Another Crappy Stir Fry....Kidding! Kiiiiiiidding!

I cook stir fry every once in a blue moon. The reason? Because it’s quick and simple. Well, I say simple, but I don’t actually mean it. Yes, sautéing vegetables and protein is easy. However, the truth is, I think it’s extraordinarily difficult to get the sauce right. Especially if you’re not drowning it in sugar! Healthy stir fry that taste really good is tough. I don’t care who you are, this is fact. So typically I resign myself to a cheat day and get it from someone who knows what they’re doing.

But when our family was in during Christmas, we bought a veggie tray so that we’d have cut up veggies to snack on.  We had leftovers from our second tray that was soon going to be a wilted mess, so I needed to use up the veggies. I decided to make another crappy stir fry. Only….this time it wasn’t crappy! It was actually really yummy and while it contained ingredients I don’t typically include in my diet, it was still healthy and I ate it guilt free! The veggie tray, incidentally, is from Whole Foods. This sounds trivial; however, it is so important. In a typical veggie tray you get broccoli, celery, carrots and tomatoes. Sound right? In the Whole Foods one you get cukes, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, celery, tomatoes, peppers of all colors, zucchini and summer squash. This is the holy grail of veggie trays!

Ingredients

Stir Fry:

2 chicken breast, cut into thin strips

Sliced peppers

Zucchini, sliced into thin strips

Summer squash strips, cut into thin strips

Broccoli florets

Snap peas

Scallions, sliced

1 Tbsp Coconut oil

Sauce:

¼ cup peanut butter

*make the ingredients are just peanuts, no extra sugar, salt, fat, etc.

2 Tbsp gluten free soy sauce

1 Tbsp white wine vinegar

2 Tbs olive oil

¼ plus a little extra cayenne pepper

2 splashes fish sauce

Directions

First, I did not indicate the amount of veggies you need. I fill up a medium bowl for two people. But if you like more veggies, go ahead! Don’t add the scallions to the bowl for sautéing. Mix up your peanut butter sauce first. Then combine everything from the sauce list except the fish sauce in a bowl. It should be thin(ish). Be sure to taste it…never know, might want more cayenne! Keep it to the side for later.

Melt the coconut oil in a pan over medium-high heat. When the pan is good and hot, add the chicken. Now let it sit. Do not stir it. Just let it cook. Your brain will tell you to move it, but don’t. After about 4 minutes, stir it. This gets one side caramelized. When the chicken is cooked through, take it out and cover it with aluminum foil. Then add a touch more coconut oil to the pan, sauté your veggies for a couple minutes. You don’t want them soggy, so not too long. I’d say 5 minutes or so. Add the chicken back to the pan. Reduce the heat to medium-low.

Then splash a couple splashes of fish sauce over the stir fry. Do not go overboard. Stir and cook some until some of it cooks down. Not long…a minute or two. Then add the peanut butter sauce. Stir to evenly coat and garnish with sliced scallions.

I loved this for a couple reasons. A) I love peanutbutter. I don’t think this is a secret. B) It’s spicy! Although you can tone it down if you like, but I may make fun of you! C) It’s quick. If you use a WF veggie tray, you can bang this whole thing out in like half hour! The not chopping vegetables is key!

Welllllp Hannah, I hope you like this and thanks for requesting that I blog it!

Salud to all those who hate making stir fry too!