Peanut Sauce Stir Fried Vegetables

I’ve been making this dish for years. There never was a recipe; you just kind of wing it. However, if you don’t like peanut butter this will not work for you. Sometimes I add chunks of chicken but mostly not. I pretty much always use mushrooms of which there are so many tasty varieties and tofu with all sorts of different vegetables. Tofu is a super food, as healthy as it gets. But, if you don’t like tofu, don’t include it. Kristine is not a fan, but I love tofu so she gives me hers and I’m down with that. The decision as what to use is often made by what’s in the vegetable drawer or garden. What follows is a common version of this very rich and tasty but healthy dish.

Olive oil
3 cloves of diced garlic
Low sodium soy sauce (regular soy is way too salty and should be avoided)
1 Jalapeno or 2 Serrano hot peppers chopped (this is optional)
12oz of mushrooms
Couple handfuls of carrots (I prefer carrot chips)
Sliced  pepper: red, yellow, green, whatever you have on hand
1 small zucchini cut into disks
1 heaping tablespoon of peanut butter
1 package of extra firm tofu cut into slabs
Rice

This recipe has a little bit of prep time but still only takes about 40 minutes to make. First I put the tofu in a bowl and put a plate on it with something heavy on top of it. This will help press excess water out of the tofu. Then you cut it into ½” thick slabs. Cut up the mushrooms and whatever other vegetables you have, peppers, cauliflower, zucchini, carrots etc all work well. 

Start with the garlic and hot peppers in enough olive oil to coat a wok. Lightly brown the garlic and add the mushrooms and carrots. I like to give mushrooms and carrots a head start and cook them for several minutes before adding the other ingredients. They will need some fluid to cook in; a mixture of wine and low sodium soy sauce does the trick. This is a stir fry; cook it at high temperature and stir constantly. After 5 minutes or so; put in the rest of the vegetables. You will need to add more soy as you go; I just shake the bottle over the wok until I get enough to build the sauce. This is where the peanut butter goes in. Stir it in vigorously until it blends into the sauce. Near the end put the tofu in for about 5 minutes. Don’t stir it too much, it will fall apart.

This is another very flavorful dish. You can control the spicy heat with the hot peppers. You don’t necessarily need the hot peppers; if you don’t like spicy hot, the sauce has a lot of flavor all by itself. Serve it with rice.

Enjoy!

~David