SRIRACHA CHICKEN AND BROCCOLI STIR-FRY
I’ve taken a little hiatus from posting things as of late, but I recently made the move down to the D.C. metro area in preparation to start my new job. Living in my own apartment also means more opportunities to start cooking again; expect to see some more culinary experiments (in a good way) in the near future up on the blog.
One of the newest things that I decided to start stocking in my pantry is sriracha sauce, a chili sauce with a hint of sweetness. I discovered it back while I was at school at eating at Noodles & Company, who put a bottle of the sauce on every table. I started adding it to my mac & cheese, and it turned out really good. Over the summer, I got a bottle of it back at home and started adding it to vegetables, chicken, and beef to see just how versatile the sauce was. It didn’t disappoint. Taken by itself, sriracha sauce packs quite the kick. But by adding it to foods while cooking, some of the heat burns out and you’re left with a very nice spicy aftertaste on most dishes.
Tonight, I decided to pair the sauce with an American Chinese staple: chicken with broccoli.
Sriracha Chicken and Broccoli Stir-Fry
This dish calls for essentially three primary ingredients: chicken breast, broccoli, and the sriracha sauce. It’s a quick fix for a meal and pretty satisfying, too.
If you’re using a bag of broccoli florets, prepping the broccoli is very easy. But if you’re using a whole broccoli head, break it down into the florets and then the stem (which you can cut into smaller wedges or slices). Take the chicken and cut that up into bite-sized chunks as well. Cook the two items separately, and then bring them back together for a final stir-fry. Add salt and pepper to both items when cooking, but to the chicken also add in some sriracha sauce to the mix to give it the extra flavor. Serve it over some rice and you’ll be all set.
I’m always thinking about what adjustments I can make to each dish I make next time to have it turn out better, so I think I might start adding in a section at the end of recipe posts called “potential adjustments” and then updating the post when I get the chance to implement them.
Potential Adjustments:
- Take a few cloves of garlic, dice it up, and add it to give it another layer of flavor.
- Add sesame seeds into the mix.
- “Speed-marinate” the chicken in the sriracha sauce. When I say speed-marinate, essentially just putting the chicken bits into a bowl with a mixture of the sriracha sauce and some cornstarch to help make it stick a bit to the chicken (a technique that I picked up from my dad).
Categories: Recipes