Chinese · Quick Meals

Vegetable Stir-Fry

Whatever is in the fridge, cut evenly and cooked hard for four minutes in a sauce that clings. Twenty-five minutes and the noodles are optional.

25 min total Serves 4 servings Easy
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Vegetable Stir-Fry

Photograph credit: Vegetable stir frying pan · CC0 1.0 · Rawpixel

Cut everything to a thickness that matches how long it takes to cook, not to look tidy: broccoli in thin florets, carrots in matchsticks, peppers in wide strips. Then add them in order of hardness, thirty to sixty seconds apart. A stir-fry that goes in all at once is either raw carrot or grey broccoli, and usually both.

Vegetable Stir-Fry: Step by Step

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  1. Mix the soy, vinegar, sugar and sesame oil in a cup and set it by the hob.

  2. Heat the oil in a wok until it just begins to smoke.

  3. Fry the garlic and ginger for 20 seconds.

  4. Add the carrot and broccoli and stir-fry 90 seconds.

  5. Add the baby corn and stir-fry 45 seconds.

  6. Add the pepper and mangetout and stir-fry 60 seconds.

  7. Pour in the sauce and let it boil hard for 30 seconds.

  8. Stir the cornflour slurry and pour it in, tossing, until the sauce turns glossy and clings.

  9. Add the spring onions and toss once.

  10. Scatter the sesame seeds over and serve immediately.

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A Few Pointers

  • Cut to cooking time, not to neatness.
  • Hardest vegetables first, softest last.
  • The slurry goes into a boiling pan, moving.

If You're Missing Something

  • Out of spring onions? A small regular onion, finely sliced, or a few chives stirred in at the end both cover the job.
  • If you only have ground ginger, a quarter-teaspoon for each tablespoon of fresh is the ratio usually given; it tastes warmer and less bright than the fresh root.
  • An eighth of a teaspoon of garlic powder per clove is the stand-in usually given when you are out of fresh garlic; it will not brown the same way, and it burns easily, so add it with the liquid.

What to Serve With It

Steamed rice · Egg fried rice · Chilli oil

Sides from the same cuisine on this site: Stir-Fried Water Spinach.

Leftovers and Storage

Keeps 2 days refrigerated but the vegetables soften. Best fresh.

Vegetable Stir-Fry Nutrition Facts

Per serving, an approximate calculation from the ingredient list. Treat it as a rough guide: part of the energy comes from foods, or weights per item, with no recorded source. How the figures are worked out.

233Calories
6gProtein
23gCarbs
13gFat
6gFibre
10gSugar
710mgSodium

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Compiled by Turab

Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.

First published ; last changed .