This chicken broccoli stir fry recipe features tender, juicy chicken breasts, garlic, fresh ginger and perfectly cooked broccoli.
I’m so excited to share this recipe with you! We’ve been making it a lot lately. The chicken turns out perfectly tender, the broccoli cooks crisp-tender, and the easy from scratch sauce is so good!
We use our stir-fry sauce for this for this recipe. It’s loaded with fresh garlic and ginger, and the flavor knocks the socks off of anything you can buy at the store. I also use it when making this veggie stir fry. For more like this, see this easy egg roll in a bowl!
Key Ingredients
- Chicken: Chicken breasts and thighs work well in this stir fry recipe. For the most tender chicken breast, slice it against the grain into thin strips.
- Broccoli: I use broccoli florets for this recipe. I love the simplicity of the chicken and broccoli, but feel free to toss in more veggies as we do in this vegetable stir fry.
- Easy chicken marinade: Our simple recipe uses soy sauce, cornstarch, and oil and guarantees juicy, flavorful, tender chicken.
- Stir-fry sauce: We use this homemade stir-fry sauce, which is as close to authentic as possible. It combines fresh garlic, ginger, soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, sugar, and white pepper. The recipe also calls for Shaoxing wine, a Chinese rice wine. I highly recommend it in this recipe, but I have provided substitutes below.
Find the full recipe with measurements below.
How to Make Chicken Broccoli Stir Fry
Tip 1: Marinate your chicken. I highly recommend marinating your chicken. Stir your chicken with soy sauce, cornstarch, and oil. It sounds too simple to work, but trust me. This three-ingredient marinade does wonders for the flavor and texture of your chicken. I marinate for at least 30 minutes, but you can leave the chicken overnight in the fridge if needed.
Tip 2: Use our homemade sauce. As my chicken marinates, I make our homemade stir-fry sauce. It’s ridiculously easy! The most time-consuming part is mincing the fresh garlic and ginger, which you can do in a food processor if needed.
Tip 3: Cook broccoli and chicken separately. So that the chicken cooks perfectly and the broccoli doesn’t overcook you want to cook the chicken and broccoli separately.
- Chicken: Cooking the chicken for our stir fry takes about 5 minutes. Toss it into a little bit of hot oil, spread it into one layer, and cook without moving until the underside starts to brown. Then flip and cook until done. Transfer to a plate, and move on to the broccoli.
- Broccoli: Add more oil to the wok or skillet, then toss in the broccoli. Stir the broccoli around the pan and watch it turn bright green. After 3 to 5 minutes, the florets will be crisp-tender.
Tip 3: Use a touch of cornstarch. To make your stir fry rival the ones you get at your favorite Chinese restaurants, use a mixture of cornstarch and cold water. They thicken the sauce to a perfect consistency and helps it stick to the broccoli and chicken.
Serving Suggestions
I love serving this stir fry over plain rice (Jasmine or Basmati), brown rice, or fried rice. It’s also great with our fluffy quinoa or noodles. This is also really tasty served on the same table as these amazing homemade crab Rangoon, egg rolls, spring rolls, or try our irresistible hoisin sticky ribs!
More Delicious Chicken Recipes
- Chicken Lettuce Wraps
- Teriyaki Chicken
- Indian Chicken Curry
- Thai Yellow Chicken Curry
- Thai Green Curry
Easy Chicken Broccoli Stir Fry
- PREP
- COOK
- TOTAL
We love this chicken and broccoli stir fry recipe, which features tender and juicy chicken, perfectly cooked broccoli, and the most delicious homemade stir fry sauce. We call for Shaoxing wine (Chinese rice wine) in this recipe. I highly recommend it in this recipe, but I have provided substitutes below.
Watch Us Make the Recipe
You Will Need
Chicken and Broccoli1 ¼ pounds boneless and skinless chicken breast or thighs
1 pound broccoli florets, cut into small pieces, 5 to 6 cups
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 tablespoon low sodium soy sauce
3 tablespoons neutral oil like vegetable or avocado oil
Stir Fry Sauce6 garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons minced fresh ginger (thumb-size piece)
1 cup chicken or vegetable stock
2 tablespoons dark soy sauce or tamari
2 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce
2 tablespoons Shaoxing wine, see tips for substitutes
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
2 tablespoons sugar
¼ to ½ teaspoon ground white pepper
Directions
- Marinate Chicken
1Slice the chicken against the grain into thin strips, then add to a bowl with 2 tablespoons cornstarch, 1 tablespoon light soy sauce, and 1 tablespoon oil. Mix well. Marinate for at least 30 minutes. If marinating for longer, do so in the refrigerator.
