Vegetable Stir Fry rice noodles - This recipe is super quick to throw together, with only a bit of prep and just one pan. It's so versatile, this stir fry makes using up little bits and pieces of leftovers almost effortless. It's also vegan, gluten free, and refined sugar free, so that's a bonus!
We always love to have some kind of stir fry in February to honor the Chinese new year holiday, and this is a budget friendly, easy, and healthy way to do so.
We have to admit that this rice noodles recipe owes it's core inspiration to pancit, one of our favorite dishes from the Philippines. But rather than try to improve or imitate a culinary masterpiece like that one, we used some of the same veggies and ingredients to make our own delicious Asian inspired plate.
This can easily be a center of the plate vegan entrée, but it would also serve well when paired with our pork tenderloin with clementine sauce.
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What You're Going to Need!
- Asian Rice Noodles - There are tons of different types of Asian noodles available. We chose to use what is often referred to as rice vermicelli, for it's fine texture, as well as it's ease of preparation.
- Broccoli - A very popular vegetable for stir fry, the florets and smaller tender stems cook through in a matter of minutes, and still have a pleasant crunch.
- Green Cabbage - The light and mild peppery bitterness of cabbage makes it a mainstay in most Asian cuisine.
- Carrot - This root vegetable provide sweetness and vibrant color.
- Soy Sauce - Tamari soy must be used to keep this recipe gluten free, and low sodium will make it even healthier.
- Fresh Ginger - It's a happy coincidence when something that tastes so vibrant as ginger is also healthful in so many ways, (digestion, blood pressure, etc.).
- Garlic - Another healthy and fantastically flavorsome ingredient.
- Green Onion - Along with the last two ingredients, part of the backbone of an Asian stir fry recipe.
- Yellow Onion - Teasing the sweetness out of the onion by cooking it right in the beginning, we can eliminate the need for any refined sugar.
- Rice Wine Vinegar - The low acid content of this natural product is just enough to brighten and accentuate all of the flavors in this vegetable stir fried rice noodles recipe.
See recipe card for quantities.
Recipe
Easy Asian Vegetable Stir fry Rice Noodles Recipe
Equipment
- 1 Cutting Board
- 1 knife
- 1 Mixing Bowl
- 1 tongs
- 1 wok or large skillet
- 1 peeler
Ingredients
- 3 oz. rice vermicelli
- 3 Tbsp. vegetable oil canola, sunflower, or any high smoke point and relatively flavorless variety.
- 3 oz. yellow onion peeled and thinly sliced, (¼ inch)
- ¾ oz. fresh ginger peeled and minced
- 3 cloves garlic large, peeled and minced
- 1 oz. green onion sliced thinly
- 7 oz. broccoli florets, bite size
- 6 oz. carrot peeled and cut into thin rounds (¼ inch)
- 8 oz. green cabbage cored and cut into thin slices (¼ inch)
- 3 Tbsp. tamari soy sauce preferably low sodium
- 2 Tbsp. rice wine vinegar
Instructions
Rehydrate Noodles
- Place noodles in a large mixing bowl.
- Cover the noodles completely with hot water from the tap.
- Allow them to sit and soak for at least 7 minutes, (if you are starting the stir fry right away, leave them in the water while working.)
Stir Fry
- Heat a large wok or skillet over high heat for 2 or 3 minutes.
- Add the oil to the pan and heat until almost smoking, another 2 or 3 minutes, (check by lowering a piece of onion into the oil with the tongs. If it doesn't sizzle right away, wait a little longer.)
- Add the aromatics quickly in this order; yellow onion, ginger, garlic, and green onion.
- Stir rapidly to keep the temperature even.
- Allow to cook until the onion doesn't smell raw, about 1 or 2 minutes.
- Add broccoli, tossing and/or stirring to mix in well.
- Cook the broccoli for 2 to 3 minutes.
- Add the carrots, stirring and cooking for another 2 minutes.
- Add the cabbage, stirring through and cooking until all of the vegetables are cooked until only lightly softened, (taste to determine texture).
- Add noodles to the pan, do not stir.
- Add soy and vinegar.
- Stir to combine all ingredients fully.
