15 Minute Shrimp and Snow Pea Stir Fry
An easy, healthy shrimp and snow pea stir fry that can be made in less than 15 minutes! Serve on its own or with sushi rice, brown rice, or soba noodles.
This week has flown by! How in the world is it almost the weekend? I’m actually on a plane right now (most likely as you are reading this) flying to San Francisco to visit my sister for the next few days.
I’ll be spending the majority of the time in the Oakland and Berkeley area, but might take a day trip to Sonoma. If you want to follow along with what we’re doing, where we’re going, and what we’re eating, I’ll be on snapping as much as my sad phone battery allows (username: blogoverthyme).
In the meantime, I think it’s about time that I share a dinner recipe with you! Specifically, a super easy, flavor-packed dinner, which uses only a handful of ingredients, and can be made in just 15 minutes. Yes, really! Grab the ingredients at the grocery store after work and make this tonight!
This dish has already joined my running list of recipes that I keep on hand for those busy nights, when I have absolutely no energy to cook or spend a lot of time prepping ingredients. Thankfully, this dish has minimal prep, yet does not lack on flavor.
The original recipe was discovered in an old issue of Food & Wine magazine, and I tweaked it slightly by adding sesame oil, fresh lime juice (truthfully, I love adding freshly squeezed lime juice to just about anything these days–particularly any dish with an Asian influence), garlic, and adjusting the ingredient amounts just a tad.
If you’re a ginger fan, you will love this dish! It is loaded with fresh ginger. The original recipe called for slicing the peel ginger root into very thin matchsticks (essentially a very fine julienne) and sauteing it before adding the rest of the ingredients.
I loved doing it this way–as opposed to grating or finely chopping it– as it made the ginger flavor more pronounced with each bite. The ginger, along with the chile-garlic sauce (I use this brand!), adds just the right amount of heat, without it being overpowering in the slightest. If you prefer more spicy, I suggest adding another 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of chile-garlic sauce.
My biggest tip for buying ginger is to find the least knobbly piece available at the grocery store. It saves a ton of time and frustrating when peeling, and you end up with less waste and extremely fibrous bits and pieces. I prefer to peel ginger with the edge of a spoon, but a vegetable peeler will work as well!
Biggest time-saving tip? Buy peeled and deveined wild shrimp from your fish monger. Deveining shrimp might be one of my least favorite kitchen tasks ever. It is tedious, fairly disgusting, and makes a mess. Deveined and peeled shrimp cost a bit more per pound, but the added convenience and ease make it totally worth it!
This stir fry tastes great with steamed sushi rice (you could easily use short-grain or long-grain brown rice as well!), and it would also taste great on top or tossed with soba noodles.
Plus, I’m pretty sure nothing beats dinner in less 15 minutes! Nothing.
15 Minute Shrimp and Snow Pea Stir Fry
Ingredients
- ½ cup (120 mL) low-sodium organic chicken broth or vegetable broth
- 2 tablespoons (30 mL) soy sauce
- 1-2 teaspoons sambal oelek
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch
- 2 tablespoons (30 mL) toasted sesame oil
- 2-inch piece fresh ginger peeled and very thinly julienned
- 2 garlic cloves finely chopped
- 5 scallions
- ½ lb (8 oz) snow peas cut in half on a bias
- 1 lb (16 oz) peeled and deveined wild shrimp 16-20 per lb, tails-on
- 1-2 teaspoons fresh lime juice
- cooked sushi rice, brown rice, or soba noodles for serving
Instructions
- In a small bowl, whisk together the chicken broth, soy sauce, sambal oelek, and cornstarch. Set aside. Cut off and discard the root ends of the scallions. Thinly slice the white bottoms, and slice the green tops into ½-inch pieces.
- In a large (12-inch) non-stick skillet or wok, heat the sesame oil over medium-high heat. Add the julienned ginger and sauté for 1 to 2 minutes, or until it has softened considerably. Add the garlic and white bottoms of the scallions, and sauté for an additional 1 to 2, minutes, stirring frequently. Add the snow peas to the pan and sauté for 1 to 2 minutes, or until they are just beginning to soften and ginger is beginning to lightly caramelize.
- Add the shrimp and cook for 1 minute, stirring frequently, until the shrimp are lightly pink, but still mostly opaque in center. Add the soy-broth mixture to the pan and continue to cook until the sauce has thickened, and the shrimp have cooked all the way through. Add the green tops of the scallions and the lime juice to the pan, season to taste with salt and pepper, and serve immediately.
- This dish is great served on its own, but tastes great served on top of rice or cooked soba noodles.
Tips for Success:
- Try to find the least knobbly piece of fresh ginger available at the grocery store. This saves a ton of time and frustration when peeling, and you end up with less waste and extremely fibrous bits and pieces. I like to peel ginger with the edge of a spoon, but a vegetable peeler will work as well!
11 Comments on “15 Minute Shrimp and Snow Pea Stir Fry”
Great recipe and easy to make half for two people. I’m not familiar with the chili garlic sauce and made to your recipe but way too spicy for me so I would cut down on this, as the ginger and garlic added spice, too. All in all a great recipe and good directions.
Wonderful recipe! Versatile and always delicious!
Made this tonight and loved it – will definitely make again! Added some toasted sesame seeds but otherwise followed recipe exactly. Two of us ate the whole recipe though – four servings is kind of skimpy but we try to watch carbs and kept rice to a minimum.
So glad you liked it! And love the addition of sesame seeds. Thanks for the feedback about the recipe amount – I tend to serve it with rice, so it goes further but that makes sense. ?
Super looking. You might want to correct the two uses of “sauce” in step two where you mean “sauté.” The Kitchn linked to your post today, so you’ll be getting lots of traffic.
Oh my gosh! You are a life saver Dorothy! Thank you. I just figured out that my recipe plugin was autocorrecting saute to sauce (yikes!), so it should have been “saute”. I’ve just fixed the recipe and hopefully this will clear everything up for everyone else. Really appreciate you taking the time to point this out to me.
15 minute dinners means more time for trashy television! I can totally get on board with that.
Shrimp stir fry is my favorite! 15 minutes makes it that much better.
15 minute dinners ARE MY DREAM. How did you know? Definitely going to have to give this a try with tofu or tempeh instead of shrimp!
Minimal prep and tons of flavour? This is sure to be a winner in our home, and I’m totally with you on the fresh lime juice!
This looks so fresh and colorful!! Love good quick and healthy meal like this! 🙂