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This spicy udon noodle stir fry is an easy weeknight dinner you can customize with your favorite vegetables.
A simple stir fry is one of our go-to weeknight dinners as it is always easy to make, warm, comforting, and delicious. Plus, it’s a great way to introduce a variety of vegetables into your diet! Even though we don’t always use the same vegetables (and even change up our stir-fry sauce from time to time), we wanted to share with you our favorite version of our spicy udon noodle vegetable stir-fry.
Udon Noodle Stir Fry Ingredients
Vegetarian noodle stir-fry is extremely easy to make for a couple of reasons. One, you only really need 3 main ingredients:
- Udon noodles
- Stir-fry vegetables
- Stir-fry sauce
Two, the veggies and sauce can be customized to your liking and based on what you already have at home, or what looks good at the grocery store. Here’s what we use for our favorite udon noodle vegetable stir-fry:
Our Go-To Udon Noodle Stir-Fry Vegetables
- Snap peas
- Scallions
- Bell pepper
- Yellow onion
- Baby bok choy
- Garlic
Udon Stir-Fry Sauce
- Soy sauce
- Brown sugar
- Rice vinegar
- Sesame oil
- Minced garlic
- Chili garlic sauce
If you decide to customize the vegetables in your stir fry, we recommend sticking to about 5 or so vegetable types to keep the proportions balanced. For some ideas on what other vegetables work well for stir-fry, see the section below on Recipe Variations.
While the sauce provides a lot of flavor, the veggies you choose can greatly impact the flavor and texture of the dish. This makes it easy to have udon veggie stir-fry over and over again with new ways to enjoy it every time!
How To Make Spicy Vegetable Stir-Fry With Noodles
It really just takes 3 steps to make a delicious vegetable stir fry at home: make the sauce, cook the noodles, and stir-fry the vegetables. Then just combine everything together in the wok and dinner is served!
Here’s a complete breakdown for how to make our udon noodle stir fry recipe:
- First wash and prep the vegetables: cut the bell pepper and onion into thin strips, chop the scallions and baby bok choy (separating out the leafy greens from the white stems, keep both).
- Combine soy sauce and brown sugar in a small bowl and mix well until sugar is dissolved, then add rice vinegar, sesame oil, minced garlic, and chili garlic sauce (to taste). Stir well to combine and set aside.
- Cook the udon noodles according to the package directions.
- While the noodles are cooking, heat 2 tbsp vegetable oil in a wok or large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and snap peas, stirring occasionally until snap peas start to soften, about 6 to 8 minutes.
- Add the bell pepper, onion, and scallion and bok choy stalks to the wok with an additional 1 tbsp of vegetable oil. Cook until vegetables soften, about 3 to 5 minutes.
- Add the scallions and bok choy leaves to the wok. Stir frequently and cook for another 1 to 2 minutes.
- Lower heat and add cooked udon noodles and sauce to the wok. Stir well to combine and serve hot.
If you decide to add different vegetables to your stir-fry, here’s the key to ensuring that everything is cooked correctly: group ingredients into similar toughnesses, and cook them in stages (from most to least tough). Just like how we add the snap peas first, followed by pepper, onion, and bok choy stalks, and then finally followed by leafy ingredients. Follow this method and you’ll end up with perfectly cooked vegetables every time.
We also like to cook our veggies a little longer since we prefer them on the soft side. If you prefer more crunchy veggies in your stir-fry, shorten the cook time for each batch of vegetables by a couple of minutes.
Lastly, the chili garlic sauce is what gives these spicy noodles some heat. If you want a more mild dish, just reduce the amount of chili garlic used in the sauce. Alternatively, if you want this dish extra spicy, you can add some pure chili oil to the sauce (we love doing this sometimes!).
Serving Spicy Udon Noodle Stir-Fry
While this spicy udon stir-fry can be a standalone dinner, we highly recommend serving it with our pork dumplings or your favorite Asian side dish to complete the meal. This stir-fry is also the perfect addition to a family style buffet along with a couple other Asian dishes such as General Tso’s chicken, or spicy Szechuan dumpling soup.
Recipe Variations
Like we mentioned, stir fry is a great dinner because you can easily customize it based on what’s available in your fridge. All you need is a variety of fresh vegetables – we recommend about 5 different types. Here are a few suggestions that work well:
- Carrots
- Celery
- Chili peppers
- Ginger
- Water chestnuts
- Broccoli
- Mushroom
- Baby corn spears
- Snow peas
Storing & Reheating Leftovers
This recipe is great for meal prepping as it makes a big batch of food. However, that means you need to ensure it is stored properly! This stir fry will keep in the fridge for up to 5 days when stored in an air-tight container.
We like to prep a big batch of stir fry for Sunday night dinner and portion out the leftovers for easy microwave lunches throughout the week. To reheat, simply microwave single servings for about 2 minutes, stirring halfway through.
If you want to reheat a larger batch of stir fry (around 4 servings or more), you can toss it back in the wok over medium heat for a few minutes until warmed through.
Next time you don’t know what to make for dinner, or what lunches are going to be for the week, make a batch of our vegetarian udon noodle stir-fry to solve both problems at once! Let us know what you think by rating, commenting, and sharing below.
Love this recipe? You may enjoy these recipes, too:
- Spicy Szechuan Dumpling Soup
- General Tso’s Chicken
- Restaurant Style Thai Drunken Noodles
- Easy Vegetarian Bibimbap
- Garlic Noodles
To browse more of our latest recipes and seasonal dishes, visit our homepage here.
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Spicy Udon Noodle Vegetable Stir Fry
Equipment
- Wok or large saute pan
Ingredients
Stir Fry
- 8 ounces snap peas
- 2 bundles scallions
- 2 medium bell peppers
- 1 medium yellow onion
- 2 heads baby bok choy
- 16 onces Japanese udon noodles dry
- 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 teaspoon minced garlic
Sauce
- 5 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
- 5 tablespoons brown sugar
- 5 teaspoons rice vinegar
- 4 teaspoons sesame oil
- 2 to 6 teaspoons chili garlic sauce adjust depending on your spice tolerance
- 1 teaspoon minced garlic
Instructions
- Wash and prep the vegetables: wash and dry the snap peas, cut the bell peppers and onion into thin strips, and chop the scallions and baby bok choy (separating out the leafy greens from the stems).
- Combine soy sauce and brown sugar in a small bowl and mix well until sugar is dissolved, then add rice vinegar, sesame oil, minced garlic, and chili garlic sauce (to taste). Stir well to combine and set aside.
- Cook the udon noodles according to the package directions.
- While the noodles are cooking, heat 2 tablespoons vegetable oil in a wok or large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and snap peas, stirring occasionally until snap peas start to soften, about 6 to 8 minutes.
- Add the bell pepper, onion, and scallion and bok choy stalks to the wok with an additional 1 tbsp of vegetable oil. Cook until vegetables soften, about 3 to 5 minutes.
- Add the scallion and bok choy leaves to the wok. Stir frequently and cook for another 1 to 2 minutes.
- Lower heat and add cooked udon noodles and sauce to the wok. Stir well to combine and serve hot.
Notes
Nutrition
If you have any questions regarding the information presented in this post, please refer to our Nutrition Disclaimer here.
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We enjoyed this last week, and are anxious to try it again, perhaps playing with the vegetable selection to ensure nice, fresh ingredients. I think next time I might cook things in batches and combine them back together at the end – the snap peas got in the way of cooking the onion, for example.
Definitely a recipe we will go back to. Thanks for posting it!
Yum – so glad you enjoyed our recipe! We’d love to hear how it goes next time and what vegetables you end up using 🙂