Remember that head of purple cabbage from week one of the SNAP Challenge? Well, to my surprise, it still hadn’t gone rotten. Sure, it was a little discolored on the open/cut surface, but I just sliced a thin 1/4 inch off the front, peeled off a couple outer leaves, and it was as good as new! Not wanting to let my precious vegetable to go to waste, I made that purple cabbage into a colorful, delicious, and super easy Vegetable Stir Fry with Noodles.
I bought a couple extra vegetables to add to the stir fry (carrots, green bell peppers, green onion, and cilantro) and used an onion that I already had on hand. In interest of making this stir fry as simple as possible, I made the most basic of basic sauces (just like the sauce on the famous Dragon Noodles) with just soy sauce, brown sugar, sriracha, and some corn starch for thickness. Cook everything up in a super hot skillet and you have an amazingly fast veggie-full meal.
If you’re not into ramen noodles (I know someone is about to leave me a comment about how ramen is the devil), you can spoon the sauced up stir fry vegetables over a bowl of warm rice. That would be just as awesome and just as cheap (maybe even more so)!
I wasn’t expecting this stir fry to hold well in the refrigerator all week, but I have to admit, I kind of like the refrigerated leftovers. The colors definitely aren’t as vibrant after a day or so and everything turns kind of violet from the purple cabbage, but the sauce gets all thick, the vegetables soften a bit more, and it almost tastes kind of rich. If you’re really put off by soft noodles, you may not like the leftovers as much, but I’ve totally been digging them!
For the entire month of September, I’ll be participating in the SNAP Challenge and attempting to eat on $4.50 per day. Read more here.
SNAP Challenge: Vegetable Stir Fry with Noodles
Servings 6 about 1.25 cups eachIngredients
- 2 Tbsp vegetable oil ($0.04)
- 1/2 head purple cabbage ($0.91)
- 2 green bell peppers ($1.00)
- 2 carrots ($0.27)
- 1 yellow onion ($0.42)
- 2 -3 oz bricks ramen noodles ($0.54)
- 1/4 cup soy sauce ($0.40)
- 3 Tbsp brown sugar ($0.05)
- 2 Tbsp Sriracha or less ($0.18)
- 1 Tbsp cornstarch ($0.04)
- 3 green onions, sliced ($0.33)
- handful cilantro (optional) ($0.28)
Instructions
- Remove the core and any wilted outer leaves from the cabbage, then cut it into very fine strips. Cut the onion and green bell pepper into thin strips as well. Use a large holed cheese grater to shred the carrots.
- In a small bowl prepare the sauce by stirring together the soy sauce, brown sugar, sriracha, and corn starch.
- Begin to cook the noodles according to the package directions (boil for 3 minutes, or until tender). Drain the cooked noodles in a colander.
- Heat the vegetable oil over medium high heat in a large skillet until it is hot and shimmering. Add the vegetables and sauté for only a few minutes, or until the vegetables just begin to soften. Pour the prepared sauce into the skillet and continue to sauté for one to two minutes more, or until the sauce has thickened and coated all of the vegetables. Turn off the heat.
- Add the cooked and drained noodles to the stir fried vegetables and toss to combine. Top with sliced green onions and a handful of fresh cilantro, if desired.
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Nutrition
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How to Make Vegetable Stir Fry Noodles – Step by Step Photos
Begin by preparing your vegetables. The cooking process is fast, so you need to have it all prepped ahead of time and ready to go. I used 1/2 head of purple cabbage, 2 green bell peppers, 2 carrots, and one yellow onion.
Cut the cabbage, onion, and bell pepper all into thin strips and use a large holed cheese grater to shred the carrot.
Prepare the sauce ahead of time, too, so it’s ready to pour in when you need it. In a small bowl stir together 1/4 cup soy sauce, 3 Tbsp brown sugar, 1 Tbsp cornstarch, and about 2 Tbsp sriracha (less if you’re not that into hot stuff, but you want at least some because it provides the acidic vinegar element to balance the sauce).
Cook two 3-oz. bricks of ramen noodles according to the package directions (boil for three minutes), then drain in a colander. I broke the bricks in half so that the noodle strings wouldn’t be quite so long. Long noodles are really hard to stir in and combine with chunky ingredients, like the vegetables. Shorter strands combine easier.
Heat two tablespoons of vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. When the oil and skillet are very hot (the oil should look shimmery or wavy on the surface, but not smoking), add the vegetables and sauté for a few minutes, or JUST until they begin to soften. They’ll continue to cook a little more in the next couple of steps, so you don’t want to over cook at this point.
Pour the sauce over the vegetables and sauté for one to two minutes more, or just until the sauce has thickened and coated all of the vegetables.
Finally, stir in the cooked ramen until it is well combined with the vegetables and coated in the sauce.
Top the stir fry with sliced green onions and a handful of cilantro (if desired). Enjoy!
Colorful, delicious, easy, and INEXPENSIVE. :D
This was delicious!! I used a bag of mixed stirfry veggies (kale, brussel sprouts, carrots etc.) instead of the cabbage, and added a couple tablespoons of peanut butter. It all turned out great. Flavourful and spicy, exactly what I wanted! :)
Kiddo (5) pronounced this dish “Not bad, mama.”
Husband ate seconds.
Like everybody else did some adjustments, less sriracha because of kiddo, zucchini instead of carrots. Added a clove of chopped garlic for a few second a right before adding sauce. All good!
