Quick & Easy Beef Stir Fry Recipe - The Girl on Bloor (2024)

FAQs

How do you make stir fry beef so it's tender? ›

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.

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.

Tenderize: In a bowl, sprinkle a small amount of baking soda over the beef and coat evenly with soy sauce, salt, starch, and oil (and optional ingredients, if using). Marinate: After sitting in the mixture for 15 to 30 minutes in the fridge, your beef is ready for stir-frying!

Cook together with Thai holy basil and you have a winning combination. You can also use spice blends in a stir fry. Try a sprinkle of Cajun Spice Blend, Indonesian 7 Seas or Chinese 5 Spice to name a few. Looking to cheat even further and produce a tasty, fast meal, you could consider using a Gourmet Cooking Sauce!

Because stir-frying uses a very high heat, you want a cooking oil that has a high smoke point. Vegetable, canola or peanut oil are my trustee go-tos, and all have a neutral taste, so won't affect flavour. Do not – I repeat, DO NOT – use butter!

Wet vegetables and the extra water drop the temperature of your wok or skillet and can turn your stir-fry into a soupy braise, causing your veggies to lose their crunch and turn soggy. After washing the vegetables, dry them thoroughly and do not add your sauce until the end, allowing enough time to heat through.

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.

Adding soy sauce too early can burn it. Remember, timing is key. Add soy sauce midway for that perfect cook.

What goes first in a stir-fry? ›

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.

Cook It Slowly

This is certainly true when it comes to notoriously tough cuts of meat like beef brisket and pork shoulder. Cooking these cuts of meat slowly, either by braising, stewing or grill roasting, is the best way to get these tasty cuts of meat meltingly tender.

Just as you would with dry brining, rinse your meat until it's (mostly) free of all the baking soda.

Use tender, quick-frying meats or tofu. Meats such as chicken breast, shrimp, boneless pork or sirloin steak are all great for stir-frying. If the meat isn't tender, the pieces will become tough and chewy from being cooked too fast.

All you need for tender meat in a stew is to cook it for a long time on a low temperature. For better flavor, brown it in a skillet first, then place in the pot with your stew vegetables and cook for at least an hour on no more than medium heat.