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.
Very yummy! Made for the first time tonight and substituted soy sauce for liquid aminos. I didn’t add all the sauce because it seemed like a large volume, and it was still very flavorful. In another skillet I cooked cubed chicken coated in cornstarch, then added to the pan with the noodles. Dinner was a hit for everyone and will be added to the rotation.
I added a little red bell pepper and jalepenos which I sauted with everything else I didn’t have chilli sauce so I did siracha hot chilli and added chopped garlic to the sauce. Beware these changes caused this to have a SPICE FACTOR of about one hundred. Delicious! Ate dinner with a smoothy to cool my tongue 🥵
Made this for the second time this evening, and it was good. I reduced the chili garlic sauce to 1 tsp, and next time will probably reduce the soy sauce to 3 Tbsp. The last time I made it I added baked tofu brushed with Trader Joe’s Soyaki sauce. This time I added shrimp, which I sauted briefly and set aside before cooking the mushrooms and broccoli, then added back to the pan with the cooked noodles. Used Udon noodles, which were good. Having just read all the comments here, I’m eager to make this again using all sorts of different vegetables and protein add ins!
This was awesome!! Thanks, its always great finding a winning vegan recipe for our large family!!
how much is 1 serving?
One-quarter of the whole recipe is one serving. You can’t really get an accurate volume measurement on food like this, so I don’t have an estimated volume per serving.
I absolutely love this recipe, as does my whole family. My 4yo said tonight that it was the best stir-fry ever, and 2yo always makes very loud, content noises while eating it! Even my baby was eating little pieces. Even though my husband likes spice, I can’t do it so in place of the chili garlic sauce, I use a tbsp Masterfoods Garlic Kebab sauce and a tbsp sweet chilli sauce. I use a whole 500g pack of sliced mushrooms, 2 heads of broccoli and 450g hokkien noodles. I don’t adjust the sauce amount as per this recipe serving 4 and find there is plenty of sauce, although it makes at least 5 generous serves with the quantities of veg and noodles I use. Thanks so much for this recipe, I have made it many times and it’s become a firm favourite.
A great simple & tasty dinner. I left out the toasted sesame oil (didn’t have any) and chilli. Still a good recipe. I added some mince i needed to use and the stem of the broccoli. a great sauce base and any noodles and veggies and meat you want and it is very adaptive.
Made this for lunch. Easy and delicious!
Made this tonight (again) but added some fresh grated ginger, and extra garlic. So tasty! I had run out of garlic chili sauce and didn’t even miss it with the added ginger. :)
This was simple, fast, and excellent! I used fresh broccoli (because I had it on hand) and added a handful of chopped roasted peanuts on top. It reminded me a little of Pad Thai with the rice noodles and sweet, tangy sauce. I used double the chili paste because we love spicy food. Definitely making it again!
This was sooo-oooo good. We all gobbled it up but my 5 year old, who is nuts so whatever. Of course I had doubled the recipe, but only had 1/4 the amount of mushrooms sadly, so I added carrots and shelled edamame and extra scallions to saute with the mushrooms. I only used 1tsp of chili garlic sauce total for a doubled recipe because I am a sissy and my kids won’t come near it otherwise. I know how much of that stuff I can tolerate, and Beth my dear how you don’t breathe flames after a meal as written like this I’ll never understand.
Also used thin rice noodles and tossed some toasted sesame seeds on top and voila! Can’t wait to make it again because mushrooms always seem to go bad for me because I always have the best intentions when I buy them. Delicious, thank you.
Great recipe. Easily altered as needed. Used 10 oz bag frozen broccoli, 8 oz pack rice noodles, little less than 8 oz mushrooms. Didn’t have chili garlic sauce, subbed about a 2 tsp Franks Red hot, fresh grated ginger, dash of fish sauce and only had regular sesame oil. We all loved it, even my 1.5 year old. We ate the whole dish in one serving for lunch! Could easily swap out other veggies like green beans or almost anything!
Awesome awesome meal. I like spicy food so it worked for me. If my wife and kid eats it again I’d have to cut the chili sauce in half but they loved it as well
Though I may decrease the chili garlic sauce just a tad next time the only major change would be to DOUBLE THIS RECIPE! Can you share any meat addition ideas?
So appreciate your recipes and website. Thank you!
Happy to hear it’s a new favorite Jenni! You could add some ground beef or thinly sliced beef.
This was so good! I didn’t have the rice noodles, so I used some so a noodles and it still turned out great. We will definitely be making this again soon. Thank you for the yummy recipe. :)
This was so easy! I think next time I will do a little less chili garlic sauce though. Thanks for a great vegan recipe!