I’m SO EXCITED about this one… this is one of those recipes that turned out so good that I couldn’t keep out of it while I was shooting photos. I kept stuffing in mouthfuls in between shots!
I wanted to make a stir fry this week because they’re just so quick, easy and packed with goodness. This is one of those cases where it was actually less expensive to buy the frozen, pre-chopped mix of vegetables than to buy each vegetable fresh. Red peppers alone were $2.50 each and I got a whole bag of vegetables for $1.94. Plus, this way I won’t have tons of left overs. Frozen vegetables are a wonderful asset to those eating on a budget. They don’t go bad quickly in the refrigerator, there are a ton of varieties and most don’t contain any added salt or preservatives (check the label to be sure). Sure, the frozen weren’t as crunchy as fresh would have been but the dish was so good over all that I didn’t care.
I added soba noodles (buckwheat noodles) to the stir fry for bulk and fiber. I paid $3.94 for 8 oz. of soba noodles and I’m quite sure they can be purchased for far less else where, probably even at Whole Foods. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to drive across town that day. Check ethnic markets for an even lower price. Oh, AND my hoisin sauce was organic so I’m sure you could get that for less too. Moral of the story: you can probably make this recipe for a few dollars less than I did.
Peanut Soba Stir Fry
Peanut Soba Stir Fry
Servings 6Ingredients
- 2 inches fresh ginger ($0.20)
- 1/2 cup natural peanut butter ($0.66)
- 1/2 cup hoisin sauce ($1.20)
- 1/3 cup hot water ($0.00)
- 1/2 tsp sriracha hot sauce ($0.04)
- 2 Tbsp vegetable oil ($0.06)
- 2 cloves garlic ($0.12)
- 1 lb. frozen stir fry vegetables ($1.94)
- 8 oz. soba noodles ($3.94)
- 2 sliced green onions, optional ($0.36)
Instructions
- Prepare the sauce first. Peel and grate one inch of ginger into a bowl. Add the peanut butter, hoisin sauce and sriracha hot sauce, and 1/3 cup of hot water. Stir or whisk until smooth. Set the sauce aside until it is needed.
- Prepare a very large skillet or wok with 2 Tbsp of vegetable oil. Grate another inch of ginger into the oil. Mince two cloves of garlic and add to the oil as well. Turn the heat up to medium high and saute for 1-2 minutes.
- Add the bag of frozen vegetables and cook until heated through. Use as large of a skillet as possible so that the residual moisture from the vegetables will evaporate quickly. Over crowding the skillet will leave you with a soupy mess. Frozen vegetables are blanched prior to freezing so they will already be slightly cooked and soft. Stir fry vegetables should still have a slight crunch and vibrant color. Do not cook them until they are very soft and dull in color.
- While the vegetables are cooking, bring a medium pot of water up to a rolling boil. Add the soba noodles and cook until soft (5-6 minutes). Drain the noodles in a colander.
- Once the vegetables have cooked, add the drained noodles and peanut sauce. Stir until everything is combined and coated with sauce. Garnish with sliced green onions if desired.
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Nutrition
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Step By Step Photos
I find the easiest way to prepare ginger is to peel it with a vegetable peeler and then grate it using a small cheese grater. A microplane would probably be too small and get clogged easily.
Grate about one inch of the peeled ginger into a bowl and add the hoisin sauce, peanut butter and sriracha hot sauce.
Add 1/3 cup of hot water and stir or whisk until smooth.
Add 2 Tbsp of vegetable oil to a very large skillet and add 2 cloves of minced garlic and another inch of grated or minced ginger. Turn the heat up to medium/high and cook the garlic and ginger for about 1-2 minutes (after the pan is fully heated).
Buying a bag of the frozen stir fry mix was far less expensive than buying each vegetable, and I won’t be left with a bunch of leftovers. The mix contains nothing but broccoli, onions, red bell peppers, mushrooms, carrots and water chestnuts. No salt, no preservatives, just yummy veggies.
Add the frozen veggies to the skillet and cook just until warmed. Using frozen vegetables does not give a nice crunchy end product like fresh vegetables do, but it is still really tasty and worth the savings to me (money and time).