- Make Stir Fry Sauce
1Make the stir-fry sauce by combining all the sauce ingredients in a medium saucepan and placing it over medium heat. Heat the sauce while stirring until the sugar dissolves.
- Make the Stir Fry
1In a small bowl, stir 1 tablespoon of cornstarch with 3 tablespoons of cold water. Set aside.
2Heat a large, heavy skillet or wok over high heat. Add 1 tablespoon of high-heat oil (like vegetable or avocado oil).
3Add the marinated chicken in a single layer. Let it cook for one minute without moving until the underside starts to brown.
4Toss the chicken and continue cooking until it’s almost cooked, 3 to 5 more minutes. Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside.
5Add another tablespoon of oil to the hot pan. Stir in the broccoli florets and cook, stirring frequently, until bright green and crisp-tender, 3 to 5 minutes.
6Return the chicken to the pan and toss with the broccoli for about a minute.
7Pour in the stir-fry sauce. Give the cornstarch mixture another quick stir, then slowly add it to the pan.
8Stir constantly until the sauce thickens and coats the chicken and broccoli. Serve immediately.
Adam and Joanne's Tips
- Storing: Your leftovers will last in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days. The broccoli may lose some crispness over time, but it’s still safe to eat. You can freeze this, but the texture of the broccoli will change. Freeze in freezer-safe containers for up to 3 months.
- Shaoxing wine: A Chinese rice wine used in Chinese cuisine. It’s the most authentic choice in this stir fry recipe, so we highly recommend adding it to your pantry if you can find it. However, if you cannot find it, we have two alternatives: dry sherry or mirin. Mirin is sweeter than Shaoxing wine, so you will likely need to reduce the sugar by 1 tablespoon. One more option is to use rice wine vinegar, which makes the sauce taste slightly different, and you may need more sugar.
- Gluten-free tips: When shopping for the ingredients listed above (especially the soy sauce), look for gluten-free on the label. If you cannot find gluten-free soy sauce, look for gluten-free tamari, which, unlike soy sauce, is traditionally made without or with very little wheat.
- The best pan to use: While a wok is ideal for stir-fries, any heavy-bottomed skillet will work for this recipe. Cast iron, stainless steel, and carbon steel are great choices, as they handle high heat well. Avoid nonstick pans for stir-frying. If you experience sticking, keep the heat high and add more oil to help the ingredients move freely in the pan.
- The nutrition facts provided below are estimates.
I made this tonight was looking for easy recipe and I found yours among the rest, it is a keeper, Thank You. It is so yummy and my grand kids loves it.
Yay! Happy the grand kids enjoyed it 🙂
Made this for dinner last week for my boyfriend and I and we absolutely loved it!!! He said it taste better than takeout. it definitely does if I could give this recipe 20 stars I would thank you so much for such a delicious meal!!!
That is quite the compliment! Thank you for coming back to leave such a great review! 🙂
This was so good!! I velveted the chicken so it would be super tender. This recipe is a definite keeper!!
Glad you liked it! When we were testing the recipe we were blown away with how much of a difference velveting the chicken makes.
thank you for making the recipe so easy to follow! we devoured it! thank you! 🙂
Delicious! Very tasty recipe
Since I started stir frying chicken 40 years ago, I always marinated the chicken 1st in soy sauce and cornstarch from an old LeeAnn Chin recipe, never realizing this what velveting chicken is called! I like the adding of the oil. I did find I needed to add a little water to make the marinade easier to mix. The star of the show was making the stir-fry sauce separately! I loved just throwing that in already mixed together. Will this work for other proteins? I.e. shrimp and beef?
Great recipe! This will be in my permanent rotation!
Chopping the fresh ginger and garlic was time consuming but worth it. Delicious dish!
Do you think I could add beef with the chicken?
Definitely!
Received a carbon steel wok for the holidays and was searching for a recipe to inuagurate my pan. Found your site, and this recipe. Wow, so delicious. Can’t wait to try more of your recipes. Thank you!
Wow!! I doubled this recipe because we needed to feed a family of 6. It was AMAZING. It tastes better than the chinese food place. Really authentic recipe and the ginger and garlic added great flavor!! Very comforting meal. Everyone came back for seconds lol Make sure you get the Progada brand for the cooking wine. I recommend using the brands the recipe suggests since it’s authentic chinese ingredients. Delicious!
