I have been making a conscious effort to add more vegetables to our diet and to use less processed foods. To be honest, I have tried doing this many times. It is so much easier in a big city. I am a couple blocks from Whole Foods, Trader Joes, and multiple Farmers’ Markets. I have to work so much harder to get to a traditional grocery store, so it is much easier to buy more clean foods.
Aaron loves Chinese food more than almost anything else. We lived right by Chinatown for two months, and he loved it. We ate Chinese food once or twice a week. He would eat it four times a week if I would let him. The problem is, I get hungry one hour after eating Chinese food. It is so processed and has so much MSG in it. So, I have been trying to find healthier alternatives
Home Chef has a lot of Asian type recipes, so we usually get one of those every couple weeks but I have been on the hunt for my own recipes too. I found this one on Pinterest last weekend, then modified it for us.
I had most of the ingredients on hand for this modified recipe. The only thing not pictured is a little flour (or you could use cornstarch) to thicken the sauce.
I used one pound of chicken breast tenders, but regular chicken breasts would work just fine. Just use whatever you have on hand. I cut the chicken tenders into one-inch pieces and seasoned them with salt and pepper.
I threw them on the stove to brown for a few minutes, but you could totally skip that step. On a weekday I never brown meat before I put it in the crockpot. I don’t have time for that before work.
While the chicken was browning I mixed up the sauce. I used low-sodium soy sauce, water, organic honey, hoisin sauce, ginger powder, minced garlic, and red pepper flakes. The original recipe called for dried red chili peppers, but I didn’t see any at the store so I used double the amount of red pepper flakes and it was fine.
Once the sauce is mixed up pour it over the chicken and turn the crockpot to low heat.
At this point we left the house and went on another hike, more on that later. Who knew I would like hiking as much as I do? We learned that using the crock pot on weekends when we are home all day is basically torture. We can smell the delicious food all day long but we can’t eat it.
My crockpot runs hot, so I could have finished this dish sooner, but I left it in there for about four hours. About a half hour before we wanted to eat I mixed two tablespoons of flour with three tablespoons of water and added it to thicken the sauce. You could also use cornstarch, I just didn’t have any. I also chopped up a zucchini and red bell pepper and threw them in. Then added some roasted cashews. Aaron said this would have been good with peanuts too, I personally like the cashews though.
Once everything is added, you crank the heat up to high for about 30 minutes. You want the veggies to be cooked, but not soggy. While I waited for it to finish I started some rice.
To be honest, I didn’t time how long the crockpot was on high, I just waited for the rice to be done. This recipe is for four servings. I only made two servings of rice because that is easy enough to make when we have the leftovers. When Aaron came to make his plate he said, it looks just like real Chinese food, so that is a win, right?
We put the Kung Pau chicken over the rice and topped it with some extra roasted cashews. If you have sesame seeds on hand it would make for a good garnish too. It was delicious. I actually couldn’t wait to eat the leftovers the next day for lunch. If you don’t like spicy food you will want to use less of the red pepper flakes. This one had a little kick, but it wasn’t too bad.
Recipe:
- 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon pepper
- 2/3 cup roasted cashews (or peanuts)
- 1 red bell pepper
- 1 zucchini
Sauce:
- 1/2 cup low sodium soy sauce
- 1/2 cup water
- 3 tablespoons honey
- 2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 tablespoon ground ginger
- 1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons dried red pepper flakes
- 2 tablespoons flour – to thicken sauce (or cornstarch)
- 3 tablespoons water – mixed with flour to thicken sauce
Directions:
- Cut chicken breast in to 1 inch pieces and season with salt and pepper
- Brown chick in large skillet for 4-5 minutes *can be skipped*
- Transfer chicken to crockpot
- Whisk together soy sauce, water, honey, hoisin sauce, garlic, ginger, and red pepper flakes and pour over chicken
- Set crockpot to low heat for 2.5 to 4 hours
- 30 minutes before serving mix together flour and water in a small bowl and add to crockpot to thicken sauce
- Chop and add zucchini and red bell pepper
- Set crockpot to high for 20-30 minutes
- If serving over rice, cook rice while vegetables cook.
- Garnish dish with extra cashews, green onions, or sesame seeds
Other tips:
This dish would be good with any veggie combination. I will add broccoli next time and maybe an onion.
If you try it and make substitutions, let me know what they are. I would love a few different variations of this recipe.