This is the package of soba noodles that I bought. It was a really small package (8 oz.) and I didn’t think it was going to be enough, but the noodles expanded quite a bit during cooking.
Cook the soba noodles in boiling water until soft (5-6 minutes). This can be done as the vegetables are cooking. Drain the noodles in a colander when finished.
Add the drained noodles to the cooked vegetables…
Then add the peanut sauce…
Stir it all together and you’re good to go!
You can garnish with green onions or cilantro if desired.
This recipe was so seriously delicious and filling… I know I’ll be making it often. Because I used pre-cut frozen veggies, this recipe took less than 30 minutes to make! If you have ginger paste or a jar of minced garlic, it’ll go even faster!
Enjoy!
I skipped the hot sauce since my 15 month old was eating this. I made it with pork tenderloin, and cooked that first.. then added the veggies.. drained, etc. I should have put less sauce in the food.. it was a little much, my bad for not thinking before dumping it all in! haha.. Is there some other sauce I can use with this combo?? My husband didn’t like the PB my daughter and I LOVED IT….
Erin – I’ve never had gochujang! I’m going to have to try it… the sriracha plays a fairly small part in this so it’s worth trying to swap it out with something that you like :)
Beth, I’m not the biggest fan of sriracha, how would gochujang be instead? It may be too thick, but what do you think?
Jen – Yes, you should definitely try it with oyster sauce! Oyster sauce is much more mild and just a little bit sweet. I think it would go great with this dish. Then, just give the peanut sauce a quick taste before you add it to everything so that you can adjust it if needed. I think hoisin is a bit saltier than oyster so you may want to add an extra splash of soy sauce. But, you can leave that up to your taste buds :) I hope it turns out better next time!
Hi beth,
I was looking forward to trying this one for awhile, and I finally did tonight. To be honest, I wasn’t too crazy about it…I think it’s the hoisin sauce, for some reason hoisin is not my favorite asian condiment to put it lightly. I’ve tried making cashew chicken before and I was disappointed in it for the same reason. It just imparts such a strong flavor. Maybe if I try this again I will cut back on the hoisin a lot, or sub half oyster sauce? Oh well, I have always been amazed by your recipes and I will still continue to try them! Thanks so much for sharing! I’m sure if your other readers enjoy or don’t mind the strong flavor of the hoisin they will loooove this recipe. The soba noodles are yummy!
This was last night’s dinner and it was AMAZING! We just used the chunky peanut butter we already had, and i thought the peanuts in it really added to the texture. I’m so glad we’ve stumbled upon your blog, we’re looking forward to trying more of your recipes.
HUGE success, loved by my whole family. This is the first dish I cooked that came out good. I actually LIKE cooking now.. IT WORKS
This recipe was delicious! I’m always on the lookout for inexpensive meals that I can throw together on crazy weeknights that’s tasty when I haven’t been organized enough to make something ahead of time. This fit the bill perfectly. I also discovered that my 2 year old son LOVES soba noodles…it was his first time eating them and while they were everywhere, he was happy as a clam. We will be making/eating this dish regularly!
I keep forgetting to comment on your recipes, but I make one of them for my family of 5 at least once a week! This one was amazing. My kids generally hate stir-fry, but they all enjoyed this one. I did add some chopped chicken, since we had some in the freezer. Again, thank you for your awesome blog and wonderful recipes.
Well, it definitely has a different flavor but so little is used here that you *might* be able to get away with it. So, give it a shot!
Can I use a Mexican hot sauce as a substitute for sriracha?
This was so good! I substituted hoisin with oyster sauce since that’s what I had at hand and added a few more fresh veggies. The sriracha really added a nice kick. Since I used fresh ground peanut butter that many grocery stores have in those self-grind machines nowadays, the sauce turned out a bit thick, but adding additional water thinned it out. Also threw in some shrimp. The boyfriend had seconds and thirds. TASTY!
Whole Foods brand peanut butter is a lighter peanut butter that is way cheaper than all natural PB at Target, which might make this recipe slightly cheaper. Trader Joe’s roasts their peanuts – which makes a much better PB&J sandwich.
loved this recipe! it was delicious! thanks!
Is there a PRINT button anywhere? I’d like to print this recipe, but can’t figure out how…