Easy Chicken and Broccoli is a quick and simple weeknight chicken dinner!
Tender strips of chicken breast and crisp broccoli florets in a delicious savory-sweet ginger-garlic sauce.
It’s a terrific homemade takeout!
And since this recipe doesn’t contain oyster sauce like the traditional Chinese-American chicken dish might nor does it contain pork, it’s kosher!
Also, it’s dairy-free!
Serve it over rice for a flavorful, filling meal.
Chinese food is the best!
It’s made in one pan, so it’s very simple.
And it’s so quick that you certainly can have it ready in less time than it takes to get served in a restaurant and in less time than it takes to have it delivered to your door!
And you can save money on tips!
If you keep kosher, you know how expensive kosher Chinese can be! Making it at home cost so much less!
Also chicken has health benefits!
And so does broccoli!
A Little About Broccoli
Broccoli is part of a group called “cole” crops, which also includes Brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale, and collard greens.
It began growing in the Mediterranean over 1500 years ago and was grown in the Roman Empire. By the 18th century, it had spread throughout Europe and was brought to North America by Italian immigrants sometime in the 19th century.
Broccoli is considered to be a healthy vegetable. It contains vitamins, nutrients, and fiber, and it is low in calories!
A little about Chinese-American Food
Chinese-American cuisine is a style of Chinese cuisine that was developed by Chinese Americans. These dishes significantly differ from traditional Chinese dishes because Chinese-American dishes were adapted to suit American tastes.
Chinese immigrants arrived in the United States in large numbers in the mid-19th century in order to escape the economic difficulties in China, hoping to find work during the California Gold Rush and on the Central Pacific Railroad.
They mostly settled together in ghettos, individually known as Chinatown, and—since there were laws preventing them from owning their own land—they opened their own businesses, such as laundry services and restaurants.
Initially, the family-owned businesses catered to miners and railroad workers, and restaurants were set up in places where Chinese food was unknown. Food was based on the requests of the customers, and recipes were created to suit American tastes using whatever ingredients were available.
One major difference between traditional Chinese cuisine and Chinese-American cuisine is in the use of vegetables. Chinese-American recipes will use raw or uncooked ingredients and those not native to China. Traditional Chinese cuisine, on the other hand, rarely contains raw or uncooked ingredients and often uses Asian leaf vegetables.
While the new dishes were not traditional Chinese, these restaurants were responsible for the development of the ever-popular Chinese-American cuisine.
The little history of kosher Chinese-American Food
It is well known that Jews (especially those with ties to New York) love Chinese food. You can find at least one and, more often than not, several kosher Chinese restaurants in predominantly Jewish neighborhoods.
Jews as a group were probably first introduced to Chinese food in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where immigrants of various cultures settled in their own neighborhoods in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
By the early 1900s, approximately one million Jews from Eastern Europe and half a million Italians from Southern Italy shared the Lower East Side of Manhattan with only approximately 7,000 Cantonese Chinese, most of whom had moved from California.
Due to anti-Chinese laws and acts, which prevented them from competing with whites, many Chinese opened restaurants, but Jews who kept kosher couldn’t eat the food.
Finally, Sol Bernstein a Jewish, kosher deli owner found a solution. Using Cantonese Chinese recipes and substituting kosher veal, beef, and chicken livers for pork, he began selling the first kosher Chinese food (or kosher deli-Chinese). He was the first and after the deli became very popular, others followed.
If you love Chinese-American food and don’t eat pork or keep kosher, but don’t have such a restaurant to takeout near you, or if you just don’t want to pay the high prices they charge, then you should totally try these other homemade kosher Chinese-American recipes!
- Kosher Pepper Steak
- Kosher Chicken and Broccoli
- Kosher Mongolian Chicken
- Kosher Mongolian Beef
- Kosher Corned Beef & Cabbage Egg Rolls
- Kosher Chicken Lo Mein
- Kosher General Tso’s Chicken
- Kosher Chicken Fried Rice
- Vegetarian Fried Rice
- Kosher Chicken Chow Mein
- Kosher Beef Chow Mein
- Egg Drop Soup
Easy Kosher Chicken and Broccoli (no pork, no diary, no oyster sauce)
Easy and delicious kosher Chinese-American chicken dish made without dairy, pork, or oyster sauce. Delicious and kosher too!
Ingredients
- 1 pound of kosher chicken breast sliced thin into 1/2" slices
- 2 cups (2 pounds) frozen chopped broccoli florets, defrosted
- 1/2 cup soy sauce
- 1 medium onion, sliced very thin*
- 4 tablespoons dark brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon ground ginger
- 1 tablespoon granulated garlic
- 3 tablespoons cornstarch
- water
- oil
Instructions
- Lightly fry onions in a very small amount of oil in a large frying pan on medium heat.
- Add chicken slices and cook through while stirring.
- Add soy sauce, sugar, ginger and garlic.
- Mix well.
- Add 1 cup water.
- Cook for a few minutes until everything is mixed in well.
- Place cornstarch in a bowl and pour in a little of the liquid and mix thoroughly to create a slurry.
- Pour the slurry back into the frying pan.
- Mix well as the mixture thickens a little.
- Turn off heat and mix in broccoli. florets.
Notes
*You can exclude the onions if you want to. Just start with the chicken in number 2 of the instructions.
To ensure this dish is kosher, make sure that not only the chicken is kosher but that there is no question about any of the other ingredients as well.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
4Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 324Total Fat: 8gSaturated Fat: 1gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 6gCholesterol: 96mgSodium: 1845mgCarbohydrates: 23gFiber: 1gSugar: 12gProtein: 39g