Spicy Udon Noodle Vegetable Stir-Fry

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This spicy udon noodle stir fry is an easy weeknight dinner you can customize with your favorite vegetables.

Udon stir fry with vegetables in a serving bowl with chopsticks

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!

Udon stir fry with vegetables in a serving bowl with chopsticks

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:

  1. 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).
  2. 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.
  3. Cook the udon noodles according to the package directions. 
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. Add the scallions and bok choy leaves to the wok. Stir frequently and cook for another 1 to 2 minutes.
  7. 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!).

Udon stir fry with vegetables in a serving bowl with chopsticks

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. 


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Udon stir fry with vegetables in a serving bowl with chopsticks

Spicy Udon Noodle Vegetable Stir Fry

Nicole
This spicy udon noodle stir fry is an easy weeknight dinner you can customize with your favorite vegetables.
5 from 1 vote
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Total Time 50 minutes
Course Dinner, Lunch, Main, Main Course
Cuisine Asian
Servings 6 servings
Calories 447 kcal

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

Chili garlic sauce:  Adjust the amount of chili garlic sauce used when making the stir fry sauce based on how much spice you can handle. We like it spicy, so we add the full 6 tsp (and then sometimes bring the chili garlic to the table and add a little extra to our plates!).
Cooking the veggies:  Everyone likes their veggies cooked differently! This recipe cooks them a little longer, so the veggies end up pretty soft – if you like them crunchy, just shorten the cooking time in each step by a few minutes.
Storage: 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 for Sunday night dinner and portion out the leftovers for easy microwave lunches throughout the week!

Nutrition

Calories: 447kcalCarbohydrates: 72gProtein: 15gFat: 12gSaturated Fat: 1gPolyunsaturated Fat: 4gMonounsaturated Fat: 4gSodium: 1442mgPotassium: 304mgFiber: 7gSugar: 23gVitamin A: 2082IUVitamin C: 98mgCalcium: 53mgIron: 2mg
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Keyword baby bok choy, bell pepper, brown sugar, chili garlic sauce, garlic, healthy, noodles, onion, rice vinegar, scallions, sesame oil, snap peas, soy sauce, stir fry, udon, vegetables, vegetarian
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Join the Conversation

  1. 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!

    1. nicole Author says:

      Yum – so glad you enjoyed our recipe! We’d love to hear how it goes next time and what vegetables you end up using 🙂

5 from 1 vote (1 rating without comment)

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