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Recipes by Category » Stir-fries » Thai Cashew Chicken | Gai Pad Med Mamuang

Published: May 9, 2019 · Modified: May 7, 2021 by Nart · This post may contain affiliate links.

Thai Cashew Chicken | Gai Pad Med Mamuang

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This Thai Cashew Chicken recipe is so easy to make and flavorful. Paired with steamed rice, it’s a delicious meal ready in 25 minutes that your whole family will enjoy.

a close up Thai cashew chicken in a white bowl

That Cashew Chicken (Gai Pad Med Mamuang)

Let me start by telling you about the name of the dish before you think there’s some mango involved in it. In Thailand, we call Cashew Chicken, ‘Gai Pad Med Mamuang Himapan (ไก่ผัดเม็ดมะม่วงหิมพานต์)‘ or ‘Gai Pad Med Mamuang‘ for short.

You might be familiar with the word ‘gai,’ which means chicken in Thai while ‘pad’ means stir fry. In most cases, ‘med’ refers to seed ot stone and ‘mamuang’ refers to mangos. However, the ‘med mamuang’ in the name does not mean mango stone. In fact, it means cashews. ‘Med mamuang himapan’ is the full name for cashews but we shorten it to ‘med mamuang’ when we speak. So yeah, gai pad med mamuang just means chicken stir fried with cashews.

cashew chicken in a white bowl

Now more about the dish… We enjoy cashew chicken with steamed rice and we have it whenever we want. it doesn’t matter what time of the day it is. We can have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner!

Call me biased, but I think Thai cashew chicken is one of the best Asian stir-fried chicken dishes out there (along with Thai basil chicken, of course! Oh, and be sure to check out my other stir fries here).

This dish is a great way to enjoy chicken and it’s ready in no time, making it a great midweek dinner. Cashew chicken contains a couple of ingredients, namely dried chilies, onion, green onions and cashews, that give it amazing flavors. If you want the dish to be spicy, spicy, you can add fresh chilies or more dried chilies than the recipe suggests. 

Vegetables You Can Use In This Stir Fry

I like to use cabbage, onion and green onions in this recipe. Cabbage goes really well with the rest of the ingredients and onion and green onions are sort of a must for this dish. 

If you’re not a fan of cabbage or want to incorporate other vegetables into this chicken cashew stir fry, you can go for carrots, peppers or even baby corn.

Notes On This Cashew Chicken Recipe

This cashew chicken stir fry uses dried chilies and cashews. As both of them need to be fried before you can put them in the actual stir-fry, I won’t say this dish is the simplest dish ever. However, it’s still relatively easy since you only need a minute to fry each of those two ingredients, or else you’ll burn them! 

Overall, it’s worth making this dish yourself at home. I guarantee it’s better than any take-out or restaurant version and it also means you can have the stuff as much as you want. After all, it only takes 25 minutes to make.

Thai dried chilis

Ingredients

  • 9.87 ounces or 280 grams of chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • ½ cup of cooking oil
  • 7 dried Thai chilies
  • 1 cup of raw cashews
  • 1 tablespoon of cooking oil
  • 1 small onion, quartered
  • 5.3 ounces or 150 grams of cabbage, chopped
  • 1 tablespoon of garlic, finely chopped
  • 1 tablespoon of oyster sauce
  • 1 teaspoon of soy sauce
  • 1 teaspoon of black soy sauce
  • 5 green onions cut into 3 cm. pieces

 

Instructions

  1. Marinate the chicken with a pinch of salt and set aside.
  2. Heat ½ cup of oil over medium heat. Fry the dried chilies for 1 minute and use a slotted spoon to transfer to a dish lined with a paper towel to drain. Repeat the process with cashews and discard the oil.
  3. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a pan over medium heat and fry the onion.
  4. When the onion starts to become translucent, add the cabbage and garlic and stir. *In Thai cooking, it’s common to add garlic before anything else in a stir-fry, but finely chopped garlic burns very easily. So, you can add it at this stage.
  5. Add the chicken and continue to stir.
  6. With kitchen scissors, quickly cut the dried chilies into 1 cm. pieces directly into the pan. *Some people put them in whole, but I find that they don’t release any flavor whole.
  7. Add oyster sauce, soy sauce and black soy sauce and stir until the chicken is cooked.
  8. Add the cashews and green onions and stir for another minute or so. Then, remove from heat and serve warm with rice.

