Cheesecake Factory’s Spicy Cashew Chicken is spicy, sweet, crispy & crunchy, this dish is everything you could hope for and more in a copycat Chinese food recipe!
One of the most popular items on their menu, this recipe is authentically from the Cheesecake Factory, shared with a local news channel.
Ok, I know what you are thinking…wow this recipe is full of a ton of ingredients and looks like it takes forever. It is true, there are more steps than normal, definitely more ingredients than I normally use and the set-up does require a number of bowls.
Yes, this dish is officially high maintenance. But then you see this… at the end of all that work and you forget about all the steps and all the ingredients and all the dirty dished.
OR, you’ve actually been to the Cheesecake Factory and enjoyed this dish, so you know that while it may take a while to make, you would make it even if it took twice as long. It is just. THAT. GOOD.
The chicken in this Cheesecake Factory’s Spicy Cashew Chicken recipe has a few steps but it reads harder than it actually is to cook it! 
Want more Chinese Food Recipes?
- Honey Orange Firecracker Shrimp
- Panda Express Orange Chicken (Copycat)
- PF Chang’s Orange Peel Chicken
- California Pizza Kitchen’s Kung Pao Chicken Spaghetti
- General Tso’s Chicken
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- Panda Express Recipes… every single one in fact: Panda Express Recipes Index
- Many more Chinese food options…
Tools Used in the making of this Cheesecake Factory’s Spicy Cashew Chicken recipe:
Rice Flour: To make this dish authentically I use rice flour. I have also made it using cornstarch and flour in a 1:1 ratio in the past and the flavor is a bit different but in a pinch go for it!
Hoisin Sauce: This is like Asian BBQ Sauce, a ton of flavor and easy to use.
Sherry Wine: A sweet wine, if you can’t source this or don’t have time to order online you can swap white wine since the sauce already has sugar in it.
Low Sodium Soy Sauce – I find regular soy sauce much too salty, remember you can always add salt but you can’t subtract it. Starting with low sodium allows you to alter to your tastes if necessary.
Recipe
Cheesecake Factory’s Spicy Cashew Chicken
- Yield: 6 servings
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Total Time: 50 minutes
- Course: Main Course
- Cuisine: American Fusion
- Author: Sabrina Snyder
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup canola or vegetable oil
- 1 1/2 pounds chicken breast , cut into bite size chunks
- Seasoned Rice Flour (ingredients below)
- Rice Flour Batter (ingredients below)
- Spicy Soy-Sherry Sauce (ingredients below)
- 8 ounces Cashews
- 6 green onions , cut into 1/4" pieces
SEASONED RICE FLOUR
- 3/4 cup Rice Flour
- 1/4 teaspoon Kosher Salt
- 1/8 teaspoon Ground Black Pepper
- 1/8 teaspoon Paprika
- 1/8 teaspoon Baking Powder
RICE FLOUR BATTER
- 1 1/2 cups Rice Flour
- 1/4 cup All-Purpose Flour
- 1/4 teaspoon Kosher Salt
- 1/4 teaspoon Ground Black Pepper
- 1 1/2 cups Ice Water
SPICY SOY-SHERRY SAUCE
- 1 cup Hoisin sauce
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 1/4 cup Sherry Wine
- 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon Sriracha sauce
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 2 ounces fresh garlic , minced
- 1/4 teaspoon Crushed Red Chili Flakes
Instructions
Note: click on times in the instructions to start a kitchen timer while cooking.
TO MAKE SEASONED RICE FLOUR:
Mix the ingredients into a bowl together.
TO MAKE THE BATTER:
- Combine all the ingredients together, in a bowl over ice. Keep COLD.
TO MAKE THE SAUCE:
- Combine the sauce ingredients together and mix well.
TO COOK THE DISH:
- Toss the chicken with the seasoned flour.
- Put the batter into a large bowl with the chicken.
- Carefully combine the two until well coated.
- Heat the canola oil in a large pan or wok on medium high.
Add the chicken pieces to the pan, and cook 3 minutes on each side until browned and crispy.
- Break apart any pieces that stay stuck together.
Add the sauce and cashews into the pan. Add in the green onions.
- Toss all the ingredients together until well coated.
Let cook for 30 seconds to a minute for the sauce to thicken.
- Garnish with sesame seeds, parsley and crushed cashews.
Recipe Notes
Recipe adapted from ABC News courtesy of the Cheesecake Factory.
Nutrition Information
Yield: 6 servings, Amount per serving: 854 calories, Calories: 854g, Carbohydrates: 97g, Protein: 38g, Fat: 35g, Saturated Fat: 5g, Cholesterol: 74mg, Sodium: 1677mg, Potassium: 876mg, Fiber: 5g, Sugar: 24g, Vitamin A: 200g, Vitamin C: 8.6g, Calcium: 73g, Iron: 4.4g
All images and text © for Dinner, then Dessert.
Most of the ingredients in this recipe are easy enough to find. If you have trouble finding rice flour, use cake or pastry flour. In a pinch you can even substitute half all purpose flour and half cornstarch.
Here are the pictures from when this was originally posted on June 17, 2015:
The ice water part is confusing me. Do I leave the ice in the water and combine everything else with it? Then take the ice pieces out when I mix the chicken in it?
Sorry for any confusion. I recommend putting the water and ice in a container and letting it get cold. Then once you’re ready to use it, pour the water (without the cubes) into the bowl to make the batter. You just need the water to be ice cold. I hope that makes sense.
