Healthy Vegetarian Stir Fry Recipes

This quick and easy side dish goes with anything on the dinner menu. Made with a simple sauce, it highlights the fresh vegetables as the stars of the show. When pea shoots aren't in season, try this same stir-fry with fresh watercress or spinach.

Umami-rich shiitake mushrooms take the place of meat, and spaghetti squash strands stand in for the traditional rice noodles, in this riff on the classic Filipino noodle dish pancit bihon. Serve alongside your favorite vegan main or add some cubed tofu to make it a meal.

Skip takeout and make a healthier Chinese lo mein at home that's packed with vegetables. Make sure you drain your noodles well before adding them, as wet noodles will turn your stir-fry into a soggy mess. For a less spicy option, omit the sriracha hot sauce.

Swap regular noodles for veggie noodles in this low-calorie, healthy spaghetti squash recipe. For a fun presentation, serve the lo mein in the hollowed-out spaghetti squash boat. If you like it hot, serve with extra Sriracha.

Sichuan peppercorns add a touch of floral heat to this mushroom-and-cabbage-loaded riff on dan dan noodles. Look for protein-rich vegetarian seitan--processed wheat gluten with a meaty texture-- near refrigerated tofu in large supermarkets or natural-foods stores. The actual weight of the seitan in a package varies depending on whether water weight is included. Look for the undrained weight on the label.

The bold taste of black bean-garlic sauce mellows into a rich and warming glaze in this fast Asian-style dish.

Broccoli and red bell pepper tossed with a spicy peanut sauce makes a delicious side or stir in some cooked chicken or tofu to make it a main dish.

In this vegetarian grilling recipe, the hot grill gives tofu smokiness and some crispy edges. A BBQ sauce made with gochujang, the hot Korean chile paste, doubles as both a glaze and some sauce to slather on the tofu at the table. Serve with brown rice or farro.

Pressing tofu before making this tofu stir-fry recipe gives it a chewy, satisfying texture. Three green peas--sugar snaps, snow peas and shelling peas--balance it out with brightly flavored crunch. Hoisin--a dark brown, thick, spicy-sweet sauce made from soybeans and a complex mix of spices--gives the stir-fry rich depth of flavor with just one ingredient. Look for it, as well as chile-garlic sauce, in the Asian section of the market.

Prep all the ingredients before you begin the celery stir-fry--once the skillet is hot, the dish cooks in minutes. Cut zest from the orange with a vegetable peeler before you juice it.

At last--a sweet-and-sour dish with a fresh, not cloying, taste. Add a pinch of crushed red pepper, a splash of chile-garlic sauce or a dash of hot sauce to give it a little heat.

This quick-and-easy vegetable stir-fry uses bottled minced ginger and garlic as well as purchased shredded carrots, so it will be ready to eat in just 15 minutes.

Napa--also known as Chinese cabbage--is the preferred cabbage in this healthy Asian stir-fry recipe because it's much sweeter and more tender than green cabbage. If napa cabbage isn't available at your grocery store, try Savoy cabbage or bok choy.

A flavorful sauce and lots of crunchy vegetables make this seitan stir-fry a quick and healthy choice for dinner tonight!

Serve this lightly spicy, colorful vegetable side recipe with grilled shrimp or salmon. You can also use snow peas or a mix of the two.

Cooling cooked rice is key here—it dries out the rice and firms it up so it doesn't stick together when it's fried, yielding fluffier results.

In this healthy Chinese tofu stir-fry recipe, the bok choy is cooked first, then removed from the pan so its juices don't dilute the sauce. Pressing tofu helps extract liquid so it cooks up with a bit of a bite. Look for plum sauce--a sweet-and-sour condiment--near other Chinese sauces in most supermarkets. Serve with steamed brown rice.

In this healthy vegetarian dinner recipe, pressing the tofu may seem fussy but it's crucial to getting crispy results. Black rice, also labeled forbidden rice, gets its color from anthocyanins--healthy antioxidants that also give eggplant and blueberries their dark hue.

We like broccoli best in this tofu stir-fry, but any mixture of vegetables you have on hand will work. One way to get great tofu texture without deep-frying is to toss the tofu in cornstarch before stir-frying. Let it cook for several minutes without stirring to help it develop a little crust. Serve with: Chinese egg noodles or rice noodles and a glass of Riesling.

A hit of Sriracha gives a sweet and spicy edge to this healthy vegetarian recipe. Traditional lo mein is made with fresh lo mein noodles, which can be found in Asian markets. You can also use fresh or dried linguine noodles--fresh linguine is in the refrigerated section of some grocery stores. This easy dinner comes together in just 30 minutes, so it's perfect for weeknights.