Crockpot Cashew Chicken

My mom bought me a Crockpot for Christmas a few years ago. In my opinion, I haven't used it nearly enough. I've pinned a ton of Crockpot recipes over the past few months, and have only tried a handful of them. What's not to love about throwing a bunch of ingredients into a pot, turning it on, and letting the house fill with delicious smells as said ingredients cook, all the while you tend to other things? From this point forward, it's my vow to all of you that I will try as hard as I can to use my Crockpot once a week.

I found this recipe for Crockpot Cashew Chicken via Pinterest (shocking!). At first glance, this recipe seemed to have a Chinese food-like flair to it - which I was excited about. I love any food that involves ginger, garlic, red pepper flakes, and/or soy sauce, so this seemed like the perfect dish for me.

 The original recipe can be found here. I've made a few changes to my version, including adding some veggies and slightly changing the amount of chicken used.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 pounds chicken breast, cut into chunks
• 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• olive oil
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• 1/4 cup soy sauce (I used low sodium)
• 2 Tbsp white wine vinegar (the original recipe calls for rice vinegar)
• 2 Tbsp ketchup
• 1 Tbsp packed light brown sugar
• 2 cloves garlic (the original recipe calls for 1, but I love garlic)
• 1/2 tsp grated fresh ginger
• 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
• 1/2 cup cashews (mine were lightly salted)

How to:

• Combine flour and pepper in a gallon size Ziploc bag. Add chicken to bag, and toss to coat the chicken with the flour mixture.
• Heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Add chicken to pan. Brown chicken by cooking on each side, ~2 min each. Add chicken to Crockpot.
• Chop carrots and celery and add to Crockpot.
• In a small bowl, combine soy sauce, vinegar, ketchup, brown sugar, garlic, ginger, and red pepper flakes. Pour over chicken and veggies.
• Cover and heat on low for 3-4 hours. Add the cashews, stir, and serve. 

I decided to serve this dish over white rice. The sauce is so flavorful, and this dish pairs really well with rice, in my opinion. The crushed red pepper gives this dish just enough of a kick, so don't overdo it on the red pepper unless you like things REALLY spicy. I hope you all enjoy this! I'd love to hear your comments.