An easy chicken and broccoli stir fry recipe that yields juicy chicken and crisp broccoli in a rich brown sauce, just like the one at a Chinese restaurant. {Gluten-Free Adaptable}
Chicken and broccoli should be on your weekday dinner rotation menu, because it’s so easy to prepare and the result tastes even better than takeout. If you rarely cook Chinese stir fries at home, this is a great dish to start with. It only requires one protein, one vegetable, and one sauce. The cooking doesn’t require a wok and the process is very simple. Start your steamed rice while preparing this dish and your dinner will be ready in 30 minutes.
Cooking notes
1. What cookware to use
I’ve discussed why not to use a wok and how to set up your stir fry station in the past in great detail.
Before moving to the US, I always cooked with a small cast iron wok and gas stove in my Chinese kitchen. I switched to a heavy nonstick skillet when I moved to Austin, because it heated up faster and held heat better on the electric stove. Now that I finally have a gas stove again in my New York kitchen, the flame is so weak that sometimes I have trouble boiling water. Now I use both nonstick and carbon steel pans depending on the dishes I make.
If you just started cooking Chinese food, or if you have a similar kitchen situation to mine (electric stove, IH stove, or not-so-powerful gas stove), cooking with a nonstick skillet or carbon steel skillet will be the best option. It’s easier to learn to use, heats up better, and creates great results.
2. Key ingredients
Aromatics – It’s very important to use fresh ginger and garlic to create the authentic Chinese food experience. Sometimes I add a handful of chopped green onion to further add fragrance to the dish.
Oyster sauce – In my world it’s a sauce that is quite close to hoisin sauce, only it tastes much better. It adds a rich, savory umami (from oyster extract) and a slightly sweet note to the stir fry sauce.
Shaoxing wine – Used in most Chinese stir fry dishes, including vegetables. It adds a deep fermented savory taste. If you do not want alcohol in your dish, you can use chicken broth to replace it. The flavor of the sauce will fall flat a bit, but you will still get a great result.
Dark soy sauce – It has a darker color and tastes less salty than soy sauce. It’s commonly used in Chinese stir fries to add a beautiful caramelized color to the meat. You can replace it with soy sauce if you don’t have any on hand. Your dish will come out lighter than mine, but still taste great.
3. Easy prep
Getting your working station organized is key to making good stir fries. Different from many Western style cooking techniques, the Chinese stir fry process happens very quickly. Once you heat up the pan, it usually takes less than 5 minutes to cook a dish. Be sure to cut all the ingredients, make the sauce, and have all the ingredients ready near your stove.
When I prepare my stir fry, I like to go one step further and group the ingredients according to the cooking steps, so I can use fewer prep bowls. It makes your working station less crowded, prevents you from forgetting to add ingredients during cooking, and makes clean-up faster.
In the case of the chicken and broccoli stir fry, you should have 5 items near your stove:
- Mixed sauce
- Marinated chicken
- Chopped broccoli
- Chopped ginger and garlic
- Cooking oil (not shown in the picture)
4. Cooking process
Making chicken and broccoli is super easy. All you need to do is:
- Steam the broccoli in the stir fry pan using a bit of water. I do this instead of blanching the broccoli in a separate pot. It cooks faster this way and you only use one pan in total.
- Heat up your pan very hot. Sear both sides of the chicken. It helps to brown the chicken better if you spread it in the pan in a single layer and don’t touch it until the bottom is browned.
- Add the aromatics.
- Add the cooked broccoli and the sauce, then cook until sauce is thickened.
That’s it!
5. One word on oil
The amount of oil you need largely depends on the type of pan you’re using. If you use a nonstick pan, you can cut the oil to 1 tablespoon without any problem. If you use a carbon steel or cast iron pan, you might need to use more oil, so the bottom of the pan is covered completely with a thin layer of oil to prevent the chicken from sticking to the pan.
