Stir Fry Sauce Recipe {Homemade} - Cookin Canuck (2024)

FAQs

What is the sauce for the stir fry made of? ›

Whisk the soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, garlic, ginger, sugar and red pepper flakes if using in a medium bowl until combined. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.

The first is to cook your protein and your vegetable separately, and combine them only after both are fully cooked. A second rule of thumb for stir-frying: Choose one vegetable per stir-fry. Finally, always remember to add liquid only after everything is more or less finished cooking.

Aromatic ingredients like garlic, ginger, green onions, chilies and spices. These ingredients are typically added to the oil first to infuse it with flavor. You won't need much; a few teaspoons to a tablespoon of total aromatic ingredients per person adds a serious amount of flavor.

Cornstarch! In his book How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, Mark Bittman recommends mixing 1-2 tablespoons of cornstarch with the same amount of water, and tossing this into the stir fry just when it's almost done. It thickens in seconds, picking up the flavors of everything already in the dish and coating evenly.

The main ingredients to a stir-fry are: Proteins – chicken, beef, pork, seafood, tofu, tempeh, seitan. Aromatics – garlic, green onions, shallots, ginger.

"Tomatoes should never go in a stir fry — not at all." Chef Natasha Ford adds that they're too mushy. "They would just make your stir fry soupy," she says. "If you really want to use them, keep them as fresh and uncooked as possible.

So many different oils, the good news is you can stick with what you know – canola is great! The best oils for stir frys are the oils with the higher smoke points. These tend to be the “thinner” oils such as peanut, grapeseed or canola.

Stir-fry onions first, then add hard vegetables such as carrot and broccoli. Quick-cooking vegetables, such as snow peas, leafy greens and bean sprouts, should be added towards the end of cooking. If using vegies that have a combination of both textures, such as gai laan, add the stems first and the leaves later.

What does cornstarch do in stir-fry? ›

In stir-fries, cornstarch helps thinly sliced protein like beef or pork brown evenly without overcooking, while simultaneously turning the liquidy soy, rice wine vinegar, and mirin into a veg-coating sauce.

Much like French food, which relies on a roux for a perfect bechamel sauce or beef bourguignon and involves butter cooked with flour, Chinese and Cantonese cuisines use cornstarch to thicken sauces. However, it's predominantly added at the end of the cooking process rather than at the start.

While cornstarch is used in China, many Chinese cooks also cook with tapioca starch. In the West, cornstarch is more readily available and generally preferred. The reason why cornstarch is so common is that it adds that perfectly silky texture to stir fries, soups, and sauces synonymous with great Chinese food.

Combine equal parts of flour and cold water in a cup. Mix it until it's smooth and stir it into the sauce. Bring the sauce to a simmer for 5 minutes. A general rule is use 2 tsp (3 grams) of flour to thicken 1 L (34 fl oz) of liquid.

There are many Chinese sauces that are brown just a few most common, soy sause, oyster sauce, sweet bean, Hoisin…

Soy sauce (jiàng yóu, 酱油), the most common of Chinese sauces, sounds simple, and for the most part, it is.

You can cook hoisin sauce into a wide range of stir fry, vegetable and meat-glazed dishes. Fans of this condiment will also use it as a dipping sauce for spring rolls or dumplings. Because it combines sweet and savory flavors, hoisin sauce is different from the saltier oyster sauce.