Simple chicken stir-fry

Stir-fry recipes are incredibly flexible; just add a protein, a sauce, and some veggies to a hot pan, and serve the result over some kind of noodle or grain. This version is made with chicken and mixed veggies, but feel free to swap ingredients around to use up whatever you have in the fridge.

Sauce:

• 1/2 cup chicken broth
  
  
• 1/3 cup soy sauce
  
  
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar or honey
  
  
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
  
  
• 2 tablespoons ginger, minced
  
  
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch

Stir-fry:

• Around 1 lb (453 g) chicken
  
  
• 1 tablespoon cooking oil
  
  
• Around 2 cups of fresh or frozen stir-fry veggies

1. Whisk together ingredients for the sauce in a medium sized bowl. If using fresh veggies, peel and chop into thin strips and set aside. Cut raw chicken into bite-sized pieces
   
   
2. Heat oil in large pan over medium-high heat. Add chicken, and cook until no longer pink, around 5 minutes. Remove chicken, and set aside.
   
   
3. Add vegetables to same pan, and cook, stirring frequently, until they're limp but still crispy (or warmed through, if frozen).
   
   
4. Add cooked chicken back into the pan, and pour in stir-fry sauce. Cook, stirring regularly, until all the ingredients are hot and the sauce thickens to coat the meat and veggies.
   
   
5. Serve over your choice of noodles or rice.

• Stir-fry ingredients cook quickly over a high heat, so you'll want to get everything chopped up and ready to go in the pan in advance.
  
  
• If you're serving stir-fry with rice, start the rice around the same time that you start prepping your stir-fry ingredients. Then it will be ready to eat by the time your stir-fry is done!

There are infinite variations for stir-fry! Some suggestions:

• Use any kind of meat, tofu, or just veggies instead of chicken.
  
  
• Try adding sriracha sauce, chilli flakes, or chili garlic to the sauce for a kick of heat. Add peanut butter or sesame oil for some extra flavour, or replace the soy sauce with teryaki sauce. Eliminate the corn starch for a runnier sauce, or reduce the amount of soy sauce and chicken broth to make a glaze.
  
  
• You can use a mix of veggies, or just one kind. This recipe is equally tasty with beef and broccoli, or tofu and a frozen package of mixed stir-fry veg.
  
  
• Top with peanuts or cashews, green onions, or a drizzle of sriracha sauce

• Leftovers can be kept in an air tight container in the fridge for 2-3 days. Because of the high water content in the vegetables and sauce, stir-fry typically does not freeze well.

Recipe adapted from the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank

Food is Too Expensive! was funded by the City of Saskatoon through our Healthy Yards partnership, the Cyril Capling Trust Fund of the College of Agriculture and Bioresources, and the Department of Plant Sciences. Focus group research to inform this work was collected by CHEP. Thank you all for helping us make healthy food more accessible!