Pepper Chicken Stir Fry recipe is ridiculously easy to make with ingredients that you already have in your pantry. Fast, full of flavour and best served with some steamed rice.
Stir fries are such a great way to make dinner because they are so quick to put together. Chicken and Broccoli Stir Fry and Teriyaki Chicken stir fry are some of my favourites!
We usually have a couple of sauces like soy sauce and oyster sauce always in our pantry so that recipes like this can come together in a jiffy.
I know how hard it can be to think of unique dinner recipes every day which is why once in a while, you need a back pocket recipe that you can keep going back to. And this healthy chicken stir fry recipe is fast, easy, and is made with ingredients that don’t need a trip to the grocery store.
My family is always ready to give chicken a go, in every shape and form from Old Fashioned Chicken and Dumplings to Chicken Divan, so we always have a few chicken breasts in the freezer.
How to Make Chicken Stir Fry
This recipe starts with making the chicken stir fry marinade with soy sauce, minced garlic and ground pepper and marinating the chicken in it for at least fifteen minutes. This helps build more flavour in the chicken and creates a nice base for this recipe.
The total cooking and stir frying time is only 20 minutes, and you can chop up all your ingredients while the chicken is marinating. We add some finely chopped ginger and garlic, diced onions, green and red bell peppers and a few sauces to finish this off, once the chicken is cooked. And then you just toss everything together.
We coat the marinated chicken pieces in a little cornstarch to get them nice and crisp in the pan before stir frying them with the rest of the ingredients.
This adds a little crispness to the chicken and helps keep the flavours intact. The chicken is cooked on a high flame to get a nice sear, and since these are small pieces of chicken breasts, they cook in under ten minutes.
I love using both green and red bell peppers because they add a sharp flavour with a hint of sweetness to this recipe. But feel free to mix that up with yellow or just go with one variety. You could even make this a chicken broccoli stir fry if that’s what you fancy!
Once everything is tossed in that delicious easy chicken stir fry sauce, you’ll be going at it right from the pan itself. The sauce that coats the chicken is incredibly delicious, and spooned over some steamed rice, sichuan rice or even Cauliflower Rice, it makes for the perfect dinner!
MORE EASY ASIAN INSPIRED RECIPES!
- Chicken Pad Thai
- Easy Mongolian Beef
- Chicken Lo Mein
- Pineapple Teriyaki Shrimp Foil Packets
- General Tso’s Chicken
This chicken stir fry with vegetables also makes for great leftovers and actually tastes better as time goes by.
Easy Pepper Chicken Stir Fry
Ingredients
For the Marinade
- 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts cut into 1 inch pieces
- 2 tablespoons less sodium soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon garlic minced
- 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
For the Stir Fry
- ¼ cup oyster sauce
- 2 tablespoons less sodium soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons vinegar
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- ½ cup water
- 3 tablespoons cornstarch divided
- 3 tablespoons vegetable oil divided
- 1 large onion cut into 1 inch pieces
- 1 medium green bell pepper cut into 1 inch pieces
- 1 medium red bell pepper cut into 1 inch pieces
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
Instructions
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Combine all the ingredients listed under marinade including the chicken and set aside for at least 15 minutes.
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Whisk together oyster sauce, soy sauce, vinegar, black pepper, half cup water and one tablespoon of cornstarch and set aside.
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Once the chicken has marinated, toss it in remaining two tablespoons cornstarch.
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Heat two tablespoons oil in a large pan and add the chicken pieces. Don't overcrowd the pan and if your pan is not large enough, do this in batches. Cook the chicken pieces on high heat for 3 minutes on each side. Remove the pieces from the pan and set aside.
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Add the remaining tablespoon of oil to the pan on high heat, and add the onions and bell peppers. Toss them in the pan for a minute or two till they brighten up in colour and have cooked slightly. Toss in the ginger and garlic and cook for another minute.