Thai cashew chicken in a white bowl with a pair of chopsticks

Vegan Adaptation

If you’re a vegan or follow a plant-based diet, you can replace chicken with tofu and oyster sauce with soy sauce (so you’ll be using 1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon of soy sauce altogether). Although soy sauce isn’t thick like oyster sauce, I think you’ll still enjoy the dish. And whatever you do, make sure you have warm, fluffy rice ready to serve this Thai cashew chicken with.

Other Recipes You Might Enjoy:

  • Cabbage Stir Fry
  • Stir-Fried Water Spinach
  • Bean Sprouts Stir-Fried with Tofu Puffs
  • Stir-Fried Long Beans with Bacon
  • Thai Garlic Pork | Moo Gratiem
  • Thai Steamed Squid with Lime Sauce
a close up Thai cashew chicken in a white bowl

Thai Cashew Chicken | Gai Pad Med Mamuang Recipe

This Thai Cashew Chicken recipe is so easy to make and flavorful. Paired with steamed rice, it's a delicious meal ready in 25 minutes that your whole family will enjoy.
5 from 24 votes
Print Rate
Course: Main Dishes
Cuisine: Thai
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 25 minutes
Servings: 3 Servings
Calories: 371kcal
Author: Nart

Ingredients

  • 9.87 ounces chicken breast cut into bite-sized pieces
  • 1 pinch salt
  • ½ cup cooking oil
  • 7 dried Thai chilies
  • 1 cup raw cashews
  • 1 tablespoon cooking oil
  • 1 small onion quartered
  • 5.3 ounces cabbage chopped
  • 1 tablespoon garlic finely chopped
  • 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
  • 1 teaspoon soy sauce
  • 1 teaspoon black soy sauce
  • 5 green onions cut into 3 cm. pieces
US Customary - Metric

Instructions

  • Marinate the chicken with a pinch of salt and set aside.
  • Heat ½ cup of oil over medium heat. Fry the dried chilies for 1 minute and use a slotted spoon to transfer to a dish lined with a paper towel to drain. Repeat the process with cashews and discard the oil.
  • Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a pan over medium heat and fry the onion.
  • When the onion starts to become translucent, add the cabbage and garlic and stir.
    *In Thai cooking, it's common to add garlic before anything else in a stir-fry, but finely chopped garlic burns very easily. So, you can add it at this stage.
  • Add the chicken and continue to stir.
  • With kitchen scissors, quickly cut the dried chilies into 1 cm. pieces directly into the pan.
    *Some people put them in whole, but I find that they don't release any flavor whole.
  • Add oyster sauce, soy sauce and black soy sauce and stir until the chicken is cooked.
  • Add the cashews and green onions and stir for another minute or so. Then, remove from heat and serve warm with rice.

Nutrition

Calories: 371kcal
Tried this recipe?Mention @cookingwithnart or tag #cookingwithnart!

 

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Allyssa says

    November 19, 2021 at 6:39 pm

    5 stars
    Thank you so much for sharing this amazing thai cashew chicken gai pad med mamuang recipe! Will surely have this again! It’s really easy to make and it tasted so delicious! Highly recommended!

    Reply
  2. Gwynn says

    November 19, 2021 at 8:17 am

    I’m always looking for new chicken recipes to try and this one certainly sounds delicious!

    Reply
  3. Jente says

    February 07, 2021 at 10:41 pm

    5 stars
    This was an amazing and easy recipe! I’m not a big fan of cabbage so I replaced it with sugarsnaps and broccolini, which also worked out great. Thanks for sharing!

