Stir-Fried Vegetables (Yasai Itame) (Video) 野菜炒め

Cooking a healthy meal for your family on a busy weeknight is possible with this savory and easy Stir-Fried Vegetables (Yasai Itame) recipe. Loaded with plenty of vegetables and your choice of protein, everything comes together in less than 30 minutes! {Vegetarian adaptable}

Many readers have told me that they are interested in quick and easy recipes that can be made in just 30 minutes or less. Today I’m really excited to share this easy and delicious Japanese Stir Fry vegetable dish called Yasai Itame (野菜炒め).

In Japanese, yasai (野菜) means vegetables, and itame (炒め) is a noun form for the verb itameru (炒める), which means stir fry. From the name you might assume it’s a vegetarian dish; however, Yasai Itame usually contains a small amount of thinly sliced pork or sausages.

FYI, I have this recipe categorized as Vegetarian & Vegan as you can easily make this vegetarian/vegan-friendly by omitting the meat and oyster sauce. It’s not by mistake – I just didn’t want my vegetarian/vegan readers to miss this delicious recipe.

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

I don’t know the exact history of this simple dish, but Yasai Itame has been around for many years and it is a common home-cooking dish  You might see this dish served as Teishoku 定食 (lunch/dinner set) at Japanese diners. Personally, I feel the dish is underrated and I want to share the reasons why the stir fry vegetables should be made and enjoyed more often.

1. It’s quick! No time to cook? Throw in some ingredients and it’s ready to serve in 15 minutes. Plus, this is an ideal summer dish as you don’t have to stay in your kitchen for too long.
2. It’s nutritious! It’s got vegetables and meat in one dish. And not just one kind of vegetable, but several colorful vegetables.
3. It’s easy! Once you learn a few tips on how to stir fry, it becomes a very handy kitchen skill.
4. It’s versatile! Don’t worry too much about what goes well together. Stir fry dishes is great for using small bits and pieces of ingredients hidden in the refrigerator. Do you have some shiitake mushrooms? Toss that in.
5. It’s super simple, but DELICIOUS! This is a basic Japanese dish that doesn’t require fancy ingredients. If you are new to cooking or don’t cook too often, this is a new repertoire you can count on.

Cooking Tips for Stir-Fry Vegetables (Yasai Itame)

I put together a list of the things I do when I make stir fry dishes. Hope these tips will be helpful if you are new to stir fry dishes.

• Prepare all the ingredients and seasonings before you start cooking. You won’t be able to stop in the middle of the stir-frying process, so don’t try to chop vegetables as you cook.
• Either wash your ingredients ahead of time or remove the moisture before cooking. You don’t want to add moisture to the stir fry dishes otherwise the ingredients get “steamed” and lose their crispiness.
• Cut the ingredients into bite sizes so that they will all cook evenly and faster.
• No wok? Use a big, flat-bottomed fry pan (details in next section).
• Preheat your wok/fry pan before adding the oil and coat well with oil.
• When you add the ingredients, they will reduce the temperature of the wok/fry pan. Make sure not to overcrowd the wok or frying pan with the ingredients. You want to give them enough room to make contact with the heated surface. It’s important to stir fry without losing too much heat while cooking.
• Cook thicker and harder vegetables first as they will take a longer time to cook.
• Keep stirring and tossing so that all the ingredients are evenly cooked.
• Make sure the rest of your meal is ready to serve or on the table already so that you can enjoy the stir fry dish immediately after cooking.

Do We Need a Wok?

If your question was whether stir-fry dishes taste better when cooked in a wok or fry pan, the answer would be easy. The wok would win every time. You just can’t beat the flavor of charred ingredients cooked in a good carbon steel wok on very high heat.

I own this carbon steel wok and love it (see How to Season a Wok post); however, for this recipe, I used this All-Clad PFOA-free non-stick frying pan (12 inches). Many Japanese home cooks also use a frying pan to cook Yasai Itame. This recipe when cooked on a standard stove may not taste the same as a stir fry vegetable dish from a Chinese restaurant. However, please try this great home-cooked recipe because you don’t need “proper” equipment for it to taste delicious.

As long as the pan gives the ingredients enough room to make contact with the heated surface, you can still make great stir-fry dishes at home.

Now that we’ve covered the basics of cooking Yasai Itame, I hope you will have more reasons to incorporate healthy vegetables into your family cooking.