More delicious take-out style recipes
- String Bean Chicken
- Crispy Chinese Honey Chicken (without Deep Frying)
- 15-Minute Chicken Chow Fun (Chicken Fried Rice Noodles)
- Black Pepper Steak
- Easy Beef Fried Rice
If you give this recipe a try, let us know! Leave a comment, rate it (once you’ve tried it), and take a picture and tag it @omnivorescookbook on Instagram! I’d love to see what you come up with.
Chicken and Broccoli (Chinese Takeout Style)
Ingredients
- 1 lb (450 g) boneless skinless chicken breast (or thigh)
Marinade
- 1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine (or dry sherry)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch
Sauce
- 3 tablespoons oyster sauce
- 2 tablespoons Shaoxing wine (or dry sherry)
- 1/2 tablespoon dark soy sauce (or soy sauce)
- 1/4 cup chicken stock
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Stir-fry
- 1 head broccoli , chopped into bite-sized florets
- 2 tablespoons peanut oil (or vegetable oil)
- 4 cloves garlic , minced
- 1 teaspoon ginger , minced
Instructions
- Slice the chicken against the grain into thin bite-size pieces, no thicker than 1/4” (1/2 cm), transfer into a medium-size bowl. Add the marinade ingredients. Stir to mix well. Let sit for 10 minutes while preparing other ingredients.
- Combine all the sauce ingredients in a bowl. Stir to mix well.
- Bring 1/3 cup of water to a boil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the broccoli and cover. Steam until the broccoli just turns tender and the water evaporates, about 40 to 50 seconds. Transfer the broccoli to a plate. Wipe the pan with a paper towel held in a pair of tongs if there’s any water left.
- Add the oil and swirl to coat the bottom. Spread the chicken in the skillet in a single layer. Allow to cook without touching for 30 seconds, or until the bottom side is browned. Flip to cook the other side for a few seconds. Stir and cook until the surface is lightly charred and the inside is still pink.
- Add the garlic and ginger. Stir a few times to release the flavor and fragrance.
- Return the broccoli to the pan. Stir the sauce again to dissolve the cornstarch completely and pour it into the skillet. Cook and stir until the sauce thickens, about 1 minute. Transfer everything to a plate immediately.
- Serve hot with steamed rice or boiled noodles as a main dish.
Yummmmm! 5 star yum! Such a wonderful weeknight meal! I even used a little more oil bc my pan is a little sticky and it still came out light and delicious! Thanks for sharing this delicious recipe.
Tender chicken and flavorful recipe! Love it!
Hi Maggie. I’ve been reading your food blog for many months now, and this is the first recipe I’ve tried so far. I’m so glad I read the recipe through fully, first, then went back and re-read it a few times so I understood the flow of it all. This recipe goes very smoothly, and extremely quickly as you said, so preparing ingredients is integral to a great outcome. ☺️
I am enthusiastically adding this recipe to my weekly rotation, due to its wonderful flavor and incredible ease to make. One thing my husband and I both thought, though, was it seemed slightly saltier than it should have. This is completely on me as I should have used a milder salt (All I had was ordinary iodized table salt and having never prepared this before I wanted to stay as true to the measurements as possible for the first attempt.) so since I already can’t wait to make it again, I wanted to ask you what kind of salt you recommend I use next time.
I’m so looking forward to your suggestion! In the meantime, while I’m waiting for your reply, I’m going to go ahead and decide which of your gorgeous recipes I’ll be making next. Thanks so much.
Hi Brook, thanks so much for your positive feed back and I’m glad to hear you enjoyed the dish!
I personally always prefer sea salt, but it’s not super mild either. I admit I do prefer a saltier taste (my husband complain sometimes) and I always keep my stir fry dishes a bit saltier so it goes with white rice.
If this dish is too salty for you, the best way is to use 1/4 teaspoon salt in the chicken marinade. You can even skip the salt from the sauce if you want to reduce the salt level further. What I would do is to taste the chicken at the end of the cooking, and sprinkle a bit more salt and mix it if it’s not salty enough. This way you’ll have a better control over the salt level.
Happy cooking and can’t wait to hear what you’ll cook the next!