    Reply
    • Nart says

      February 10, 2021 at 9:16 am

      That sounds great, I need to try that too!

      Reply
  4. Shadi Hasanzadenemati says

    September 29, 2020 at 10:17 pm

    5 stars
    This is such a delicious recipe! Can’t wait to try it!

    Reply
    • Nart says

      October 01, 2020 at 1:13 pm

      Thanks 🙂

      Reply
  5. Pam Greer says

    September 29, 2020 at 10:09 pm

    5 stars
    No need for take out when I can now make my favorite food at home!! Comes out perfect every time, we love it!

    Reply
    • Nart says

      October 01, 2020 at 1:14 pm

      Thank you 🙂

      Reply
  6. Tawnie Kroll says

    September 29, 2020 at 9:53 pm

    5 stars
    So easy to make and full of flavor, we love this dish!

    Reply
    • Nart says

      October 01, 2020 at 1:14 pm

      Yay, thank you!

      Reply
  7. Luci says

    September 29, 2020 at 9:47 pm

    5 stars
    This Thai Cashew Chicken is delicious! It’s a perfect weeknight dinner that’s healthy and tasty! It even reminds me of one of my favorite Thai restaurants back home so I love that I found this recipe!

    Reply
    • Nart says

      October 01, 2020 at 1:14 pm

      Thank you so much! True, it’s a perfect midnight dinner!

      Reply
  8. Toni Dash says

    September 29, 2020 at 9:35 pm

    5 stars
    Packed full of amazing flavors! Everyone at my house enjoyed this!

    Reply
    • Nart says

      October 01, 2020 at 1:15 pm

      Yayyyyy! Thank you 🙂

      Reply
  9. Kathryn Donangelo says

    September 29, 2020 at 9:25 pm

    5 stars
    This Thai Cashew Chicken dish has so much flavor, it’s delicious! I served this over white rice and it was such an incredible meal!

    Reply
    • Nart says

      October 01, 2020 at 1:15 pm

      So happy to hear that you enjoyed this 🙂

      Reply
  10. Richie says

    August 29, 2020 at 1:29 am

    5 stars
    Stunning! Better than my local take away. Used sesame oil, peppers and fresh red chillies.

    Reply
    • Nart says

      September 08, 2020 at 3:17 pm

      Thank you so much!

      Reply
  11. Diane says

    July 28, 2020 at 4:57 am

    Thanks, we get bored eating chicken the same few ways all the time – this sounds delicious!

    Reply
    • Nart says

      September 08, 2020 at 7:02 pm

      Thank you!

      Reply
  12. Kushigalu says

    July 10, 2020 at 4:01 pm

    5 stars
    Love Thai food. This is such a flavorful recipe. Can’t wait to try this out

    Reply
    • Nart says

      July 19, 2020 at 11:22 am

      Thank you so much 🙂

      Reply
  13. Jacqueline Meldrum says

    July 10, 2020 at 3:45 pm

    5 stars
    I love how generous the amount of cashews are in this dish. I bet they make all the difference.

    Reply
    • Nart says

      July 19, 2020 at 11:22 am

      They do!

      Reply
  14. Dannii says

    July 10, 2020 at 1:57 pm

    5 stars
    Oh this looks amazing. Anything with cashew nuts gets a big thumbs up from me.

    Reply
    • Nart says

      July 19, 2020 at 11:21 am

      Thank you. Same here!

      Reply
  15. Cyndy says

    July 10, 2020 at 11:49 am

    5 stars
    So delicious! You had me at cashews! I love thai food and this was amazing.

    Reply
    • Nart says

      July 19, 2020 at 11:21 am

      Thank you Cyndy!

      Reply
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I'm Thai born and bred and I love cooking for my family, friends and myself. I'm here to share with you my Thai and other Asian recipes with a bit of baking and Western recipes thrown in here and there. More about me →

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