Sometimes you just need things ASAP—that is, as SIMPLE as possible. ;) That’s when I pull out recipes like these Simple Mushroom Broccoli Stir Fry Noodles. The sauce is incredible simple, but hits all the bases (sweet, salty, spicy, tangy) and thanks to frozen broccoli florets and pre-sliced mushrooms, the vegetables required NO CHOPPING. Yay! This is the perfect weeknight dinner, if there ever was one.
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Customize your Broccoli Stir Fry Noodles
This is basically a vegetarian version of my Stir Fry Beef Noodles, with a little more sesame oil to bring up the base notes in the absence of beef, and a little cornstarch to add body to the sauce. If you’re not into broccoli and mushrooms, you could do a variety of other vegetables in their place, including snow peas, red bell pepper, baby spinach, or carrots.
And lastly, while you could probably use just about any noodle for this dish, I really like the wide rice noodles that I used below. They soak up the sauce nicely and aren’t too heavy despite their wide shape.
Just want plain spicy noodle goodness with no extras? Check out my Spicy Dragon Noodles.
Simple Mushroom Broccoli Stir Fry Noodles
Servings 4Ingredients
STIR FRY SAUCE
- 1/4 cup soy sauce ($0.40)
- 1 Tbsp toasted sesame oil* ($0.33)
- 1 Tbsp chili garlic sauce* ($0.21)
- 1 Tbsp brown sugar ($0.02)
- 1 Tbsp water $0.00 ($0.00)
- 1 tsp cornstarch
STIR FRY
- 7 oz wide rice noodles ($1.50)
- 1 Tbsp cooking oil ($0.04)
- 8 oz sliced white mushrooms ($2.49)
- 2 cloves garlic, minced ($0.16)
- 1/2 lb frozen broccoli florets ($0.85)
- 2 green onions, sliced ($0.20)
Instructions
- Prepare the sauce first, so it’s ready to go when needed. In a small bowl stir together the soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, chili garlic sauce, brown sugar, water, and cornstarch until the cornstarch is dissolved. Set the sauce aside.
- Cook the noodles according to the package directions, then drain in a colander. The wide rice noodles I used needed to be boiled for about 7-8 minutes.
- While the noodles are cooking, heat a large skillet over medium heat. Once hot, add the cooking oil, sliced mushrooms, and minced garlic. Sauté until the mushrooms release all their moisture and begin to brown on the edges.
- Add the frozen broccoli florets (no need to thaw) and sauté for just a couple minutes more, or until they are no longer frozen but still bright green (they may still be cold, but they will heat through in the next steps. It’s important not to over cook the broccoli).
- Finally, add the cooked and drained noodles and the prepared sauce. Stir and cook, still over medium heat, for 1-2 minutes more or until everything is cooked through and the sauce has thickened and no longer pools on the bottom of the skillet. Top with sliced green onions and serve.
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Notes
Nutrition
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How to Make Mushroom and Broccoli Stir Fry – Step by Step Photos
Prepare the simple stir fry sauce before you begin to cook so that it’s ready to go when you need it. In a small bowl stir together 1/4 cup soy sauce, 1 Tbsp toasted sesame oil, 1 Tbsp chili garlic sauce, 1 Tbsp brown sugar, 1 Tbsp water, and 1 tsp cornstarch.
Two ingredients that I often get questions about are chili garlic sauce and toasted sesame oil. This chili garlic sauce is made by the same company that makes the famous green top sriracha, so you’ll find it in most stores that sell sriracha. It’s a chunky mix of spicy red pepper, garlic, and vinegar. So, in one ingredient it gives spicy, garlic, and tangy vinegar to the sauce. It’s also super inexpensive.
Toasted sesame oil is a very potent nutty oil that adds a LOT to sauces. Don’t skip this one. It usually comes in smaller bottles and doesn’t always say “toasted”. You can tell when it’s toasted by the color, though. Regular sesame oil is a light straw color, just like vegetable or canola oil. Toasted sesame oil is a deeper brown color.
Cook 7oz. noodles according to the package directions. I prefer these wide rice noodles for this stir fry. To cook these noodles, bring a pot of water to a boil, then add the noodles, and boil for 7-8 minutes or just until tender. Drain the noodles in a colander.
While the noodles are cooking, you can begin the rest of the stir fry. Heat a large skillet over medium. Once hot, add 1 Tbsp cooking oil and swirl to coat the surface of the skillet. Add 8oz. sliced white mushrooms and two cloves of minced garlic. Sauté until the mushrooms have released all their moisture and begin to brown (the will seem dry at first, but then release a bunch of moisture that will collect in the skillet. After that the moisture will evaporate and the mushrooms will begin to brown.)
