Week 6: Crockpot Cashew Chicken

The Recipe
1lb chicken breasts cut into bite-sized pieces
2 tbsp cornstarch or flour
½ tsp pepper
Oil
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
2 tbsp ketchup
1 tbsp sweet chili sauce
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 garlic clove, minced
½ tsp ginger
a dash of red chili flakes
½ cup cashews

Combine cornstarch/flour and pepper in a bag. Add chicken and stir to cover all pieces. Heat the oil in a skillet and brown the chicken for about 2 minutes on each side. Remove and add to slow cooker.

In a small bowl, combine soy sauce, vinegar, ketchup, chili, sugar, garlic, ginger and chili flakes. Pour over chicken and stir to ensure all pieces are nicely coated.

Cook on LOW for 3 hours. Add cashews and cook for another hour.

Serve with rice (either just regular boiled rice, or fried rice with a bit of the sauce added at the very end) and a nice salad. I made one out of bell pepper, tomatoes, carrots and feta - yum!

The Verdict
I served this with ordinary rice the first day and fried rice the next day as leftovers. Fried rice is definitely better! The salad meshed nicely with the dish as well - especially the feta.

As a whole, the recipe wasn't really groundbreaking, and definitely something I've tried before, but it was easy to make and tasted great (plus! cashews!!), so who cares? You don't have to be innovative all the time.