Stir-fries are one of my favorite dishes because they’re so versatile in terms of the veggies that you can use, and they’re also so quick and simple. They’re particularly delicious with a wide range of winter vegetables like bok choy, cabbage, broccoli, carrots, green onions, kale, radishes, peas, mushrooms and more.

This is a basic recipe for two that you can use to get started, but I encourage you to play around with it and try all sorts of different substitutions. There are just a few things you need to keep in mind for a successful stir-fry with almost any combination of veggies:

The basic spices you should always include are garlic, ginger and chili if you like the heat.
You need to get the oil in the pan really hot before you start cooking the veggies. It’s best to wait until it’s actually smoking.
Don’t try and cook too much in the pan at any one time so that the vegetables don’t start stewing in their own liquid. You might need to cook in batches to avoid this.
Start with the hardest vegetables first such as carrots and green cabbage and finish with delicate veggies like zucchini and bok choy.
Vegetables that don’t work well are those that get saucy, or don’t hold their shape well when cooked, like winter squash, pumpkin, eggplant, or tomatoes.

Ingredients

6 oz stir fry noodles, cooked according to package instructions. (or maybe try the spaghetti squash in your box this week!)
1 large carrot, cut into matchsticks
1 small head bok choy, roughly chopped
1 bell pepper (any color but I used red), sliced into thin strips
1 small white onion, halved and thinly sliced into crescents
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 thumb sized piece of root ginger grated (easiest to do if you freeze it first), or 1 tsp powdered ginger.
1 chili (optional), thinly sliced
2 tbsp canola oil (or other vegetable oil with high smoke point)

Optional sauce ingredients

If you want the quick and simple option, you can just dress your stir-fry with a couple tablespoons of soy sauce, but if you want something more like the sauce that restaurant dishes come with, try this:

1 cup vegetable stock
1 Tbsp honey
1 Tbsp toasted sesame oil
1/4 cup low sodium soy sauce
2 tsp corn starch

Method

Start by cutting all the vegetables as per the ingredients section above and preparing the noodles according to the packet instructions. Once you start cooking the veggies you’ll need to be constantly stirring, so you won’t have time do any other prep. Keep the chopped veggies separate from each other so that you can add them to the pan in the order from which need most to least cooking.
Also prepare your sauce (optional) before you start cooking the veggies in the following way:
- Put the stock and soy sauce in a microwave safe measuring jug and heat them in the microwave for a couple of minutes, then mix in the honey and sesame oil.
- In a small bowl or other container, add the 2 tsp corn starch and a couple of table spoons of cold water and mix them into a paste. Now add this to the stock mixture and stir well.
- Set this aside until the veggies are cooked.
Heat the canola oil in a large frying pan or wok on a very high heat until it starts smoking, then add the garlic, ginger and chili and stir continuously for about 30 seconds.
Now add the carrots and continue stirring for another couple of minutes.
Next, add the pepper and onions and continue stirring, keeping all the veggies moving constantly around the pan for a further two minutes.
Lastly, add the bok choy and stir until the leaves have wilted, about 1 minute.
Turn the heat down to medium and add the cooked and drained noodles that you prepared earlier, frying them with the vegetables for one minute. At this stage you can just add a few tablespoons of soy sauce to the pan and stir it in before serving, but if you prepared the restaurant style sauce, go to the next step.
Add the sauce to the pan and bring to a boil. Keep stirring everything together until the sauce begins to thicken. This shouldn’t take more than 30 seconds or so because the pan will still have lots of residual heat. As soon as it reaches your desired thickness, take it off the heat and dish it up on to plates as quickly as possible so it doesn’t continue cooking.

If you wish to add some protein to this recipe there are lots of good choices. You can throw in some cashew nuts or prawns at the same time as the bok choy as both these options only require heating through rather than lots of cooking. Alternatively, you can fry some chicken strips or tofu until they’re crispy before cooking the veggies and set them aside until you add the noodles right at the end.

Simple Stir-Fry