Ultimate Stir Fry Sauce

Last night I FINALLY got my car back from the collision repair place. They had it over a MONTH and I cannot tell you how furious I was at the whole process. So, I needed something quick and soothing for dinner, so I decided to whip up some stir fry.

I discovered a recipe for cashew chicken in a Cooking Light magazine over a year ago, and with a little tweaking, I've coaxed the sauce into an all occasion flavor packed fabulous stir fry sauce. It goes a little something like this:

6-8 oz boneless skinnless chicken breasts, cubed
2 tsp sesame oil
1-2 cloves minced garlic
1 tsp fresh ginger (I use the bottled kind)
2 T soy sauce, plus some to taste
1/4 c fat free chicken broth
2 T rice vinegar (or other white vinegar)
1 tsp chili garlic sauce (the bright orange/red kind that comes in a squeeze bottle with a green top and a picture of a rooster on the bottle)
2 T sake or white cooking wine
1-2 T corn starch
~ 3 C chopped mixed vegetables (anything you have on hand, fresh or frozen works fine)
1 can sliced water chestnuts
2 green onions, sliced

Warm the sesame oil in a large non-stick skillet or wok. Add the garlic and ginger and saute about 1 minute. Add the chicken and several good shakes of soy sauce and cook chicken until done. Remove chicken from pan and set aside.

Add all the vegetables except the green onions to the pan and cook until tender. (Note: If you have veggies that cook at different times, cook them in stages so that the more delicate ones do not get mushy.)

While the vegetables cook, combine remaining ingredients except green onions in a small bowl and whisk thoroughly, eliminating any lumps. Add the sauce to the vegetables. Add the chicken back into the pan. Cook until sauce thickens to desired consistency (you can add more corn starch to thicken, or more chicken broth to thin). Add green onions to pan right before serving.


Now the recipe for the sauce works with pretty much every combination of meats and vegetables I've tried including chicken, shrimp, beef, pork, and even tofu with every kind of oriental and non oriental vegetable imaginable. Last night, our veggies consisted of zucchini, sugar snap peas, and celery, and it was very good. I've also used kale, spinach, red and green bell peppers, cabbage, carrots, and both canned and frozen mixed oriental vegetables.

EVERYTHING works with this sauce, and once you have the ingredients on hand, you can pretty much whip it up with whatever you have sitting around in the fridge or freezer. Also, you can add a few peanuts, cashew nuts, or slivered almonds to the mix for a good crunchy flavor. You can serve it over brown or white rice, plain or fried, or over rice noodles, or by itself. You can also marinate in it, and tweak the flavors to your liking. If you like sweet Chinese food, at the 2 tsp of sugar that I eliminated from the original recipe. If you like things spicy, add more of the chili sauce.

It's extremely versatile, and somehow, we never seem to get tired of it at my house.