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 great! Did 1tsp of chili garlic sauce because we’re wimps and it was the perfect level of spice. Turned out a litttttle salty so next time I will use reduced-sodium soy instead. Took your suggestions for other vegetables to use what I had on hand and did 1/2c each of snow peas, shredded carrots, mushrooms, and red bell – all great.
Question, did your box of noodles say to cook them that way or have you just found that that works best? I’ve never cooked rice noodles before and I bought the same brand, per box it said to boil water, take off burner, add noodles then let them soak for 8-10 minutes. It took much longer to get soft enough for me, so just curious if your method might work better!
I made this recipe such a long time ago, but I wrote to follow the directions on the box, so that’s what it must have said… Maybe they changed the directions on the package since then?
Huh, how odd. Thanks for letting me know!
Its very easy .. i added Oyster sauce and hoisin suace and some of fresh ginger and a cup of noodles boild water … And the result was so delicious..
Delish! Very much like take-out, in a good way. Didn’t change anything except for doubling the recipe, which for us yielded 5 servings. Also 5 thumbs up and requests to make again next week.
Made this tonight, and it was great. As is often the case, we tweaked your serving sizes (for two large males, your serving sizes are often a bit small, which is understandable). We were meal prepping, so we quadrupled the recipe, in order to be absolutely sure it made a full 10 servings for the work week. We also used plain old spaghetti noodles to make this a little simpler and cheaper.
We easily got 10 pretty full meal prep containers out of the quadrupled recipe (even if it barely fit in our big soup pot when it came time to cook everything together). It felt and tastes like it should be a cheat meal, but putting the recipe into MyFitnessPal, I was amazed when our portions came out to only 298 calories. There was a little more heat and salt/garlic than I was expecting, which wasn’t necessarily bad, but we’ll likely try halving the amount of the chili garlic sauce next time. Otherwise, this was quite the unexpected treat for the week.
We really enjoyed this dish! Have been a fan of your recipes for a few years now, thank you for this wonderful blog! I especially appreciate the step by step photos.
I had to leave out the chili garlic sauce bc I can’t handle the spice with my acid reflux.
Do you have any non spicy recommendations to replace that?
Thanks!!
I would suggest using the sauce from my Garlic Noodles recipe instead. :)
This is a great recipe. My husband is a staunch meat eater. I added 1/2 pound of ground beef for him and added a little more broccoli. Instead of noodles I put it over jasmine brown rice. I am definitely adding this into the rotation.
Even better than take out! I doubled up the mushrooms and added extra liquid ingredients for more sauce. Super quick and easy and, best of all, delicious!
I made this tonight and it was a huge disaster with the rice noodles all sticking together and not nearly enough sauce
This was the first recipe that I have made from your website. It was excellent! I loved the balance, and it was incredibly easy to pull together. I used udon noodles that I had on hand and also added green beans. Will continue to make over and over again. Looking forward to trying another recipe soon!
We made this tonight, and the whole family loved it. The only changes we made was halving the chili garlic sauce (we’re sensitive to heat) and using green peas instead of mushroom, since my son doesn’t like mushrooms. It was a HUGE hit. My son asked how long until I make it again! Personally, I couldn’t believe how easy and fast it was to prepare. Thank you Beth!
This is fabulous! I used brown rice spaghetti from Aldi and added scrambled eggs. This recipe is another keeper! Many thanks!
The fourth recipe from BudgetBytes I’ve made and it (like the others) was amazing. Didn’t change anything. My husband who is super picky, especially with Asian inspired food, enjoyed this and the others.
We love this recipe. Make it exactly except 1/2 of chili sauce. This taste restaurant quality. Great taste, very economical. Made it every Week for 4 weeks. Will continue this tradition..
I used zucchini noodles added some cashews doubled the sauce and this turned out AMAZING!!
So Easy. Loved it. I used what vegis I had. Mushrooms, cabbage and asparaguses. and some Asian noodles I had in the pantry. Perfect.