Vegan Cashew Chicken!

Savory Vegan Cashew Chicken

Plated cashew chicken over jasmine rice.

Cashew chicken used to be one of my favorite dishes commonly available in Chinese restaurants. This vegan version turned out great, all the ingredients blended together perfectly.  Now, I use MSG in this recipe; gasp! I don't think it's too big of a deal, but you can learn more about it here. Here's what you do:

First, marinade the tofu.

Pressed, marinaded and repressed tofu!

Okay, so I'm sure it's been done before, but I'm going to take credit for this method of cooking tofu, because I didn't read about it anywhere else and it worked out great.

Press the tofu
Marinade the tofu in the fridge
Re-press the tofu

Tofu Marinade

3-4 TBS soy sauce

 1 TBS rice vinegar

2 tsp ginger, minced

2 tsp dried onion flakes

1/4 tsp MSG

Second, stir fry the cashews

Heat 2 TBS oil in a large pan or wok.

Add the cashews, saute until golden brown.

Remove cashews from the pan and set aside.

Third, cut and saute the tofu.

If you stir constantly, your tofu will never brown.  Leave it alone for a bit.

Fourth, cut the veggies while you saute the tofu.

You can use whatever veggies you want, snap peas would be a great addition.

1/2 yellow pepper, chopped 

1 cup broccoli, chopped

1 cup crimini mushrooms, chopped

1 small yellow summer squash, chopped

Fifth, add the broccoli and yellow pepper, saute for 3 or 4 minutes.
Sixth, add the mushrooms and summer squash, continue to saute.

Seventh, mix up and add the sauce.

The sauce

2 TBS hoisin

1 generous tsp sriracha 

1 TBS soy sauce

Veggies, combined with sauce and tofu.

After mixing the sauce with the veggies, add the cashews.

Now, thicken with 1 tsp corn starch dissolved in 1 TBS water.

Stir in, simmer for a few minutes.

Add MSG to taste.

Serve over rice.

Garnish with a few fresh cashew pieces.

You're done!