Stir Fry Noodles: Sweet and Spicy!

Today I’m bringing you a recipe that I make most often for meal-prep purposes: Sweet and Spicy Stir-Fry Noodles! Rice noodles and tender chunks of chicken are tossed together with a ton of crisp veggies and a sweet, spicy, savory sauce.

Most of the food my husband eats is meal-prepped. He spends a few hours in the gym at least 5 days a week, plus he has a physically demanding job so it’s important he’s eating enough to fuel all that activity as well as meeting his macros because he’s currently working on gaining weight/increasing muscle mass. Here are his current daily goals:

Looking for a video demonstration? You can watch me make these noodles exclusively on Facebook Reels!

Stir-Fry Noodles Ingredients and Equipment

Feel free to jump to the full recipe, but here are useful notes about the ingredients you will need to make this Stir-Fry Noodles recipe:

• Rice noodles: I always use Thai Kitchen’s Stir-Fry Rice Noodles, the 14 oz package.
• Boneless skinless chicken breasts: You can use thighs, but the calories and grams of fat will be increased quite a bit.
• Bell peppers, white mushrooms, broccoli florets, whole pea pods: I’m gonna be honest: I like this combination because of the color more than anything! They also are all tasty at different levels of doneness: crisp to tender. The peas and broccoli provide a lot of fiber.
• Water, soy sauce, honey, olive oil, chili garlic paste, mirin, sesame oil, crushed red pepper flakes, ground ginger, chicken bouillon powder: This is our sauce! The honey gives us all the sweetness, and mellows out the spiciness, but you can omit the crushed red pepper flakes if you’re sensitive to spice. Leave the chili garlic paste alone tho, we need it!
• All-purpose seasoning, freshly-cracked black pepper: I make one out of Kosher salt, black pepper, paprika, onion and garlic powder, plus a touch of some dried herbs. Use your favorite, make your own, or just use kosher salt. The sauce is the star anyway, remember?
• Cornstarch + water: We’ll mix these into a slurry and add this at the end so that it can simmer the sauce slightly. We don’t add it earlier because cornstarch breaks down over time if the temp is too high, and it wouldn’t do its job.
• Vegetable oil: Just a touch for sautéing the chicken. You can also drizzle some into the drained and rinsed broccoli and rice noodles if you’re worried about them sticking before the other ingredients are ready to mix in.
• Equipment: I used my 14″ Hexclad Hybrid Pan with Lid to make this. I’ve included it and everything else I used, plus some alternative options below:

How to Make Stir-Fry Noodles 

Full instructions are included in the recipe below, but here is a basic overview of what you’ll need to do, along with some important tidbits to help you make the most of this Stir-Fry Noodles recipe:

1. First, a reminder. Taste is subjective and nobody knows your palette like you do, so adjust the seasonings to taste, always! If you decide to adjust the actual ingredients or liquids keep in mind that the nutrition facts listed below the recipe card will be invalid.
2. Prepare to cook. Figure out what you’re coking ith. You’ll need a really large skillet, or a deep sauté pan, that’s at the very least 1-” across but you’re better off with 12″ or 14″. You’ll also need a large stockpot to boil the noodles, but it needs to be large enough to hold the noodles plus the broccoli florets, because they’ll cook together.
3. Preheat the skillet. Place the skillet over medium-high heat and drizzle bit of oil over the surface. Let the pan preheat while you season the chicken and whip up the marinade. 
4. Work on the flavors. Make the marinade by whisking together the water, soy sauce, honey, olive oil, chili garlic paste, mirin, sesame oil, chicken bouillon powder, ground ginger and crushed red pepper flakes until well combined. I like to do it all in one measuring cup. Season the chicken pieces all over with the all purpose seasoning or kosher salt or whatever you’re using and work it into the meat, then set that aside too. 
5. Cook the chicken. Once seasoned, add the chicken in a single layer to the pan and let cook undisturbed for 4 minutes. After 4 minutes flip the chicken pieces and continue cooking until no pink remains. When that happens go ahead and pour all of the marinade into the pan. Toss the chicken in it to coat it, and bring everything to a low simmer and reduce the heat to medium. 
6. It’s time to boil! Add the rice noodles to salted, boiling water. Let them cook for 4 minutes, then add the broccoli florets. Continue cooking together until the noodles are tender, about 2-3 more minutes. Drain into a colander and rinse with cold water, then add back to the pot and set aside.
7. Add the other veggies. Stir the mushrooms, pea pods, and bell peppers into the skillet with the marinade and chicken, then add the black pepper and cornstarch slurry. Stir that in completely and let simmer for two minutes.
8. Combine. Depending on your cookware and preference you might want to mix it up in the pot you boiled the pasta and broccoli in – the high sides make it a lot less messy. I like to add the broccoli and noodles to the skillet and mix ‘em in that. Whichever you choose, take your time to throughly combine it all. If you choose the pot you boiled the noodles in make sure to turn the heat to medium while you’re mixing everything together, then let it cook for a minute before turning it off. Just to help everything meld more easily.
9. Pack up the leftovers. It’ll keep in the fridge for up to 4 days, and in an air tight container in the freezer for… a long time. The noodles absorb the sauce as it sits, so be mindful of that.

Switch Up These Stir-Fry Noodles

You can make endless variations with this Stir-Fry Noodles recipe, so please feel free to customize yours to taste!  For example, you could…

• Add more chicken! As written, it’s mostly vegetables, and the sauce is definitely the star. You can decrease the vegetables and increase the amount of chicken if you’d like it more protein laden. Note that the nutrition facts will be thrown off by doing this.
• Not into noodles? Do you like rice? Silly question, of course you do, so make Vegetable Fried Rice instead!

Obligatory Pin graphics for you – 

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