I love Thai restaurants and one of my all-time favorite dishes is peanut chicken. My mouth waters just thinking about it. The savory and sweet flavors paired with white rice are the best.

But, as a college student, there are not enough funds in the budget to satisfy my constant peanut chicken cravings or enough time to dine at a restaurant. In lieu of my peanut chicken cravings, I played around with different recipes until I created my own perfect peanut chicken recipe.

With just 10 ingredients, you can make this delicious, protein-packed meal in under 30 minutes. And the best part? It can be paired with anything. I personally like to pair it with white jasmine rice, but serve it with ramen noodles or some stir-fried veggies and you have a full meal!

So here it is. Go nuts with it! 

Simple Peanut Chicken Recipe

  • Prep Time:15 mins
  • Cook Time:10 mins
  • Total Time:25 mins
  • Servings:4
  • Easy

    Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons cooking oil
  • 3 cloves minced garlic
  • 1 whole white onion
  • 1 pound chicken breast or tenderloins
  • 1 tablespoon water
  • 2 tablespoons brown sugar
  • 2 teaspoons sriracha sauce
  • 2 tablespoons soy sauce
  • 3 tablespoons peanut butter
Victoria Manrique
  • Step 1

    Gather your onion and garlic. Chop each vegetable up individually into small pieces. You want to make sure you dice them up into tiny pieces.

    garlic, vegetable
    Sarah Schuette
  • Step 2

    Cut your chicken into bite-sized pieces. Once you are done cutting them up you can set them aside. *Tip: For this recipe, I like to season the chicken only with Adobo all-purpose seasoning! Just a couple of shakes of the bottle give you a whole lot of flavor. You can also leave it unseasoned or season it however you normally season your chicken.

    Victoria Manrique
  • Step 3

    Get a medium-sized pan and place it on the stove. Pour the cooking oil into the pan and set the stove to high heat. Once the oil sizzles a little bit, add your chopped garlic to the pan. Once the garlic turns light brown and its smell is fragrant, take out the cooked garlic with tongs and place it in a small bowl.

    Victoria Manrique
  • Step 4

    Place the chicken in the same pan you cooked your garlic in. Set the stove to medium-high heat. Add the chopped onion to the pan as well.

    Victoria Manrique
  • Step 5

    While the chicken is cooking, you can start making your peanut sauce. Place the peanut butter, soy sauce, water, brown sugar and sriracha sauce in the same bowl with the cooked garlic. Whisk the ingredients together until you get a nice, creamy sauce.

    Victoria Manrique
  • Step 6

    Once the chicken has been cooked, set the stove to low heat. If you like green onions, add them to the pan and let everything cook for two more minutes. Then add your sauce to the chicken keeping the stove on low heat. Mix everything together to make sure each piece of chicken is smothered with sauce.

    Victoria Manrique
  • Step 7

    After the sauce has been added to the pan for a few minutes turn off the stove. You can now serve the chicken and top it off with some pieces of fresh cilantro if you'd like. I love the herby freshness it brings, but if you're not a fan, you can leave it out!

    Victoria Manrique

Nutty for Chicken

And that's it! This dish can serve as a weekly dinner or lunch. Having friends over? Make this! Pair it with rice, noodles or veggies and you’ll be dubbed the chef of the friend group. Seriously, I’m not kidding!