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Add the chicken pieces and sauce mixture to the pan. Toss everything well, and simmer for a minute or two till the sauce thickens and coats the chicken well. Serve hot with steamed rice or veggies on the side.
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
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Repin this Simple Stir Fry Recipe
Excellent! Quick and Easy and enjoyed by the whole family
This recipe tasted absolutely amazing and was really easy to prepare. It was as good as any Chinese takeaway meal. The cooking part was really quick. I just need to improve the speed of my preparation and chopping!! It disappeared as quickly as I cooked it!!!
Wonderful recipe, thank you
This was delicious! I added a cup of fresh green beans in with the peppers and onions, because our garden is producing so many at the moment – and they were a nice addition. I didn’t have oyster sauce, so I added a touch more soy sauce and a tablespoon of honey. ( I also added a shake of red pepper flakes as I like a little spice in my food) and I thought all of the the flavors were terrific. My wife had seconds, which she rarely does!
Nice recipe but the protein should be listed by weight, not how many breasts. I have some chicken breasts that are about 1 pound each and others that are barely 4 ounces each. Otherwise, good recipe.
It really doesn’t make much/any difference. I had chicken mini fillets, about 300g. No idea how many chicken breasts that is but probably only 2 but I used the full marinade ingredients and it worked out perfectly. The marinade is only for tenderising and adding flavour. I guess I had a bit more marinade than if I’d used 4 chicken breasts but it didn’t make it overpowering.
for the nutritional information, is this per serving or overall for the entire 4 servings?
Hi Rachel, it’s per serving.
This was legitimately delicious! I’ve never had chicken breast be so juicy and flavourful.
I added one extra capsicum as well (small) and sprinkled white and black sesame seeds on top after cooking.
I may have done something wrong because mine came out very salty and vinegary.
Did you use light soy sauce D? If you used regular soy sauce it would cause this sauce to become more salty.
I used normal soy sauce as I didn’t have light but I used rice vinegar which is more subtle than full on normal vinegar and it had a perfect taste balance.
I added fresh green onion to garnish and it was to die for. my family thought it was take out!
I followed the recipe almost exactly, just let the peppers cook until they were slightly soft. Also, if you get little bits of chicken sticking to the pan, don’t worry, at the end, when you add the sauce and let it sit, you can scrape them up to add flavor to the dish.
Super tasty and easy to make. I think 10 mins prep time is a little ambitious though. Best allow yourself 15-20 mins prepping
This is an incredible recipe. The marinade step add a velvety softness to chicken breast that makes it taste tender like a thigh. I’ll be making this often.
I am so glad you enjoyed this recipe Smitha!
This was absolutely horrible. The chicken (I used strips larger than the pieces shown), was seriously dry and overcooked and the whole mess together has absolutely NO taste – bland, bland, bland. Unfortunately, I have leftovers and no idea how to resurrect this – overcooked chicken does not reheat.
How disappointing for you Marilyn. I can’t say for sure what went wrong as 1-inch cubes of chicken (or larger) shouldn’t be really dry and overcooked with a cooking time of 6 minutes. Did you use raw chicken for this recipe?
As for the flavor did you include the oyster sauce and soy sauce as well as fresh ginger? Additional soy sauce could be added if you’d like.
Maybe your result says more about the cook than the recipe? If you follow the recipe it will not be dry and is very tasty indeed. Certainly not bland.
Spice up your mealtime routine with this easy pepper chicken stir fry! Quick, flavorful, and guaranteed to satisfy your taste buds.”
This was absolutely divine. Must try ! I am a South Asian so I added more spices and everyone loved it. There are no leftovers at all.
This was absolutely delicious! I only added a tablespoon of the cornstarch slurry to the sauce as it cooked, and am glad I did, as I think it might have been too thick a sauce for our tastes. I also backed off a bit of the black pepper. Will add this to our rotation. Easy and outstanding!
This is one of the easiest and best dishes I have ever fixed so tasty.