- Check the doneness of the noodles by tasting, continue to cook if needed, perhaps even adding a quarter cup or less of water to steam fully to desired texture.
Reasons Why You'll Love This Recipe
Stir fry cooking is very straightforward and simple. Just get all of the ingredients cut and ready, heat up a large pan or wok, and toss it all together. This recipe in particular only uses basic ingredients that can be found in almost any grocery store, if they aren't already in your pantry. These vegetables stir fried rice noodles are vegan, gluten free, as well as there are no refined sugars in the recipe. Everything is cooked very lightly and quickly using a minimal amount of vegetable oil, retaining most of the nutrients. Even the usually high sodium content is lessened when using low sodium tamari sauce. As long as you follow the basic instructions and order in which things are cooked, (high heat, aromatics first, followed by veg, with longest cook times going first in order down to fastest.), this rice noodle stir fry recipe can easily become a great way to use up leftovers. If you have red bell peppers to use up, toss them in! Mushrooms, no problem! If you want to add some chicken, beef, shrimp, you name it, just go ahead.
Directions
- To prepare the noodles to be stir fried, place them in a bowl and cover them with hot water, (no need to boil it, hot from the tap works fine).
2. When the noodles are softened and pliable, about 7 to 10 minutes, set aside.
3. Get a wok or a large skillet very hot over high heat and add oil, allowing a minute or two to heat the oil up, swirling to coat the pan.
4. Add your aromatics; onion, green onion, ginger, and garlic, in that order. Cook until just barely wilted, about 2 minutes.
5. Add the broccoli and stir or toss to combine and cook for another 4 to 5 minutes.
6. Add the carrot, followed by the cabbage, tossing and stirring together to cook evenly.
7. Continue to stir fry the vegetable mixture until cooked through, but still quite crunchy, (pull out a small piece and taste for appropriate texture), about 3 minutes more.
8. Pull noodles from the water and add them to the pan/wok.
9. Rest the noodles on top to start to warm through.
10. Add the soy and vinegar.
11. Toss and stir everything together in the pan and lower heat to medium high.
12. Test a couple of pieces of cooked noodles to get them to desired doneness. If they are not cooked well enough, adding a quarter cup of hot water and covering to steam should do it.
Chef Tip
You may have noticed that several times in the instructions, I mentioned to check the progress of the stir fry by tasting. No recipe is fool proof, and therefore, you need to check as you go to see if you're getting the results that you are looking for. You won't be eating the recipe in the end, you'll be eating the results, so always taste as you go if you can!
Variations
This is definitely one of those recipes that can be adjusted and changed in all kinds of ways.
- Spicy - You can give this some heat with any ingredients. You can add dried chili flakes, chili garlic sauce, sriracha, or your choice of fresh hot chilis in with the aromatics step.
- Meat - If vegan or vegetarian is not your style, any kind of meat will go with this very easily, whether on the side, or in it. Just stir fry or cook the meat however you decide separately. You can also stir fry it in the same pan to about ¾ of the way done, remove, cook the rest of the recipe, and then add it back to the end to finish cooking.
- Optional seasonings - Stirring in a teaspoon of toasted sesame oil , or finishing with fresh cilantro would be a great variation. You could also top the finished dish with some toasted peanuts or sesame seeds. Fujikake sprinkles would add a great Japanese touch.
Storage & Helpful Hints
This stir fry will store well in the fridge tightly covered for 3 days. It will not freeze well. Either re-heat by quickly stir frying again in a hot skillet with a tiny amount of oil, or in the microwave, covered, until desired temperature. (I also like to eat it cold, as a noodle salad!).
Stir frying is really about understanding the nature of heat and basic thermodynamics. this sounds really deep and difficult, but it's actually super simple. When you put a pan on the stove over a flame, it is going to take a bit to heat up. Once it's hot and you add something to it, it's going to cool down until the item added to it heats up to match the temperature. That's actually common sense, right? Using this commonsense logic, as you add stuff to stir fry, it will all cook according to when it's added, and how long everything is in the pan. That's why woks are so large. The larger the pan, the less it will cool down when adding stuff to it.
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Yes, you can cook the meat or fish separately and add it to the pan at the end of the cooking process or cook it in the wok before adding the vegetables.
Jason Miller says
Easy and healthy too!