Ahh! That makes perfect sense. that the dish would be make a touch saltier for individual taste, as well as for being served over rice! We didn’t have any rice or noodles with ours, as I was craving just chicken and broccoli. Thanks for your response and your suggestions! I will most definitely put them to use when I make this again. I’m going to be including this recipe in my weekly rotation to make during the week, as it comes together so quickly and easily. 🙂
I’ll most certainly let you know when I make this again, and also when I branch out to one of your other fantastic looking recipes. Thank you so much for making some of my most favorite dishes so easy and accessible to make at home. 🙂
This is delicious and so authentic. So easy to make. Perfect for busy parents trying to prepare dinner while managing little ones. If I wanted to tone down the rich taste of the sauce, how would you recommend I do that. Wonderful dish.
I would add 1/3 cup chicken broth and additional 1 teaspoon cornstarch. This way you will get a bit more sauce but it will taste milder.
Make this again tonight. So delicious as well as being so easy to make. I made the sauce with 2 tblsp of Oyster Sauce and found the intensity more to my sense. These recipes are so easy to follow and so healthy!
Try the oyster sauce first…the saltiness can be terrible in a salty dish. Brands vary.
These recipes are fantastic, but I have a request. Would it be possible to have the print feature NOT include the big blue box at the start of every recipe? I like to print out recipes for my binder notebook, but that ink gets really expensive!! It’s a great site, except for that one little issue.
Super 👌 tasted amazing thanks for sharing
This was absolutely fantastic! We substituted Mirin for the Shaoxing wine since that’s what we had on hand and it was delicious. I can’t wait to make this again soon!
How many cups of broccoli florets would you say is in full bunch of broccoli? I’m thinking at least 3 cups.
It really depends on the size of the broccoli. Some small heads I can only get about 2 cups. But yeah, you probably can get 3 cups from a larger head.
I really loved this recipe, it delivered exactly on the taste i was looking for. I have to say it was saltier than I expected. I used less salt when I made it because I always use less salt in my cooking for health reasons. I loved this and will make again with some personal adjustments! Additionally, I added blanched carrots and turnips to the medley and it was delish! All in all, I loved and thank you! looking forward to trying other recipes on here.
I was inspired by this recipe and I wanted to buy the sauce book. I don’t know where else to email, but I tried to buy the sauce book using my bank card but kept getting a PayPal error message. I did not select PayPal. I was unable to buy the book. Help.
This was SO AMAZING! Like…. just as good as takeout and healthier. I was amazed it came out so well on just a large nonstick skillet. I had never heard of a few of these ingredients (shaoxing wine???? huh??) but found at my local grocery store and I’m now going to make my way through your whole website and use them all the time. Added extra carrots and mushrooms as well. Took like 20 mins start to finish (and I microwaved rice because I’m lazy). Thank you for the incredibly precise and thoughtful recipe. YUM!!!
I definitely could not get the sauce part right. I followed the directions idk what i did wrong
Thank you for this recipe! I made it for supper yesterday and it was delicious–better than any takeout I’ve had. The only changes were to use mixed vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, sliced carrots and squash) and Merlot for Shaoxing wine. I haven’t had a chance to find Shaoxing wine that didn’t contain salt.
I used chicken but am considering leaving that out next time. I’m pretty much a novice cook and preparing/cooking the meat was messy and went slowly.
The sauce is best part!
Excellent and quick.
Great recipe. I had a leftover thawed chicken breast and some broccoli crowns in the fridge I needed to use and this recipe worked out great. I made it today for lunch and my wife and I enjoyed it very much. As with all the recipes I’ve made from Omnivore, I found no need to change the original recipe. Great taste and easy to make.
My husband and mine’s new favorite! We bought the dark soy, worth it. Can’t wait to try more if your recipes.
I made this last night. Maybe because we eat a lot of spicy food, this was bland. Next time I will add some chile flakes. I also added sliced fresh yellow bell pepper and it was delicious. Otherwise, easy to make and I will make again.
Good stuff!