This is a good recipe. I found it too salty, but it could be because I used salted cashews. I would use unsalted in the future. It’s an odd recipe in that you need to keep the batter cold. Working with rice flour is definitely different than regular flour. You need to figure out what utensils to use, as the chicken pieces stick together quickly when you put them in the hot pan. I used a wooden spatula to try and cut them apart and then used a small tong to turn them. There is absolutely too much garlic. Two ounces of garlic is A LOT! I was wondering if it meant two cloves. I minced an ounce, but didn’t even use that much of it. Two ounces is more than a whole bulb! Is that a typo? My husband and son really liked this, so I’ll make it again.
When testing, I found I needed a lot of garlic to get the exact taste, but I definitely recommend cutting back if that much is not for you 🙂 Happy to hear you and your family enjoyed it overall!
Do you use white or brown rice flour?
I used white in this recipe but feel free to sub in brown.
Hi! Do you leave in the 1/3 cup of oil in the pan after cooking the chicken? It seems it would make the sauce oily??
You’ll want to drain out any excess oil. Enjoy!
Make sure to use a non-stick pan to cook the chicken or it will stick! The sauce is wonderful!
Just found your site and loving everything about it! Made this and literally will never ever go to a Chinese restaurant every again- drop dead, eyes rolled in the back of my head delicious. Insanely amazing to think that this is achievable at home and with no special cooking equipment. You’re amazing! A total keeper!!! Xoxo
Wow!! Thank you so much for coming back to let me know!
If I don’t want to use any kind of wine, what can I substitute it with?
You can substitute the sherry wine for apple cider.
I am going to grocery store now to get two 5 pound chicken packages to make 3 of your Cheesecake Factiry recipes for my 30 year old twins and husbands birthdays coming up this week. Can’t wait to make them, just have to decide which birthday gets which fabulous recipe. Thank you a million
How awesome! You’re welcome!
I made this last night and it is so DELICIOUS!!!! Yes, it takes a lot of time, however, most Asian recipes that I’ve made have more prep time than actual cooking time. It is absolutely worth the time and effort! One thing that I did was make the sauce first, put in a quart Mason jar, and set aside. That way I just had to shake it again to remix and pour it in. I also didn’t use as many cashews but it didn’t affect the flavor! So good! The recipe is a keeper, I’ll be making it again!
Thanks for dropping by to let me know! I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
Question on recipe: You say –
5. Add the chicken pieces to the pan, and cook 3 minutes on each side until browned and crispy.
6. Break apart any pieces that stay stuck together.
7. Add the sauce and cashews into the pan. Add in the chicken and green onions.
Step 7 says “add in the chicken” which was already done in Step 5. Do you remove the chicken at the end of Step 6 then add back in at the end of Step 7?
Also, in Step 5, do you add the chicken all at once or in batches?
Sorry for the confusion, I updated the recipe card. Not sure how that got in there. Thanks for catching that.
Made for dinner over the weekend and hubby loved it. Normally for a review, I make exactly as instructed as I hate when people change loads and then review their own work instead of the original. However, my one simple change to the recipe I don’t feel would have made a huge impact. I used ice cold carbonated water instead of ice cold water. We have a few Japanese friends who use this when making tempura (another uses vodka from the freezer) and swear by it. So it’s how we make anything as tempura. That one slight change aside, this recipe is superb!! I had to convince Hubby before I started that he would like it, but as soon as the smells started filling the house, he was constantly coming in to say it smelled great and how long before we ate ? not sure who was drooling more from the smell, him or the dog! Dog didn’t get any but hubby proclaimed it the best meal he had ever had and when we’re we having it again? So it was a success! We had left overs and both had them for lunch on Monday, him with rice and mine was eaten cold, in lettuce leaves with a bit of left over quinoa that needed to be used up. Was delicious hot or cold!! It was more involved than most recipes we cook, but as stated, it really is worth the extra washing up. And it’s not difficult to prepare either. Not something to make if you are in a rush in the middle of the week, but certainly worth doing at the weekend when you want a special treat.
I’m so glad you guys enjoyed it! Thanks for coming back to let me know!
Tried this recipe last night, I cut back the garlic and cashews a bit. It was a little spicy so next time I’ll probably add a little less red pepper flakes. Over all very good recipe, I will definitely make it again.
What brand of sherry wine did you use?
I used the Holland house Sherry cooking wine, it came out perfect. You can find it in most baking isles.
I tried making this tonight. I need help with the batter please. My batter was super thick and sticky, I even put water and ice in the fridge before making it to keep it very cold. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. This is my favorite recipe from Cheesecake Factory and I am wanting to nail it at home.
This batter is definitely a little bit harder than the usual so don’t feel bad at all with the first attempt. The trick to it is making sure that your egg whites are beaten until they’re really frothy otherwise it’ll be too heavy. Hope you found this helpful!
What egg whites?!?
Oh wow, looks like I needed more coffee before responding….there are no egg whites in this recipe. I was thinking of my Kung Pao Chicken Spaghetti. I”m so sorry. The batter for this recipe will be thick and sticky, completely normal.
WoW! I never tried putting cashew on the chicken, but I think it is so delicious. Cashew has a very distinctive taste so let’s make a try. I’ll pin it on my Pinterest account so I won’t miss the photo. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the pin, Rhodelyn!
I just made this dish came out well. I roasted my cashews in the oven. The other key thing I did was reduce the sauce with the cashews before adding the fried chicken parts, so the chicken stayed very crispy. It was a success big with my family. I used a wok too.
What type of cashews did you use? Roasted, unsalted?
I used roasted salted peanuts for this recipe.
I pinned this a couple of weeks ago. Finally made it tonight. Absolutely delicious! I’m hooked. Thank you for sharing this fantastic recipe. So worth the effort, and really not that labor intensive after all.
So glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for the pin too!!
Made it! Time consuming but spot on!