Is this stir fry vegan?

This Thai stir fry recipe can be made vegan if you remove the fish sauce. Feel free to omit and add in more tamari or soy sauce to compensate!

How do I store leftovers?

Store the stir fry ingredients in your fridge in an airtight container for up to a week. You can store toppings like green onions and cilantro in a separate container to keep them more fresh. If I make noodles or rice, I usually just store those with the stir fry!

Thai Vegetable Stir Fry – Roots and Radishes

Name: Thai Vegetable Stir Fry
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 20 min
Cuisine: Thai
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon coconut oil; 1 small onion, sliced thinly into half moons; 2 cloves fresh garlic, minced; 1/2-inch fresh ginger, grated; 2-3 fresh red chiles; 1 bunch baby bok choy, chopped; 3 turnips, diced medium-sized; 1-2 cups shelled edamame; 1/2 cup cashews; 1/3 cup tamari; 1/2 teaspoon fish sauce; 2 teaspoons brown sugar (or coconut sugar); Green onions, cilantro, and limes for serving

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This Thai vegetable stir fry is the perfect weeknight dinner because it's quick, easy, and SO delicious! Stir fry is flexible, so you can use it with the veggies I use below, or use any seasonal veggies you have on hand.

Pad pak in sauté pan with simple Thai stir fry sauce

So here's what's up: We're in a sort of Thai stir fry obsessed situation over at our household, what with all the CSA veggies we're picking up every other week. And you guys, I think this Thai vegetable stir fry could be the weeknight dinner of your dreams.

This recipe is inspired by a Thai dish known as "pad pak", or "stir-fried vegetables", and can be made with any produce you have and is done in 20 minutes.

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Ingredients
Substitutions & Variations
Instructions
Essential Thai Ingredients
Thai Vegetable Stir Fry FAQs
Top Tip
📖 Recipe

Ingredients

Baby bok choy - Bok choy works too!
Turnips - OMG you guys, I had no idea how much I liked turnips until I got them fresh from my CSA. They soak up the flavors of stir fry sauce perfectly.
Onion
Garlic
Ginger - Fresh ginger root works best here, but I'm not beyond shortcuts 😉 If you have a ginger paste on hand, you can use that too. I usually have the kind from the Ginger People in my fridge.
Fresh red chile peppers - If you can find Thai red chiles, use those! I only had Fresno chiles at my local grocery store, which will work perfectly. Honestly, any chile pepper you can find will work, or a scoop of red chile paste in a pinch.
Coconut oil
Tamari or soy sauce
Fish sauce - Thai food is about balancing sweet, sour, spicy, bitter, and salty, and fish sauce contributes to our saltiness!
Coconut or brown sugar - Just a bit of coconut or brown sugar balances out the salt and spice.
Cashews - For incredible flavor and crunch. I love how cashews soak up the flavor of the soy sauce!
Edamame - Preferably the shelled kind, for plant-based protein! I usually find shelled edamame in the frozen section at the grocery store.
Green onions, cilantro, fresh lime

Substitutions & Variations

Thai vegetable stir fries are SO flexible! Pretty much any veggie will taste good with Thai flavors, so feel free to use up what you have. Below are some substitutions and variations you can try to make this recipe work for you!

Veggies - Keep the base of onions, ginger, garlic, and chile peppers, but feel free to replace the bok choy and turnips with what you're craving or have available to you. You can add sugar snap peas, carrots, zucchini, yellow squash, butternut squash, eggplant, broccoli, green beans... the options are endless! I especially love making stir fries with spring, summer, and fall local produce as it comes in season.
Peanuts - While I used cashews in this pad pak, peanuts would also be delicious! I love the added slight crunch that nuts add to a Thai veggie stir fry.
Vegetarian - the beef hamburger can be replaced with a plant-based burger to make this vegetarian
Protein - Add a protein of choice to your pad pak! For meat, sauté that first and set aside while you stir fry the vegetables. Add the meat in 1-2 minutes before the end of stir frying -- I recommend adding the cooked meat back in at the same time you add the edamame and cashews. You also try adding in additional plant-based protein, like tofu or chickpeas. Or, try topping it with a fried or hard-boiled egg!

Instructions

Chopped turnips, baby bok choy, red chili peppers, garlic, ginger, and sliced onions on bamboo cutting board

Prep your veggies by thinly slicing onions, mincing garlic, grating ginger, and slicing up the chile peppers. You can also dice the turnip and chop the bok choy so you're ready to add them.

Sliced onions, chili peppers, garlic, and ginger being sautéed in coconut oil

Heat some coconut oil over medium-high heat in a large sauté pan or wok. Add onions, garlic, ginger, and chiles, and sauté for about 5 minutes, until soft.

Pad pak veggies in large sauté pan with bamboo spoon

Turn up the heat to high, and add bok choy and turnips. Sauté for another 3-4 minutes, stirring frequently.

Pad pak veggies with edamame and cashes just added into sauté pan, with bamboo spoon

Add edamame and cashews, and stir fry for another 2 minutes. We want the veggies to be HOT!

Two gray bowls with pad pak, served with brown rice, with limes wedges and cilantro on the side

Add the tamari, fish sauce, and brown sugar straight to the pan, and stir fry for about 2 more minutes. Because of the high heat, the tamari should sizzle as soon as it hits the pan!

Poke a turnip (or the hardest veggie you used) with a fork to make sure it's cooked all the way through, then remove veggies from heat. Serve with brown rice (or noodles), green onions, cilantro, and lime!

Essential Thai Ingredients

Part of the reason Thai food is so delicious is that it's a balance of spicy, salty, sour, bitter, and sweet all at once! To achieve these flavors, I always keep the below ingredients on hand.

Alliums - Onions and garlic form the base for most Thai recipes and add incredible flavor.
Chiles - Fresh chiles are what make Thai recipes spicy! Spicy chile pastes will work, but you can also use fresh chiles like we did with our Thai stir-fried veggies.
Fish sauce - Rather than using salt in Thai recipes, you can add saltiness via fish sauce.
Tamari (or soy sauce) - A common ingredient across most Asian cuisine, soy sauce adds a salty, umami flavor.
Coconut or brown sugar - Because Thai food has a lot of salty, spicy, or even sour flavors, it's typically balanced out with a little coconut or brown sugar.
Coconut milk - We didn't use any coconut milk in this pad pak recipe, but it's worth noting that coconut milk is an essential for many Thai soups and curries. Full fat canned coconut milk is the best for flavor and convenience!
Curry paste - Various types of curry paste form the base for many a Thai curry! Thai red, green, or yellow curry paste are essential and impart such incredible flavor. You can make your own, but I like the Thai Kitchen products by McCormick, which are available in most stores.
Cilantro - One common fresh herb for fresh Thai cooking. I especially love using fresh cilantro to top Thai dishes like curry, stir fry, or peanut noodles!
Thai basil - OMG Thai basil is so good! Where I live, it's a lot easier to find it at the farmers market or as a full plant to grow at home (at the grocery store or wherever you buy plants for your garden). You could use regular sweet basil if you can't find Thai basil, but Thai basil will get you that truly authentic Thai food taste.
Ginger - Ginger is one of the most commons spices found in Thai dishes, and it's delicious with all of the above ingredients. I love to use fresh when I can, but I also frequently use a store-bought ginger paste for convenience.