We absolutely loved this. I tweaked it slightly. I added a couple of cloves of minced garlic and a small knob of minced ginger to the vegetables; I used one red and one green bell pepper. I added some sesame oil (roasted) to the vegetable oil as well as to the sauce. Used the full complement of srichacha sauce. It was definitely zippy for my palate! But just wonderful. My partner was skeptical when he saw all the veggies :-) but he loved it too. Oh! I forgot to buy green onions and felt that the dish would need that textural contrast, so I topped with sliced almonds in addition to the cilantro. We both loved that. Thank you so much for this wonderful site! I love cooking healthfully whilst being mindful of my pennies :-)
I made it with a tablespoon of peanut butter added to the sauce, a little light on the sriracha (could have used the full two measures, and I’m not a spicy devotee), and a little light on the sugar.
I loved this the first night, but I didn’t dig the leftovers so much, sadly. It seemed like the sauce lost its punch – do you think I could make up another half measure of the sauce and add it to bring it back some? Or will the watery nature of ramen and vegetables continue to win out?
I suppose if it’s not a holder for me, I could prep the veggies and maybe the sauce, and keep it in the fridge to cook single portions. It’s simple enough, just prepping the veggies would probably be enough to convince me it’s easier than calling take out.
Thanks, as always, Beth. I cook more often and more happily with your recipes than ever before.
Prepping the vegetables and then cooking single portions will definitely give you the best results throughout the week, but adding a little extra sauce will also liven up the cooked portions some. :) It will continue to get softer throughout the week if all cooked at once (I was actually kinda glad for that because my stomach has a hard time with cabbage!)
could this work with plain green cabbage?
Yep!
I’m really digging on these noodle recipes. I actually like noodle stirfrys cold the next day, so I’m going to try that. I just made the Dragon Noodles, I can’t wait to try this stir fry and get some veggies in there!
Made this tonight – success! These noodle dishes are so quick and easy and flexible with changing around ingredients. Just throw in whatever veggies I need to use up. The only essential is cilantro of course! I bought a bunch of ramen tonight to have on hand. I now have another staple to have on hand that I can use to whip up a quick main dish:)
Mmmm, made this tonight but with some leftover rice noodles we had to use up, switched the soy sauce with liquid aminos, and no green onions cause the grocery store was out (whaa??)…it was delicious! Next time I think I’ll add some peanut butter like some posters said, great idea guys.
This looks so gorgeous! I can’t believe it costs less than $5 to make, too. Definitely going to be giving it a go. I’m so impressed with how many vegetables you managed to get in there!
This was great! I made it along with the Honey Sriracha Chicken Thighs from this site and wanted the stir fry to be less sweet, so I cut the sugar to 1 Tbsp. and added about 1.5 Tbsp of peanut butter instead. I also threw some chopped peanuts into the stir fry for crunch. Delicious!
I’m living with four other girls sharing one kitchen, so most everything I’ve been eating is frozen leftovers. These veggies are so hard, though, that I can chop up a big batch, put it in a big baggie, and cook some up whenever I want something fresher. I’ve been working on this bag for two weeks now, and everything’s still crisp. Yum!
My boyfriend made a double batch of this, and while it was delicious, it was too much for us to finish before we got sick of it–and made a mess! We will have to get a wok! He also used a heavier noodle, since neither one of us really likes ramen.
Brilliant recipe, and makes loads! I substituted sriracha with a mix of chilli sauce and ketchup, cut down on the sugar and added fishcake slices.
I also had a brainwave – I made Okonomiyaki (Japanese savoury pancake) out of the second bowl of leftovers I had from this.
This achieves 3 things:
1. It changes the dish up enough that you feel like you’re eating something new.
2. It crisps up the softened veg and noodles (provided you only add enough batter to hold it together)
3. It stretches out your leftovers, especially helpful if you haven’t got a full serving left over.
And you only really need 3 ingredients which are pantry staples for the batter – egg, flour and water. (I added a little chicken bouillon powder to mine, traditionally dashi stock is used instead of water)
Note that as opposed to the usual way of cooking Okonomiyaki, you scoop a circle of leftovers into the pan and pour the batter on top to form the pancakes, instead of the usual manner of mixing it up with the batter first. The leftovers are a little too chunky to mix in the batter directly.
I love it! Thanks for sharing! :)
The stir fry sauce turned out spicier than I really wanted, so I added a tablespoon of peanut butter (loosened a tiny bit with some vegetable oil) to mellow out the spiciness, and it was perfect! Thanks for the recipe!
This was fabulous! I tweaked it a bit to suit our tastes and what I had on hand (used green cabbage instead of purple, added an extra carrot and some leftover pork chops I diced up and left out the green onions and cilantro) and it was amazing! It made a ton of food, so it will be a great recipe to prepare when the kids are all going to be home for dinner!
Beth, I loved this one! I had a serious takeout craving and this hit the spot at a fraction of the price.
Re: some of the comments, I think this is one of those recipes that is a great template to tweak to your own tastes so if you are concerned about the sugar/protein content then adapt it! I made it the first time as written, but for my personal taste knocked back the sugar in the sauce by half and upped the veggie-to-noodle ratio when I made it the second time. To add some protein, I threw in 1/2 cup of shelled edamame and then topped with a handful of roasted peanuts before serving. Scrambling a couple eggs in the pan prior to adding the sauce would also work well. Not thrilled about Ramen? Skip the noodles and serve it over steamed rice.