Vegetable stir fry is your gateway to an awesome life. Drizzle coconut-tahini sauce on top!
Stir fry has been one of my favorite meals since the days of OshKosh B’gosh. I have a picture of myself wearing OshKosh overalls eating stir fry when I was four. This is an un-truth. Don’t believe it. The point is, stir fry is one of my go-est to-est meals, and it simply never gets old. It’s timeless. Like OshKosh.
In the realm of no-brainers, stir fry…has…no…brain? Hmm…What I mean to say is, stir fry is a no-brainer. It’s easy, you can throw a huge array of vegetables into it, and it can be made in less than an hour. Plus, you can play around with sauces, which is a blast and a half. Which brings me to my next point. Oh. My. Gawwwwwl! The tahini coconut sauce I made for this stir fry was off the chaaaaaaaaaaain-saw! I wanted to date myself after I made it.
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Ego check on aisle three please…ego check on aisle three.
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I had never made any sort of coconut-y sauce for stir fry before (probably because I would dub a coconut-y stir fry as curry…), nor had I used tahini for stir fry. Out of a stroke of what-should-I-put-on-this-stir-fry, I combined coconut milk, tahini, and liquid aminos, and humditty dum, it. just. worked. I may have drank it. I did drink it. I drank all the sauce.
I know what you’re thinking. Coconut milk? On top of stir fry? I was skeptical, myself, on that decision. But I ended up loving it, and now I do the coconut-tahini drizzle (chug) like nnnnnnnnnnnnewwwwwboddy’s biznatch!
Are you new to stir frying? Have I got tips for you!
- DO choose hearty vegetables, like cauliflower, broccoli, green beans, potatoes, onion, and peppers, turnips, parsnips, carrots, etc.
- DO use a high-temperature cooking oil such as sesame, grapeseed, or coconut oil.
- DO stir fry all the veggies individually OR sauté them together (for this recipe, I chose the sauté-‘em-all-together approach). Which works best for you? Sometimes it’s a solo veggie day, sometimes it’s a communal veggie day.
- DO use liquid aminos in place of soy sauce. Soy isn’t that stellar of a thing for your holy temple. If you can replace it with liquid aminos, do so. Liquid aminos is still derived from soy, but it contains 16 essential amino acids and is a higher-quality product. I used coconut liquid aminos in order to dodge the soy altogether.
- DO use fresh ginger! Peeling and grating fresh ginger and adding it to your stir fry is both deeeelicious and nutritious.
- DO use fish sauce! If you’re unsure or weirded out by fish sauce, don’t be. It adds to the flavor in a wonderful way. Just be careful with how much you use, because it’s salty.
- DO add meat! I love meat-infested vegetable stir frys. That may have come out wrong. Anyway. If you’re a meat eater, add chicken, beef, pork, or shrimp to this tasty meal.
- DO make your own sauce! You can use an array of flavorful ingredients, such as ginger, lemongrass, chilies, garlic, fish sauce, liquid aminos, ground cumin, etc. in order to whip up all sorts of flavors. We’re going for a sauce that is salty/spicy/tangy/sweet and any combination thereof.
- DON’T use store-bought sugar/high fructose corn syrup-ridden sauces (like teriyaki sauce). Yes they taste great. No they’re not good for you. Yes, you can make sauce on your own.
- DON’T over-cook your vegetables. A good stir fry should includes vegetables that are cooked just right. You want them crispy, not mushy. Be ever-present while you’re stir frying so as not to turn your veggies to mush.
- DO serve over rice, noodles, or quinoa. YUM!
P.S. Only 5 days until Delicious Probiotic Drinks is OFFICIALLY released!!
Vegetable Stir Fry with Coconut-Tahini Sauce
Ingredients
For the Tahini Coconut Sauce
- 1 cup full-fat canned coconut milk
- ½ cup tahini
- ¼ cup + 1 tablespoon liquid aminos*
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
For the Vegetable Stir Fry:
- 2 tablespoons sesame oil
- 1 red onion chopped
- 1 head cauliflower chopped into florets
- 1 red bell pepper chopped
- 4 cups green beans trimmed and chopped
- 2 yellow squash chopped
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 1/3 cup liquid aminos*
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt or to taste
Instructions
To prepare the coconut tahini sauce:
- Add all ingredients for the sauce to a blender and blend until smooth. Place sauce in the refrigerator until you’re ready to use it so that it can thicken back up.
To prepare the stir fry:
- In a large wok, heat the sesame oil to medium-high.
- Add the red onion to the hot pan and sauté 2 minutes, stirring frequently.
- Add the cauliflower and continue stirring and sautéing until cauliflower begins to show some color, about 4 minutes.
- Add the green beans, red bell pepper, garlic, liquid aminos, and salt and continue to sauté, stirring frequently, until all vegetables are cooked to desired level of doneness. In order to speed up the process, decrease the heat slightly, cover the wok and allow the vegetables to steam for a few minutes.
