Slow Cooker Cashew Chicken
A Chinese takeout favorite made right in your crockpot and all you need is 10 min prep. It doesn’t get easier or healthier than that!
If you’ve been following Damn Delicious for awhile now, you know that I love creating Chinese takeout favorites.
It’s just so much healthier to make right at home since you know exactly what’s going into your dish.
Plus, making these dishes at home can be quicker than waiting for 45-min delivery.
But not only is this crockpot cashew chicken so much cheaper and quicker with just 5 min prep, it tastes 1000x better than takeout too!
Best of all, you don’t have to skimp on the chicken or the cashews, although I loved the cashews a bit more in this dish.
The cashews just soak up all of that amazing flavor, giving you that nice crunchiness alongside the juicy, tender chicken.
To top it off, the leftovers are just as good the very next day. I just highly recommend doubling the batch because you’ll want to skip the takeout and have this all week instead!
Slow Cooker Cashew Chicken
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch chunks
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 1 cup raw cashews
- 2 green onions, sliced
For the sauce
- ¼ cup reduced sodium soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons ketchup
- 2 tablespoons unseasoned rice vinegar
- 1 tablespoon brown sugar
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
- ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, optional
Instructions
- To make the sauce, whisk together soy sauce, ketchup, rice vinegar, brown sugar, garlic, ginger and red pepper flakes in a small bowl; set aside.
- Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat.
- Season chicken with salt and pepper, to taste. Add chicken to the skillet and cook, stirring occasionally, until browned, about 2 minutes.
- Place chicken into a slow cooker. Stir in soy sauce mixture and gently toss to combine. Cover and cook on low heat for 2-3 hours. Stir in cashews and cook on low heat for an additional 15 minutes.
- Serve immediately, garnished with green onions, if desired.
Did you make this recipe?
Tag @damn_delicious on Instagram and hashtag it #damndelicious!
Hello! This looks delicious! If I were to follow some of the commenters’ advice and put this in a crock pot as raw chicken breasts for 8-10 hours before leaving for work in the morning, when do you suggest the cashews get added? Can they start with the chicken? Thanks!
You can stir in the cashews during the last 15 minutes of cooking time.
Hi Chungah! I love all of your recipes and cannot wait to try this one. Cashew chicken is SO good. I’m sure this won’t disappoint! Thank you so much for the variety of recipes and the easy to follow directions. You’re the best!
This is perfect for Fridays when we are out most of the day and I am too tired to make something for everyone when we get home.
I turn this on when I am walking out the door and it is ready when we get home, everyone in the care home love this dish thank you.
Hi, I’m from Australia. Is ketchup the same as tomato sauce? Thank you
Yes!
Thanks for replying! I love your recipes!!
I’m cooking this right now. You say 2-3 hours. I suppose I should check in 2 hs and see if the chicken is properly cooked.
Made this last night and my whole family (2 adults, 4 yr old, and 1 yr old) ate it! I steamed broccoli and added it in at the end. I swapped the soy sauce for Bragg’s liquid aminos and the brown sugar for coconut sugar to make it a gluten-free/ lower GI dish. I work from home so this dish was easy to prep during the day and have ready for dinner.
Thanks!
Hi! I know the recipe calls for unseasoned rice vinegar and all I have is the seasoned. Is there any substitutions for unseasoned rice vinegar? Thank you!
Unseasoned rice vinegar is ideal to use but because the recipe only calls for 2 tablespoons, seasoned rice vinegar should work just fine.
For anyone wanting some veggies in this dish, I cooked the chicken with three green onions, three stalks chopped celery, and a green bell pepper and dumped a little bit of the sauce over the mix and simmered for a couple minutes before transferring to the crock pot. About 30 mins before putting the cashews in, I also put two cans of water chestnuts and a can of baby corn in. I would recommend making a little bit of extra sauce as well, makes the veggies very tasty!
