Instant Pot Cashew Chicken

Instant Pot Cashew Chicken with golden fried cashews, boneless tender chicken smothered in a delicious home-made savory sauce. This is the Best Instant Pot Cashew Chicken you'll ever make with fresh ingredients. It's time to ditch the Asian take-out!

Easy Instant Pot Cashew Chicken

Cashew Chicken in Instant Pot will hardly take you any time to make just like this Asian Take-out favorites - Instant Pot Mongolian Chicken and Instant Pot Sweet and Sour Chicken.

Imagine crispy golden fried cashews and juicy chicken bites doused in a savory sauce that tastes gazillion times better than your favorite Chinese take-out!

Because it's MSG free and made with all good stuffs just like this Instant Pot Chicken Fried Rice.

You just need some awesome steamed bowl of Jasmine rice to satiate those typical Chinese take-out pangs 😀

Or Instant Pot Cashew Chicken and noodles is a great idea too - what say?

Our Cashew Chicken sauce has a little zing to it from sriracha sauce and a few dashes of red pepper flakes.

It's so good and satisfying in every way that our Friends and family love to lick off the last drop of sauce.

This recipe is perfect for weeknight dinners and meal preps.

Once you try this Instant Pot Cashew Chicken with rice you'll never go back to Chinese take-out order again. I guarantee!

Don't miss the tips shared in the post.

Ingredients

Find the Ingredients with actual measurements way below the post on the "Recipe Card". The list below is just a reference.

• Skinless Boneless Chicken: Use either chicken breasts or chicken thighs. I used organic farm fresh chicken breast pieces.
• Hoisin Sauce: You can buy this at any Asian grocery store or at major American Supermarkets in the Asian Aisle. Don't skip it or sub it with any other sauces. Hoisin is the star ingredient today.
• Dark Soy Sauce: This is one of our most favorite Asian sauces with a huge depth of flavor, a dark color and a lovely texture. It's a thick sauce unlike the light soy sauce or Tamari.
• Soy Sauce: You can also use regular soy sauce or light soy sauce or even Tamari. I will highly recommend the low sodium variety.
• Sriracha Sauce: It adds magic to the Instant Pot Cashew Chicken Recipe. A little zingy and a bit spicy. Greatly recommended.
• Rice Vinegar: Adds a slight sweet sour base to the recipe.
• Whole raw Cashews: Unroasted and unsalted. You'll be shallow frying them in oil until lovely golden in color. So yum and so crsipy. Do avoid the salted roasted cashews from the store. You can however add the store bought unsalted roasted cashews only if you cannot find raw cashews at any store.
• Red Pepper Flakes: This adds a bit of a kick to the recipe. However, if you are totally heat intolerant skip adding them.
• Cornstarch Slurry: A quick slurry made by mixing cornstarch and water. This will help thicken the amazing sauce.
• Chinese Dry Whole red chilies: Totally optional. They add a subtle punch, a feeble smokiness and makes the dish aesthetically beautiful 🙂
• Any neutral oil.

Tips & Tricks

1. Saute the Chicken: Sauteing the chicken until lightly golden around the edges helps mimic that Asian restaurant style wok flavor. We don't want the recipe to taste like some boiled food anyways!
2. Fry the Whole Raw Cashews until golden: This will give the recipe an amazing nutty flavor that's so irresistible. The cashews become crispy and so addictive that you'll eat them as such 😀
3. Pressure cook the chicken first and than add sauces: We have tried the other way round, i.e. pressure cooked the chicken along with the sauces. The result was not very impressive. The sauces lost their potency to some extent. Hence, adding them after the pressure cooking cycle and than thickening them is the best thing to do. We were totally impressed with the outcome.
4. The Sauce: If you love a sweet and savory sauce do add 2 tbsp brown sugar. I added none and we love a savory sauce for Cashew Chicken. The sauce also thickens gradually as the dish cools down so, adjust the consistency of the sauce accordingly.
5. Thicken the sauce: The cornstarch slurry does a fabulous job in thickening the sauces. You can keep the sauce flow-y or really thick - choose what you love. Simmer the sauces more to thicken more.
6. Add the dried red chilies at the end: This will prevent the dish from becoming very spicy or mouth numbing. At the same time it will lend a slight kick. You can totally skip adding them too.

Method

Find the detailed step by step recipe along with measurements way below the post on the "Recipe Card".

Step #1 Shallow fry the Whole Cashews

Shallow fry the raw cashews in oil until golden.

Do this in the Instant Pot set on SAUTE at NORMAL settings.

Golden crispy cashews adds tons of flavor to the dish and without a doubt they are much better than the store bought roasted cashews.

Step #2 Saute the Chicken

Now saute the cubed flash marinated chicken. Use the same settings in your Instant Pot.

Half way through add the red pepper flakes and saute the chicken until lightly golden.

The golden sauteed chicken bites helps mimic the restaurant style wok flavor. So so good! Don't skip sauteing the chicken.

Step #3 Pressure Cook

CANCEL the SAUTE function.

Add liquid and de-glaze the pot very well scraping the bottom and the sides with the help of your spatula. This is to prevent the BURN error.

Close the lid, seal the valve and pressure cook on HIGH for just 1 min if using farm fresh organic chicken breast pieces or 3 mins for regular chicken.

Do a quick pressure release (QPR) once the pressure cooking cycle is over.

Step #4 Simmer with sauces

Add sauces and corn starch slurry. If you prefer a sweeter sauce add 2 tbsp brown sugar now. This recipe contains no brown sugar and will reward you with a savory sauce.

Turn on the SAUTE function and set it on LOW.

Simmer the sauce until it thickens to the desired consistency that you prefer.

Finally add the fried cashews and whole red chilies.

Give everything a good mix and serve hot with steamed Jasmine rice or a side of noodles. Enjoy!

Storing Tips

The Instant Pot Cashew Chicken lasts for 5 days in the fridge when stored in moisture free air tight containers.

You can also freeze it in individual freezer safe bags or containers for upto 1 month.

Skip the whole Chinese dry chilies if you decide to freeze it.

Re-heating Tips

The sauce thickens gradually as the dish cools down.

I generally prefer to sprinkle a few drops of water and than re-heat it in a microwave oven until it becomes warm.

However, if you choose to re-heat the Cashew Chicken on the stove top I would highly recommend that you fish out the chilies first and than re-heat it with a few sprinkles of water and than add back the chilies at the end.

This will prevent the dish from becoming spicy!

For frozen cashew chicken go ahead and thaw it over night in the fridge first and than follow the above re-heating instructions.

Serving Ideas

The delicious Instant Pot Cashew Chicken tastes best on a bed of steamed white Jasmine rice or with Noodles stir fry like this Instant Pot Ramen Stir Fry.

More Asian-Take Out Recipes