A terrific fridge and pantry forage meal, made with your choice of dried noodles, a simple but tasty stir fry sauce and whatever veggies you can scrape together. This is loaded with veggies and light on the noodles, and if you cook it for more than 5 minutes, it’s overcooked!! This is a super quick midweek stir fry that is really tasty.
PREPARATION TIME
Ingredients
CHICKEN (NOTE 1):
150 – 180 g/ 5 – 6 oz chicken breast , cut into thin strips
1 tsp cornflour / cornstarch (optional)
1 tsp oil (peanut, vegetable, canola) (optional)
SAUCE (OR USE MY HOMEMADE STIR FRY SAUCE, STEP 2):
2 tbsp oyster sauce (or sub with Hoisin)
1 tbsp dark soy sauce (Note 2)
1/2 tsp each sesame oil, sugar (optional)
1 1/2 tbsp Chinese cooking wine (Shoaxing wine) OR Mirin (Note 3)
1/4 tsp white pepper (or black pepper)
3 tbsp water
STIR FRY:
100 g / 3.5 oz dried rice noodles (Note 4)
1 tbsp oil
1 garlic clove , finely chopped (Note 5)
1 small onion , sliced (white, brown, yellow)
1/2 bunch choy sum or other Asian greens , stems separated from leaves (Note 6)
1/2 red capsicum / bell pepper , sliced
1 carrot , peeled, cut in half lengthwise and sliced on the diagonal
5 – 7 mushrooms , sliced
Sesame seeds and finely sliced green onions/scallions , optional
Instructions
Recipe Notes:
This step is optional because this is such a quick stir fry, the breast should be juicy. Also, thigh could be used instead which is juicier.
2. Dark Soy Sauce has more flavour than light or all purpose soy sauce and also stains the noodles a darker colour. If you don’t have Dark Soy Sauce, I would use 3 tbsp of Oyster Sauce and only 2 tsp of all purpose or light soy sauce.
3. Chinese Cooking Wine – sub with Mirin (skip sugar if you do) or Dry Sherry. If you can’t consume alcohol, use 1/4 cup chicken broth/stock instead (or 1 crumbled stock cube + 2 tbsp water)
4. Noodles – works great with any noodles. Use 100g/3.5oz of dried rice noodles (rice sticks, pad thai, vermicelli), or about 120g/4 oz of dried noodles (like egg noodles, ramen, Maggi, Fantastic noodles), or 180g / 6 oz fresh noodles (which usually just need to be soaked in hot water).
I used Changs Rice Stick Noodles in the video and photos. I like noodles that can just be soaked in hot water rather than having to boil (the thicker ones need to be boiled).
5. Finely chopping garlic rather than using garlic from a jar or mincing it using a crusher stops it from burning and spitting.
6. Use about 2 handfuls once chopped, this wilts a lot once cooked, so don’t be afraid to bulk up! Cut stems into 5 cm / 2″ lengths, and split thicker stems in half lengthwise so they are all roughly the same size. Any Asian greens works great in this, or sub with 2 1/2 cups shredded or chopped cabbage, spinach or other leafy greens.
7. Don’t rehydrate the rice noodles until just before cooking. If you leave them sitting around for a while, they have a tendency to break when cooked.
8. VEGGIE SUBS: I recommend using onion but other than that, feel free to swap out the veggies for whatever you have. Use about 5 cups (packed) of veggies of choice.
9. Nutrition per serving, assuming 150g/5 oz chicken used.
