Chicken Breasts and Green Beans in Black Bean Sauce!

Over the weekend, the hubby said to me, "WE need to cook more and WE need to eat out less." (i like how he says "we" when we all know he means me). While I do admit, we probably order in or eat out more often than we should, we do eat at my mom's twice a week, so it's not like we don't get any home cooked meals. I tend to go through phases of cooking pretty consistently and then have one day where I'd feel tired and order-in. Then one day turns into two, two turns into three, and all of a sudden I stop cooking.  I hope to keep with it this time, I'm going to experiment with different marinades, sauces and recipes and share them here!

Tonight I made Stir-fried chicken breasts and green beans in a black bean sauce for the first time. I kinda winged it with this recipe and tried to cook it like my mom does. I don't think I've ever really seen her cook it though. I also don't know the amounts of the ingredients I used so I'll just sorta guess...

Stir-fried chicken breasts and green beans in a black bean sauce

6oz. Chicken Breasts - Cubed

2 Tbsp Black Bean & Garlic Sauce

4 cups Fresh Green Beans

1/2 White Onion - Chopped

Chicken Stock

Soy sauce

Garlic Powder

Vegetable Oil

Cornstarch

1. Marinate the chicken breast cubes with a few dashes of soy sauce and garlic powder (sorry I just eyeball it!) for about 30 minutes or overnight in the refrigerator.
2. Blanch Green beans for a few minutes depending on how thick your green beans are and how crisp you like them. I prefer my veggies more on the soft side and blanched my green beans for about 4 minutes.
3. Heat up a wok or frying pan at Med-High heat, add about 2 tsp of oil and saute the onions for a few minutes. Add Chicken breasts, Black bean sauce and sugar to the onions and cook until chicken is almost fully cooked then add the green beans. Stir the ingredients around to coat the green beans with the black bean sauce.
4. Add chicken stock (amount depends on how much gravy you like), stir, and bring to a simmer. Add cornstarch dissolved in water to thicken the gravy (add cornstarch mixture until desired thickness, if too thick, add some more chicken stock). 

That's it! WAH LAH! Jpjp...Voila!

It was very yummy and tasted like something my mom would make! The hubby ate a lot! He even packed some for tomorrow! For my 2-year old son, I pan fried a few of the chicken cubes sans black bean sauce and made a creamed corn sauce to top his rice. He liked that very much!

This is the Black Bean Sauce that I used. There are other varieties (i.e. Black bean chili sauce).

I'm not a great cook, just a girl that has eaten a lot of good home cooked food thanks to her mom. That is where I'm getting inspiration for my home cooked meals. I hope you enjoy this recipe, you can switch up the protein or veggies too!

Quick Kitchen Tip:

The black bean sauce will need to be refrigerated after opening. Black beans are pretty strong in odor, especially with garlic in it. Place some twice or thrice folded over plastic wrap over the the opening of the bottle before capping it to reduce amount of airgaps. If you'd like you can wrap the bottle once more after it's been capped and rubberband the neck of the bottle for super odor protection. Let's make the refrigerator a happier place :)

Upcoming recipes:

Bulgogi Beef! (semi-homemade) Probably not really traditional since I'm Chinese :P

Turkey Meatloaf

Lemongrass Pork (maybe in the form of a banh mi)