- Serve with desired amount of tahini coconut sauce and cooked wild rice (or brown rice)
Love stir fry of any kind over here, but the coconut and tahini in this are awesome! Love those flavors!
Tahini is for sure a gateway to a better life…have never thought to add it to coconut milk. So curious to try this!
It’s a little ridiculous how infrequently I make stir fry when it is SO EASY. It needs to become a staple. I love this coconutty sauce!
Yup, stir fry is my lazy-man…err…lazy-Julia meal. Takes very little planning and prep for a super satisfying meal! Lets coconut sauce the crap out of some stir fry!
Coconutting the world up! Holla! I’d make this for myself on a night Alex is working late – he’s anti-coconut, so it’s a miracle I’m not anti-him. Kidding, kidding. Mostly.
Awww he knows not what he’s missing out on 😉
I can’t wait to try your coconut tahini sauce, sounds delicious!
Let me know how you like it! I was AMAZED at how well it turned out!
What a wonderful dish! I just love that coconut tahini sauce!
There’s nothing like a good stir-fry, especially after a long day at work. I found your tips super helpful– thanks for sharing!
You said it! This is definitely what I make when I’m in hunger meltdown at the end of the day. Thanks, Tess, I’m so glad you found it helpful!
Hello, delicious! Sooooo, what time should I be over for dinner??
Did you make that sauce just for me? Love everything tahini and damn adding coconut milk and liquid aminos? sold!
Yes, yes I did!! I thought of you every single time I took a sip of the sauce…errr…bite of the stir fry 😉
You are so creative! This looks fabulous and I will be making this in the next couple of weeks! I broke my foot a couple weeks ago so won’t be making it now, but I will soooooon! Keep up the awesome coconut milk recipes!!
Oh nooooo!! I wish you a speedy recovery! In the meantime, take it easy and let other folk (like the man stallion) cater to your needs 😉
I’m intrigued by this coconut tahini sauce .. I love coconut. I love tahini. And I eat tahini sauce several times a week .. I MUST give this a try!!
mmmmmmmmhmmmmmmmmmm! You will go to heaaaaaaaven!
you had me at 10 cloves of garlic. haha I LOVE IT! That sauce sounds freaking amazing, coconut and tahini??? They need to always be together now.
Bahaha! You can never have too much garlic, I always say! Although I did have to do the ego-check-on-aisle-3 thing when typing the garlic portion of the recipe…I almost hid my head in shame…but then I didn’t.
Coconut tahini? That sounds so good. I’ve been obsessed with coconut lately. Coconut milk in sauces, coconut flakes in my granola, coconut ice-cream from Trader Joe’s. This sounds right up my alley : )
Heck yes! You will become insta-addicted. Break out your sippy cup, cause this one’s a slurper
Oh heeeey girl. So um… I was thinking I’d come over for lunch now. This is on the menu right?!
Look aaaamazing!
Your post is so funny, love your sense of humour 😀 And the stir-fry looks really delicious. I love stir-fries and make them very often on weeknights. Yesterday I made green one (broccolli, leek, mushrooms and tofu with seaweed) with homemade peanut sauce and it was delicious, too, I highly recommend to try.
Oh, my gosh, I love you. You are as bizarre as we are. I’m not sure that’s a compliment. Actually, I’m pretty sure it isn’t, but hey–we think we’re great (it’s the aisle 3 check here). Ha ha. Anyway,I have a jar of Tahini sauce (what the heck is it called? Just tahini?) in the pantry that I need to use up. I never thought to put it on my stir fry with the coconut milk. I need to learn to be bold and just start experimenting and hope that Papa Swope eats what I fix. The man was a beagle in another life. Enjoy your Wednesday. Off to sell fabric to little old ladies like myself.
My ego (Which is rarely in check) says our bizarre nature is totally a good thing. 😉 Tahini, tahini! I used to not know what to do with it either…once upon a time, I threw away an old jar of tahini <- - - worst story ever!! I use it in salad dressings most frequently...I mix it with lemon juice or fresh orange juice and zest, and WHAMO! Amazing salad dressing! I also now eat it by the spoonful, oddly enough! Point is, I've come to realize tahini is amazing in a variety of sauces/dressings. Andrea from Dishing up the Dirt has a TON of awesome tahini-related recipes. HAPPY THURSDAY! Hope the weather is warming up for you peeps out there...we're FINALLY getting snow here!!
Warming up, just in time to snow AGAIN for the weekend. So sad. 🙁 Got my book in the mail yesterday!! New reading material. It’s like being in Chemistry class again! Enjoy your weekend. Hope you get enough snow to ski, or whatever you do and be sure and keep it. All it does here is make it hard to drive to work. #hurryupspring
Oh man, you guys need a break from winter…hurry up spring is right! I’M SO GLAD YOU GOT THE BOOOOOK! Can’t wait to hear what you think. It’s certainly not as intimidating as you’d think…but then again, my chemistry teacher in high school was ULTRA intimidating, so I guess it’s all relative 😉 xoxo