Elizabeth Davenport

If you subscribe to our newsletter, you’ll know this shows up on my weekly meal plan often. I’ve been making this easy, weeknight tofu veggie stir-fry a lot recently so I thought I’d share it with you. When I was growing up, stir-fry was in our meal line up, too, and I always loved it. There’s something so satisfying about quickly cooked, crisp veggies in a quick sauce over warm, tender rice. YUM!

Make a big batch so you have leftovers

Lately I’ve been making a BIG batch of stir-fry along with a big batch of rice. I serve the leftovers for dinner a second night or lunch a number of times during the week depending on how much is leftover. It works well reheated and in a thermos for lunches.

No recipe needed

One of the nice things about stir-fry is you can use any combination of veggies and protein you’d like. You don’t really even need a recipe. I tend to use carrots, mushrooms, broccoli, sugar snap peas, edamame and bok choy (or baby bok choy), along with those canned baby corn. You can buy cut broccoli and sliced mushrooms, as well as chopped ginger. So, this dish really doesn’t take long to make. Then, all you have to do is peel and cut the carrots and mix the ingredients for the sauce.

I go through phases where I use skirt steak in my stir-fry. Shrimp or chicken works well too! But these days we’re trending tofu. I used to just drain press the tofu for about 30 minutes, cut it into cubes and add it to the veggies and sauce. But, I much prefer it this way because the texture is nice and firm and there’s some additional flavor to the tofu with the soy sauce and olive oil.  (I got the idea for baked tofu here).

I tend to change up what kind of rice I serve it over.  Sometimes, I serve this over rice cooked in coconut milk. Sometimes, it’s white rice and sometimes it’s brown rice.  Most of the time I use Lundberg rice and cook it in a pan on the stove.

Don’t give up

Dishes like this stir-fry can work well with young ones and more selective eaters because you (or they) can separate out the items, if having everything together is overwhelming.

When my oldest child (now 15) was young, she didn’t care for many of the ingredients in my stir fry. She’d eat the carrots, broccoli, rice and whatever protein was in the combo. Lately though, she’s been eating the dish as is. She recently told me how much she loves mushrooms and noted that she used to hate them.  I’ve been cooking stir-fry (veggie sauté) for a LOOOOONG time. I share this because it’s a good example of the importance of continuing to offer foods even when children won’t eat them.

The order I use to get tofu veggie stir-fry on the table

• Pre heat the oven
• Put rice on to cook
• Drain and press the tofu
• While the tofu is draining, gather together your ingredients for the rest of the stir-fry.
• Make the sauce
• Chop the ginger
• Rinse and chop the veggies (or open the bags and containers of pre-sliced and pre-cut veggies)
• Cube the tofu, toss it with the soy sauce, cornstarch and oil
• Bake the tofu
• Stir-fry the veggies!
• Add the baked tofu to the stir-fry
• Serve over cooked rice
• Enjoy!

If you’re looking for more quick and easy recipes check out previous “go-to” meals posts here and here.

Let us know if you make the easy, weeknight tofu, veggie stir-fry. We’d love to hear from you!

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