Trader Joe’s Kung Pao Chicken combines dark meat chicken with crunchy green & red bell peppers, onions, dried chili powder, water chestnuts and peanuts. What makes this Kung Pao so distinctive, though, is the sauce. Traditionally, sauces for this dish are rich and savory and can range from mildly spicy to sound-the-alarm-and-grab-a-hose hot. Ours falls in the medium-spicy range—the dish will taste substantially hotter if you actually eat the chili pieces, and a little less hot if you push the chilies to the side of the plate and treat them as a garnish. We think the heat level in our sauce makes it easy to share among friends who fall on opposite sides of the spicy spectrum. If really spicy is your thing, though, you can always add your favorite spicy condiment and even more chili peppers to the finished dish.

We recommend preparing our Kung Pao Chicken on the stovetop, in a really hot wok or skillet, but it can also be prepared in the microwave. Serve it with one of our frozen, ready-in-three-minutes rice options or our Organic Riced Cauliflower, and you’ll have a complete meal ready in ten minutes or less.