311 recipes. Page 1 of 13
Quick and delicious stir-fry recipes
Paper-thin sheets of dried whitebait are dry-toasted until stiff, then coated thinly in gochujang, soy sauce and oligosaccharide syrup. Straight from the pan they look a little soft, but they crisp as they cool; there is no need to keep them on the heat longer.
Bacon started in a cold pan renders slowly, and that smoky fat replaces cooking oil for the whole fried rice. Well-fermented sour kimchi is fried until its edges brown, which rounds its sharp tang into something toastier. Pressing the rice against the pan builds a light crust on the bottom, the cue to turn off the heat. A runny-yolk fried egg goes on top and gets broken into the rice like a sauce.
Thin-sliced beef brisket goes into a dry pan first, and the fat it renders cooks the garlic, onion and zucchini. If the brisket gives off plenty, the cooking oil can be cut back. It is a side for rice, or spooned over a hot bowl of it as a quick rice bowl.
Said to have started at snack shops outside Seoul schools in the 1970s and 80s, this tteokbokki has no broth at all. The rice cakes brown in oil one side at a time, then the heat drops and a chili flake and soy paste goes in to coat them thinly. Warmed in the oil, the chili flakes smell toasty before they taste hot.
Minced pork, crumbled fine, clings to thin glass noodles as they soak up a reduced doubanjiang broth, and those bits of meat on the strands give the dish its name. The liquid cooks down almost completely, so the result is moist and glossy rather than soupy. Glass noodles go in still slightly firm and finish cooking in the pan, absorbing the sauce without breaking.
Napolitan grew out of postwar Japan, when ketchup and Vienna sausages were easier to find than pricier ingredients, and it still tastes like retro home cooking. The ketchup is fried in the pan before the noodles join it, cooking off its water so the raw tang turns into concentrated tomato sweetness, with Worcestershire adding a fermented, savory layer. Sausage browns first, until its edges color and the pan smells of it. The onion and green pepper get only a quick blast of high heat so they stay crisp, and a knob of butter at the end softens the ketchup's tang into a sweet, salty gloss.
The dried shrimp go into a dry pan for about a minute first to drive off leftover moisture. The soy sauce and oligosaccharide syrup glaze gets 30 seconds after it first bubbles, and then the heat goes off; any longer and it sets hard. Cooled and sealed, it keeps for a few days at room temperature.
Dig in and the melted mozzarella stretches away to reveal chicken breast fried rice turned red with buldak sauce, the fiery Korean chicken sauce. The sauce goes onto the chicken and onion before the rice.
Canned tuna is already cooked, so the zucchini goes in first and the tuna joins only for the last 2 minutes. Added at the start, the tuna breaks into crumbs while the zucchini sheds a lot of water. Soup soy sauce and gochugaru (Korean chili flakes) go in sparingly, enough to tint the zucchini red without making any liquid.
The word gungjung, royal court, points back to the food of the Joseon palace. Soy sauce and sesame oil do the seasoning, so there is no heat, and bulgogi-cut beef and shiitake go in with the rice cakes. The beef is seared only on the outside and set aside, returning to the pan after the rice cakes have softened.
Kecap manis, Indonesia's thick sweet soy sauce, caramelizes against the hot wok and wraps the thin rice vermicelli in a dark, sticky coat. Sambal fried in the oil first puts heat underneath that sweetness, and chicken, cabbage and carrot are tossed in quickly so the vegetables keep some crunch. Street stalls and warung across Indonesia and Malaysia cook it from early morning until late at night.
Keep the heat at its lowest and keep lifting the seaweed so it never sits still, then turn the heat off when a piece crumbles between your fingertips. Spread it on a wide plate until completely cool before it goes into a sealed container. Laver covered while still warm goes soft again quickly.
The oil from the tuna can goes straight into the pan and the onion and carrot fry in it, so the tuna flavor gets into the vegetables and rice. Each bowl is topped with its own fried egg.
Ground perilla seeds thicken the small amount of cooking liquid into a light, nutty sauce, so the cabbage ends up sitting in a shallow gravy rather than dry or watery. Stems and leaves are cut together, yet a short covered cook leaves the stems with some crunch while the leaves turn soft.
As cabbage and onion wilt over high heat, the moisture they release loosens the gochujang sauce so it coats every slice of sundae, Korean blood sausage. Add rice cakes and it becomes tteoksuni; some finish it with cheese on top.
Penang hawkers built this dish for laborers who needed a cheap, filling plate cooked fast, and its flavor depends on wok hei, the charred breath of a wok heated until it smokes. Wide flat rice noodles, prawns, egg, bean sprouts and Chinese chives move through the pan in a few minutes, while dark soy and oyster sauce stain the noodles a glossy brown. Drying everything and lining it up within reach before the burner is lit keeps stray water on the noodles or prawns from dropping the wok temperature and steaming the food instead of searing it.
Curry powder turns the rice golden, lighter than a curry-over-rice plate but more aromatic than ordinary fried rice. Chicken breast, onion, carrot and green pepper are all chopped small.
In North Indian homes this potato dish shows up next to dal and rice on an ordinary weeknight, with methi (fenugreek leaves) bringing a bitter edge. Fresh methi is strongly bitter with an earthy smell that softens once it hits the hot pan, and it goes in only after the potatoes have cooked under a lid with cumin, turmeric and chili. When fresh leaves are hard to find, dried kasuri methi is rubbed between the palms and added at the end.
Seared tripe, briefly warmed sundae (Korean blood sausage), and cabbage that keeps some bite all share one pan, each with a different chew. Equal parts gochujang and gochugaru make the heat unmistakable.
Spread across a very hot pan and left alone for a moment, the noodles pick up crisp, browned patches while the centers stay chewy, and that contrast defines chow mein. It depends on dry ingredients: noodles boiled just short of tender and cooled, bean sprouts shaken free of water, and vegetables pulled before they weep. A thin coat of sesame oil on the drained noodles stops them from fusing into a clump as they cool. High heat from start to finish keeps liquid from pooling in the pan, where it would steam the noodles instead of frying them. Oyster sauce and soy give the strands a glossy, salty coating.
Chicken thigh, cabbage and onion stir-fried with gochujang and chili flakes get cold rice tossed in, turning dakgalbi into fried rice. Once it is mixed, the rice is pressed against the pan for 30 seconds to sear the bottom, then covered with mozzarella and melted under a lid.
The woody ends of the asparagus are snapped off by hand rather than cut. They break on their own right where the tough part stops. Chicken tenderloin, sliced thin against the grain, is stir-fried hard and fast in soy sauce and syrup, and the heat goes off while the asparagus is still bright green.
Without the tripe of sundae-gopchang-bokkeum, this stir-fry leans on cabbage, onion, and scallion for a lighter plate. The vegetables are cut thick so they still have bite after cooking, and soy sauce in the gochujang glaze makes it as salty as it is spicy.
Strips of chicken breast take the place of beef, giving a leaner japchae where the noodles, spinach, carrot, shiitake and onion come through more clearly. Tossing the drained noodles with a little soy sauce and sesame oil right away and spreading them out keeps them from gluing together while everything else cooks.