Next add 1/2 lb. frozen broccoli florets to the skillet. Sauté them for just a couple minutes more, or until they are no longer frozen but still bright green. It’s okay if they’re still a bit cold, just make sure they’re not totally frozen at this point.
Finally, add the cooked and drained noodles and the prepared sauce. Continue to stir and cook over medium until everything is coated in sauce and the sauce has thickened and is no longer pooling on the bottom of the skillet.
Top with a couple sliced green onions and serve! So easy and so good. That’s how I like dinner.
This was so good! I sauted diced onion in a little butter before adding the mushroom and broccoli. I also added some chopped roast chicken that I had in the fridge and used bean noodles as this is what I had on hand. As I didn’t have any of the garlic chilli sauce on hand, I used a little bit of crushed garlic and crushed chilli instead.
Will make it again, probably tonight :D
This was super delicious and simple! A great homemade takeout recipe. :)
this was awesome!!! made this with a few modifications:
did not use broccoli, but added some dry (soaked) shitake mushrooms.
it was perfect!!
I should mention a rice noodle trick, since I make these often…don’t cook the noodles. Soak them in hot water for maybe 30 minute or so to soften them up a bit, then they will cook in the sauce when they are added to the pan and heated through. This stops the noodles from overcooking and breaking up as some people have mentioned!
I am actually eating a batch of this now, and thought I would share to tip. This week’s batch has: mushroom, broccoli, onion, red pepper, and tempeh for some protein
Thanks for that tip!!
I’m with Laura. Since finding this recipe, I make it regularly for lunches at work. Any vegetable will work – onion, peppers, carrots, beansprouts, snow pea pods, green beans, and the list goes on. If I don’t have any fresh veggies on hand to make it, I use some frozen Asian mix vegetables I get from Sam’s club. This is a great recipe that is perfect to clean out the veggie drawer!
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve made this for myself for lunches for the week. I just use up whatever veggies I have in the fridge – fresh broccoli and carrots usually, but today I had some green beans and peas left over from dinners for the week so I used those instead.I almost always use angel hair pasta because I like it a lot. Today I had some thin sliced beef in my fridge waiting to be cooked, so I gave that a quick stir fry and set it aside. The green beans were fresh so while the noodles were boiling I sauteed those in the leftover meat juices/oil mixture. I made a double batch of sauce because I used a LOT of veggies – like a lot. I almost always use low sodium soy sauce so I feel less guilty about eating this all week for lunch!! My favorite thing about this recipe is how versatile it is. Really, no matter what you put in it, you can’t go wrong. That sauce is delicious.
Where can I get those plates?? lol
Those are from Anthropologie! I just checked and it looks like they don’t carry that design anymore, but they do have a bunch of cool new styles!
Made this but we’re more of a garlic family than a ginger one so we swapped fresh ginger for powdered ginger and fresh minced garlic instead of powdered. It was great! If you have meat eaters in the family, pair it with teriyaki chicken. My husband LOVED it!!!
This recipe is one of our favorites now! We add some seitan strips and it’s a vegetarian feast. The 4 servings always becomes 2!
I made this and liked it so much I made it again the next morning for breakfast! I didn’t have any fresh mushrooms, instead I took frozen asian veggie mix and heated that up in the beginning after the garlic . I used a ton of veggies, like a whole pan full.
I didn’t have any rice noodles, just used regular pasta. I added some of the starchy pasta water to the pan to help emulsify the sauce.
Really delicious! I had almost ordered in chinese food, saved a ton of money and satisfied my craving.
My local grocery didn’t have any sort of ‘wide rice noodle’ like the ones pictured above, but they did have udon noodles. I was a bit hesitant at first after having read what this recipe had to say about the noodles suggested, but I went ahead and gave the udon a try and they worked out great! I was very pleased with this recipe and can’t wait for lunch break tomorrow to finish it off!
I’ve been following your blog for months but this is the first recipe I’ve tried. Delicious! My only problem is my rice noodles broke into little pieces as I was stirring them with the broccoli and mushrooms, so it didn’t turn out quite as pretty as in your photos. Maybe I overcooked them?
This looks really good, I have a recipe that is similar to this. Great for quick dinners!
Yummy! This looks so delicious and simple, Beth! I absolutely love stir fry noodles and I think I’ll have to give your recipe a try. ;-)
We made this last night for dinner and it was delicious! And we have leftovers. Only suggestion would be to remove the part in the recipe about following the instructions on the package to cook the noodles. We bought the same exact noodles and the noodles were very undercooked. Next time we will taste before tossing together with the other ingredients.