I did this recipe tonight and it was really good! I also added mushroom, carrots, onion, celery, green pepper! Delicious!
I’ve made this several times. I love adding cashews! It is so delicious!
Definitely worthy of 5 stars! I also added thinly sliced carrot, beans and mushrooms. Was delicious. Even my anti-veges child loved it!
Wonderfully tasteful and easily prepared!
We are so glad we could inspire you!
Made for dinner tonight and it was delicious! Changed it just slightly by slicing rather than mincing garlic. And adding a teaspoon of chili garlic sauce at the end because we like a little heat.
The best stir fry recipe! The fresh garlic and fresh ginger are the best thing about this. The flavors really shine in this recipe.
Also the method of cooking the chicken leaves them so tender and flavorful.
I’ve been making stir fry since my 20s (70s now!) and this recipe is top 5!! I made it as written but added yellow bell pepper with the broccoli and green onions at the end, and sautéed the garlic and ginger briefly in the sesame oil before adding the rest of the ingredients for the sauce. Finished with a sprinkle of red pepper flakes!
This was amazing. The chicken was so tender. I added one onion and carrots. Sprinkled toasted sesame seeds.
Absolutely delicious and easy to make, my whole family loved it!!!! Thank you!!!
Wonderful! 🙂
This is one of my favorite dishes to make. It’s always a hit! We love to add cashews!
Packed with flavor!! This was delicious and easy to make. I used tofu instead of chicken and it soaked up the sauce wonderfully! Two thumbs up!!
Full flavored staple. I love the bold flavors of garlic and ginger – definitely take the time to use fresh – it makes a huge, impactful, difference, imo. Thank you for sharing this one. It will definitely be in our weeknight dinner rotation.
This is hands down the best Asian dish I have ever made…and I have made countless. The velveting process intrigued me. Never heard of it before. But I thought I would try it to see if that would make the dish more authentic (despite years of trying various homemade Asian recipes, it never tastes as good as take-out and isn’t worth the work IMO). I dont know if that was the reason, but all I do know is this was phenomenal. I used sherry in place of the wine mentioned. Outside of that I changed nothing. Teens devoured it. The chicken was unbelievable moist and the flavors were simply amazing. This is the second recipe I’ve made from this site…recently discovered them on IG. I loved it. WOW. Thank you thank you thank you.
Spot on flavours and well-written receipe, delicious and easy dinner. We loved it …(didn’t heat the sauce in advance, added it cold and it worked too). Will certainly be cooking this regularly. Thanks!
I’ve made this and it’s delicious! Would it hold up if made ahead of time for a buffet? Would love to serve at a Christmas party but want to enjoy my guests and not be in the kitchen!
Hi Jodi, This can be made in advance. I’d keep it warm while serving in a crockpot or something similar.
Loved this so much- I made it two weeks in a row! Thank you for the videos, they help quite a bit.
I made this last night. To be honest, when I watched the video and saw the amount of garlic and ginger, I was concerned it would be too gingery. Not at all, don’t fear – it was great!! Honestly, I think it’s even better re-heated for supper tonight too!
This has a ridiculous amount of flavor!! Thanks for guiding me through a delicious dinner.
Yay! Glad you love it 🙂
Oh my gosh, this was DELICIOUS!!!!! As it was very easy to make, all the way down to the video! Thank you for this recipe! This is a weekly dish in my house.
The absolute best stir fry I have ever made. Delicious!! Velveting the chicken…omgoodness!!! This is one of my recipes from now on. I am also checking out your other recipes.
Fabulous. The best chicken and broccoli I’ve ever eaten. I followed the directions explicitly.
Wonderful! 🙂
Very Good!! Made as written except i doubled the sauce to accommodate the extra veggies, also I tossed in a hot pepper. Will definitely make again!! Thank you!!!
This recipe looks delicious! I will definitely try it. I need to lower my salt intake, so I will be using low salt soy sauce.
Great recipe! Flavors are well balanced … delicious! Definitely a keeper!
The sauce! I had left over rotisserie chicken and frozen broccoli cuts which I sautéed in a little oil – added corn starch and the sauce. A perfect use of leftover chicken on a night I needed something quick. Next time I will try cooking chicken as you do but this was awesome in a pinch!
Very tasty and well written recipe. Will definitely do it again!
Thank you. We are happy that all of the extra info was helpful!