30 minutes Vietnamese stir-fried chicken with lemongrass and chili

Thao Uyen​

A quick and healthy approach to a classic Vietnamese dish for autumn, this hot chili and lemongrass chicken dish will warm you up for days to come

This is a traditional Vietnamese dish for cold weather, and can you guess why? This dish has that subtle heat from red chili and the richness from garlic and soy sauce that can make you feel warmed up in no time.

The specialty of this dish is that it’s borderline between stir-fried and braised food. You will first stir-fry the chicken and then add the marinade and let it simmer and reduce to a thick sauce. This way the chicken will have a soft shiny glaze finish with a beautiful caramel color. Normally for this dish Vietnamese use different parts of the chicken, especially the dark meat of the thighs along with skin and bones. But since I think you’d enjoy a healthier dish made from chicken breast without skin or fat, I’ve made this recipe just for you. And the good news is, not only it is healthier, it is also quicker. All the more reason to hop in and discover this dish right now!

One word about the chili, Vietnamese use red chili because of the color and the heat. Since we will cook it for a bit, its essence will be released into the sauce and looses some of its heat. But if you don’t want the dish to be too hot, you can add only a half the red chili, or substitute it for a milder chili that you can find. Are you ready?
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For lunch or dinner, you got it cover mate!

Ingredients: (for 2 servings)

2 chicken breasts (about 300 gr), cut into cubes
1 lemon grass, cut thinly then minced (or use 2 teaspoons of grounded lemon grass)
1 red chili, cut diagonally
2 cloves of garlic, minced
250 ml of water

Liquid for the marinade:
3 tablespoons of soy sauce
1 tablespoon of oyster sauce
1 tablespoon of honey
1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
1 tablespoon of fish sauce (optional)
1 tablespoon of sriracha (optional)

Cooking steps:

1. First let’s marinade the chicken breast. For the marinade, combine the honey, oyster sauce, soy sauce, vegetable oil, minced garlic, lemon grass and chili.

2. Put in the chicken breast that you cut into cubes and mix. Let the marinade work for 15 minutes.

3. In a hot pan, pour in a bit of vegetable oil and stir fry each piece of chicken for 3 minutes. The chicken doesn’t need to be cooked through, it just needs to be seared on the outside.

4. Add 250 ml of water to the left-over marinade and add this to the pan. I usually add 1 tablespoon of fish sauce and 1 tablespoon of sriracha at this stage, but this is optional. Reduce the heat to a simmer, cover with the lid and let it cook for 7 minutes.

5. After that, remove the lid, return the heat to medium-high to reduce the amount of sauce. When the sauce thickens (around 2 minutes), take it off the heat.

Can you guess it? We're done! It’s super fast and easy right?
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​Serve this dish with rice and some veggies side dish.

Korean spinach side dish to go with it? A match of fireworks!

​Notes:

Lemongrass is reputed to regulate high blood pressure, and so it is a perfect combination for this salty and spicy dish.

​The marination is really important. Usually when cooking with dark meat, you can let it simmer to infuse the meat with flavors without worrying it'd become too dry. And since we use chicken breast for this dish, we must reduce the cooking time. That's why marinating the chicken will help it to absorb the spices and flavors without it being overcooked. 

To prevent the chicken breast to dry during the cooking process (yes it still needs a little help), I add oyster sauce and vegetable oil in the marinade. If you don’t like oyster sauce, just add more soy sauce and vegetable oil.

Sriracha is optional since I like the added heat and color from it. The same is for fish sauce. The finish dish is quite salty because this dish is meant to be eaten with rice and vegetable side dish. The veggies should have natural sweetness to balance out the saltiness of chicken, thus cabbage is also a good choice.