How To Make Kung Pao Chicken

Kung Pao Chicken is a favorite meal here at the 2 Cooks. This dish has just the right amount of savory and spicy and is great served over rice or cauliflower rice.

This recipe is gluten free.

Watch a Video

Here is a video of 2 Cooks in the Kitchen making Kung Pao Chicken

Ingredients For Kung Pao Chicken

• 2 sliced carrots cooked ahead
• 1 lb boneless skinless chicken thigh cut into 1 inch pieces
• 1 TBL cornstarch
• 2 tsp light sesame or vegetable oil
• 2 or more garlic cloves minced
• 1/2 tsp freshly grated ginger
• 3 TBL chopped green onions
• 1/4 – 1 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (or more!)
• 2 TBL rice wine vinegar
• 2 TBL tamari
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1/3 cup peanuts

Cook the Carrots

First off, we will cut the carrots and boil them for 10 minutes to cook them ahead. We like to slice them on the diagonal so they look fancy. Once they are cooked part way we’ll drain them and set aside.

Prepare the Chicken

We’ll cut the chicken into large bite size pieces and put them in a bowl. We like to use boneless, skinless thighs for this recipe but you could use breast meat if you want. Then we sprinkle the corn starch over and stir to get all the pieces coated.

Cook the Chicken

We put sesame oil in a large skillet over medium high heat and add in the chicken when the oil is hot. We’ll stir this so the chicken cooks on all sides and it will take about 7 minutes before it is done.

Transfer To A Plate

When it is done we want to transfer the chicken to a plate and set aside. You want to leave as much of the pan juices in the pan as possible for the next steps.

Cook Garlic and Ginger

Now we’ll add the garlic and ginger to the pan. You can decide how much of each you like. We like to use fresh ginger. We’ll buy a big hand and keep it in the freezer. It is super easy to peel and grate it when it’s frozen. You can use the ginger in the squeeze bottle or even powdered ginger in a pinch.

Add Green Onions

Next we’ll add in our green onions. If your pan looks too dry at this point you can add a little more oil. We’re basically just doing a stir fry at this point.

Add the Carrots

Next we add in the carrots that we precooked.

Pepper Flakes

We’ll add our pepper flakes now. This is where you can decide how spicy to make it. You can even add a couple whole arbol or thai chiles for that restaurant look. We’re just going to stir fry this for about 2 minutes.

Make the Sauce

Next we’ll combine the rice vinegar, tamari and sugar in a small bowl and mix that together well.

Pour the Sauce Into the Pan

We’ll pour this into the pan with our vegetables and let it cook for about 30 seconds while stirring.

Add the Chicken

We’ll add the chicken back into the pan and stir to get it all coated with the sauce.

Add the Peanuts

Our last ingredient is the peanuts. They give this dish a nice nutty crunch. We use raw, unsated peanuts that we can buy in bulk locally.

Kung Pao Chicken All Done

We will stir this and keep cooking until the chicken and peanuts are heated through, maybe about a minute or two. And then our Kung Pao Chicken is ready to serve. We like this served on rice or cauliflower rice works great as well.

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More Chicken Recipes

Here re some more chicken recipes for you to make:

• Green Chile Chicken
• Tinga de Pollo
• Lacquered Chicken

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