Add some broccoli or snap peas or some large sliced red bell peppers to really kind of round out the meal and make it a little bit more of a full meal. So many ways you can really add to this, make it awesome. Kung Pao chicken, let's give it a taste. Nice and spicy. I love it. Hey, if you guys want even more spicy recipes, you gotta check out my new cookbook, Flavor Madness. 100 bold flavor recipes from around the world. You can check it out at chilipeppermadness.com. I appreciate the support. That's it my friends, that is how you make Kung Pao chicken, Chili Pepper Madness style. I'm sure you're gonna spice it up even more than I spiced mine up. So, hey, I'd love to hear what you think of the recipe in the comments below. And I definitely hope I'll see you at the website at chilipeppermadness.com. Got over a thousand awesome spicy recipes just for you guys. So, hey, I'll see you in the kitchen next time. Mike from Chili Pepper Madness, bye.