Indian Stir-Fry Recipes

Stir-frying is a method that is popular in Chinese and Thai cuisine, but can be used in practically any cuisine. Just mixing and matching the ingredients and spices will give you a stir-fry with a local touch. You can easily make desi stir-fries with all Indian ingredients! You don’t even need any exotic ingredients. Anything you have at home – veggies, beans, chana, paneer, bring them together with a dash of spices and stir-fry them to make a mouth-watering meal! From purple mogri to French beans, cauliflower, paneer and Kabuli chana, we find that most of our ingredients lend themselves well to stir-frying. Wanna give it a try?
1. Purple Mogri Stir Fry
2. Cauliflower Stir-fry
3. French Bean and Corn Stir Fry
4. Paneer Capsicum Stir-fry
5. Kabuli Chana Stir- Fry

Healthy Stir-Fry Recipes

So tasty, delectably crunchy and mind-blowingly tasty, but can you believe that the stir-fry can be made with just a spot of oil? By combining a host of healthy and tasty veggies and beans, you can make a delicious and filling stir-fry for lunch or dinner. Conscious selection of ingredients and a few smart tweaks will give you super healthy stir-fried dishes such as these…
1. Water Chestnuts and Purple Cabbage Stir Fry
2. Stir - Fry Paneer, Broccoli and Baby Corn
3. French Bean and Chana Dal Stir-fry
4. Quick Stir Fry Cauliflower
5. Stir Fried Paneer

Broccoli, water chestnuts, mushrooms, paneer, cauliflower, colourful capsicums, crunchy cabbage, bring them together into your flaming hot wok to make a mind-boggling dish that scores high on the health chart!

10 Things to know before you start stir-frying

1. Keep things ready before you start. Once the wok is hot, you have to swiftly add the ingredients one after the one. You cannot stop. So, prepare all the ingredients and keep them ready on the kitchen counter before you heat the wok.

2. There is no right or wrong when it comes to combining ingredients. You can throw in virtually any edible food into your wok! This makes stir-fries a great way to use up assorted veggies leftover in the refrigerator.

3. Sort the ingredients according to the cooking time. Slow-cooking veggies like carrots and French beans have to be added earlier while fast-cooking ones like bean sprouts and paneer have to be added later.

4. It also helps to chop veggies according to their cooking time and texture. Capsicums can be cubed while cabbage has to be shredded. So, stir-frying is a good way to hone your chopping skills too!

5. Once the main ingredients are ready, prepare an aromatic mixture comprising herbs and spices, which will add flavour and aroma to your stir-fry. Typically, a stir-fry uses ingredients like garlic, ginger, onions, spring onions, dry red chilli flakes and green chillies. You have to chop these really fine for them to be most effective!

6. If you are going to experiment with stir-frying, you need to stock up sauces like soy sauce, hoisin sauce, vegetarian oyster sauce and chilli sauce. Use these judiciously in the proper combinations and amounts to impart a vibrant but balanced flavour to your stir-fry. You can also make innovative sauce mixes using coconut milk, makhani gravy, white gravy etc.

7. Stir-fries are best made in woks. A wok is a utensil that is specially designed for cooking food quickly at high temperatures using minimal oil. It is a large, deep bowl made of thin metal with gently curved sides and a firm handle. The heat concentrates at the bottom of the pan and the curved sides allow you to push the ingredients to cooler areas. If you do not have a wok, go for a kadai. Before you start off, smear a little oil inside the wok or pan with a paper towel. This will help reduce the amount of oil used later in the recipe.

8. Once you have the ingredients, spice mix and sauce ready, it’s time to heat your wok. The wok has to be blazing hot – and that’s very important! Cooking the ingredients over high temperatures helps to preserve their flavour, colour and texture.

9. Use a high-smoking-point oil like peanut, sanflower, corn or canola oil.

10. While stir-frying, you have to keep on stirring the ingredients or tossing them around so that there is equal distribution of heat for fast, uniform cooking. Don't overcook the vegetables – remember they should still be crisp when you are done!

Stir-frying takes a bit of practice, to master fine details like how to chop each veggie, which order to add them in, and when to increase or reduce the heat. The recipes on our website will help you start off, and gradually master the art of stir-frying. With a little practice, you will know these details just instinctively and will be able to make stir-fries with practically any combo of ingredients.