by Judith Willson

Created on: March 28, 2010   Last Updated: September 24, 2010

Stir fried vegetables take minutes to cook and are packed with vitamins and other nutrients.  With a sauce and rice or noodles they can be a meal in themselves, or the perfect accompaniment to almost any dish.  To get the best possible stirfry practice makes perfect.  However, new cooks can get great results by following some simple guidelines. 

Prepare all the vegetables first.  

Washing, slicing and chopping your vegetables actually takes longer than cooking them.  For an interesting stir fry cut into different shapes.  Rather than just cubing everything, thinly slice onions and peppers, halve mushrooms, and create half moons of courgette (zucchini).

Choose the right oil.

Plain sunflower oil is fine whatever you plan to eat the stir fry with or turn it into.  Sesame works for most Asian food and olive for most Italian.   When in doubt go for a bland oil without any extra flavours.  Whatever you choose it needs to be hot before you start cooking.  Remember you are stir frying, not deep frying, and don't need that much.  Enough to cover the bottom of the pan or wok (1-2 tablespoons) should be plenty.

Fry with salt. 

If you want softer onions then add salt to the oil at the beginning rather than later.  This ‘melts’ onions and other vegetables, releasing water and meaning you need less oil.  It also speeds up the cooking. 

Fry in order. 

Of how crunchy you would like each veggie to be.  The longer they fry the softer they will be.  Most people start with onions, then tough vegetables such as carrots and broccoli, then peppers, and finally soft ones like mushrooms and courgette.  

However decide yourself. If you like soggy mushrooms and nearly raw carrots then put the mushrooms in early and the carrots slightly later.  Remember that if you plan to add a sauce everything will get slightly softer with the increased cooking time. 

If you are not sure and you only plan to cook three or four different veggies you could fry each one separately.  Take them out when nearly perfect.  Do the same for each one, then finish off cooking all together with seasonings for a minute. 

Fry hot.

Stirfries have got their name for a reason.  The best results come when you put them into sizzling oil and keep stirring to prevent burning.  Crunchy vegetables only take a few minutes to be perfect. 

Add a sauce. 

A squirt of lemon juice and a little garlic is the simplest sauce and ideal if the stir fry is to accompany something else.  For a more elaborate sauce, such as a Chinese one, add all the ingredients immediately after the last veggie goes in.  Allow as long as possible for the flavours to mingle.  You might want to add a little water or stock to prevent things sticking. 

Stir fries are a fresh, tasty way to increase your vegetable consumption.  Since they are so quick to make and can be made with all sorts of veggies there is no reason to not have one whenever you want.  In this case at least fast food doesn’t have to mean unhealthy food.

 

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