I had a Costco chicken in the fridge that somehow did not get eaten immediately. Coscto chickens are such a good deal, they are hard to pass up. And if it doesnt get eaten immediately I have a protein ready to go for some kiddos that can turn instantly hungry. Besides the chicken, I also had a lot of veggies that had to be used.
After looking through Pinterest for some delicious dinner ideas, pad Thai looked amazing. I had some of the ingredients, but I figured I could make do with what I had and mix up the veggies a bit. While I was changing around the veggies and tweaking the garnish, I thought why not use the already cooked chicken breast.
Thankfully my girls were still napping, so I did quickly did all the prep work. I cut and cleaned all the veggies and chicken. Boiled some water for the noodles and mixed up the sauce. By the time the girls woke up, everything was prepped and ready to go for dinner.
I used the wide rice noodles, think like fettuccine noodles. I’m sure you could substitute fettuccine noodles if you don’t have the rice noodles, but I usually have some in the pantry. However your box of noodles say to fix them, follow the directions. Keep in mind that you are going to be stir frying them again, so make sure the first time you cook them it is more on the almost under done side than over done side.
Since the chicken was already cooked and the veggies cut, this was super easy to fix. The prep time took longer than the actual cook time. Make sure everything is ready to go when you start cooking, because it goes quickly.
I know that traditional pad Thai has chopped peanuts and bean sprouts for the garnish, but I didn’t have any so I improvised and added seasame seeds instead. Feel free to garnish with what you have. You don’t have to have everything, especially if you know what you like.
Stir Fry Ingredients
- 2 cooked chicken breast, sliced into bite sized pieces
- 1 bunch of asparagus, sliced
- 2 cups broccoli, sliced
- 2 carrots
- 2″ ginger, minced
- 2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 package wide rice noodles
Sauce ingredients
- 1/3 cup water
- 4 Tbpsn soy sauce
- 1 tspn fish sauce
- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
- 4 tspn lemon juice
- 4 tspn rice vinegar
- 1 Tbspn chili garlic sauce (sriracha works great too), more if you like it spicy
- 3 tspn creamy peanut butter
- 1 tspn fresh minced garlic
- 1 tspn fresh minced ginger
Garnish
- 1 bunch sliced cilantro
- 2 sliced green onions
- Bean sprouts
- 1 cup chopped peanuts
- Seasame seeds
- Lemon wedges
Directions
- Mince the ginger and garlic and set aside.
- Cut the asparagus and broccoli into bite sized chunks and set aside.
- Slice the carrots as thinly as possible, and set aside.
- Cut the cooked chicken breasts into bite sized chunks and set aside.
- Fix your box of noodles according to the directions.
- While the noodles are cooking, whisk the sauce together in a seperate bowl.
- Heat a skillet to medium – medium high and add some vegetable oil. Add the minced ginger and garlic, and cook until fragrant. Once fragrant add the broccoli and let cook for a minute or two.
- After about 2 minutes add the asparagus and carrots and a little less than half the sauce mixture and cook for another two minutes or so.
- Make a well in the skillet with your vegetables and put your drained, cooked noodles in the skillet. Pour almost all of the sauce on the noodles and mix well. Heat through.
- Taste to see if more sauce is needed or if you want to add more fish sauce or soy sauce (salt), lemon juice or rice vinegar (tangy), or garlic chili paste (spicy).
- Once heated through, take off the heat and add fresh cilantro and fresh green onions. Mix throughly and top with sesame seeds, and a fresh squeeze of lemon.