I absolutely love this recipe. I steam up some broccoli or sautee some zucchini, cook some rice, and it makes for an amazing meal and great leftovers! My husband loves it because the cashews are cooked and not crunchy, like some stir-fry recipes.
I’ve even made it with throwing the raw chicken breasts into the crockpot and cooked it on high for four hours, it still worked beautifully!
I know fresh and powdered ginger are not the same. All I have is powdered. Do u recommend I skip it or use a certain amount?
It should be fine to substitute ground ginger for this recipe. The ratio for fresh to dry spices is typically 3:1.
Hi! Thanks for the great recipe. Currently cooking it right now. I was wondering if I have leftovers, would I just be able to just heat the chicken and cashew mix together? Would this make the cashews too soggy?
Thanks!
The leftovers should be just fine. We devoured them the very next night!
Does take some time to get this all together and in the crockpot but it is worth it. I doubled the chicken (it was what I had) and I TRIPLED the sauce ( I wish I had quad-tripled it) Family was very HAPPY, HAPPY,HAPPY. This will be repeate in our household. Delish!!
I have to leave this in the slow-cooker all day while I’m at work, but the slow-cooker switches to “keep warm” after the 2-3 hours of cooking. Will that cause it to soak up the sauce so I need to add more ahead of time?
It should be just fine with the warm setting.
Definitly double this recipe!!You wouldn’t want to deprive yourself of having left overs….DELICIOUS!!!!!
Chungah,
Your recipe looks delicious. It calls for raw cashews. Where do I get them? Can I use roasted cashews and just put them in at the end or does that defeat the purpose of slow cooking them with the chicken?
Ron. PS, just joined your site and love it!!!
I was able to find raw cashews at Trader Joes’s (but if all else fails, you can certainly find them on Amazon.com). But the cashews go in at the end of cooking time anyway so it should be fine to use roasted cashews.
Looks great! I don’t see where the 2 sliced green onions go in? Are they just used for garnish?
Thank you.
Yes, the green onions are used as a garnish.
OK, so I thought that this would be a crockpot meal– I doubled the sauce bc I added veggies thinking it would thicken and become a meal with the sauce and rice.
Now I see I read the recipe incorrectly– the chicken came out delicious (best crockpot chicken I have EVER HAD), but the sauce is practically inedible. It is more of a marinade than anything else. The veggies I threw in with it are also pretty much inedible– too salty. Live and learn! Now I know just to cook the chicken and nothing else and not to try to use it as a sauce!
Dara, when doubling the sauce, it is best to ensure that you compensate for the addition of the sauce. In your particular case, it seems that the veggies just weren’t enough and were soaked in the sauce for too long. I also recommend adding in veggies 30 min prior serving to avoid the salty taste.
Hi there, I just stumbled across your site and am looking forward to trying your meals-especially the Asian ones. I’m Chinese but unfortunately, don’t know how to cook a lot of Chinese meals. Anyway, I was wondering if using snow peas would work? I was worried they would get too limp in the sauce. What do you think? I do have alternate veggies if this isn’t a good idea.
Snow peas would be a great addition – although I’d add them in at the last 30 min of cooking time so they are not “too limp”!
I was trying to figure out what I could add to this to make it a well rounded meal. It’ll be served w/ rice, but for a veggie I was thinking edamame. Any thoughts how that would turn out? And when should I throw it in?
You can add any veggies that you’d like – broccoli, zucchini, carrots, edamame. However, it is best to use your discretion on when to add these to the slow cooker – some vegetables will take longer to cook than others.
This was so good! I doubled the sauce since I had close to 2lbs of chicken. Also added steamed broccoli just before serving… I should have made just a tad more sauce because of that. I like things spicy, so I added a smidge of Sriracha to my bowl while my 3yr old ate it just fine with just the red pepper flakes. Your recipes never fail me!
I also like a bit of spice! Read your comment and squeezed a generous amount of Siracha into the sauce mixture!! AMAZING! So glad I read your comment 🙂