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Stir-Fried Vegetables (Yasai Itame)

4.72 from 83 votes

Cooking a healthy meal for your family on a busy weeknight is possible with this savory and easy Stir-Fried Vegetables (Yasai Itame) recipe. Loaded with plenty of vegetables and your choice of protein, everything comes together in less than 30 minutes! {Vegetarian adaptable}

Print Pin

Video

Prep Time: 5 minutes mins

Cook Time: 10 minutes mins

Total Time: 15 minutes mins

Servings: 4

Ingredients

 

US CustomaryMetric

 

1x2x3x

• ▢ 6.5 oz thinly sliced pork (or your choice of meat, seafood, or mushrooms; skip for vegan/vegetarian)
• ▢ 10 snow peas (1 oz, 30 g)
• ▢ ¼ onion (3 oz, 90 g)
• ▢ ¼ green cabbage (7 oz, 200 g)
• ▢ ½ carrot (3 oz, 90 g)
• ▢ 1 clove garlic
• ▢ 2–3 slices ginger (sliced off a 1-inch, 2.5-cm knob)
• ▢ 1 Tbsp neutral oil
• ▢ 3.5 oz bean sprouts (2 cups; loosely packed)

For the Pork Marinade

• ▢ 1 tsp soy sauce
• ▢ 1 tsp sake

For the Seasonings

• ▢ 1 tsp oyster sauce (if you‘re vegetarian or allergic to shellfish, use Lee Kum Kee Vegetarian Stir-Fry Sauce)
• ▢ 1 tsp soy sauce (for gluten-free, use GF soy sauce)
• ▢ ½ tsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt
• ▢ freshly ground black pepper (to taste)
• ▢ 2 tsp toasted sesame oil

Japanese Ingredient Substitution: If you want substitutes for Japanese condiments and ingredients, click here.

Cook ModePrevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

 

• Gather all the ingredients.
  
• Cut 6.5 oz thinly sliced pork into smaller, bite-sized pieces. Then, put the meat in a small bowl. Add 1 tsp soy sauce and 1 tsp sake for the marinade to the bowl. Toss with the pork and set aside to marinate.
  
• Meanwhile, prepare the vegetables. Remove the strings from 10 snow peas. Cut ¼ onion into thin slices.
  
• Cut ¼ green cabbage into 1-inch (2.5-cm) pieces.
  
• Cut ½ carrot into slabs 2 inches (5 cm) long, then cut the slabs into matchsticks.
  
• Crush or mince 1 clove garlic (I use a garlic press). Then, mince the 2–3 slices ginger.
  

To Stir-Fry

• Heat a large frying pan or wok on medium-high heat. Once it’s hot, add 1 Tbsp neutral oil. Then, add the garlic and ginger and coat in the oil using tongs or a spatula. Once it‘s fragrant, add the meat and stir-fry until it’s about 80% cooked. Alternatively, you can cook the meat until it‘s no longer pink and remove it from the pan, then add your meat back in when all the veggies are cooked. This will keep the meat from overcooking.
  
• Next, add the onion and stir-fry until almost tender. Then, add the carrot and toss. Tip: If you are going to add other kinds of vegetables that are not in the recipe, start cooking the thicker and tougher vegetables first as they take a longer time to cook.
  
• Once the carrot starts to get tender, add the cabbage and snow peas. Continue to stir and cook the ingredients.
  
• Add 3.5 oz bean sprouts and toss again. Next, add 1 tsp oyster sauce and 1 tsp soy sauce and stir well.
  
• Season with ½ tsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste. Finally, drizzle in 2 tsp toasted sesame oil. Toss one last time, then remove the pan from the heat.
  

To Serve

• Enjoy immediately. This dish is fantastic with rice and miso soup on the side.

To Store

• You can keep the leftovers in an airtight container and store in the refrigerator for 3 days or in the freezer for 2 weeks.

Nutrition

Calories: 158 kcal · Carbohydrates: 10 g · Protein: 13 g · Fat: 8 g · Saturated Fat: 4 g · Polyunsaturated Fat: 1 g · Monounsaturated Fat: 2 g · Cholesterol: 29 mg · Sodium: 390 mg · Potassium: 428 mg · Fiber: 3 g · Sugar: 5 g · Vitamin A: 3699 IU · Vitamin C: 30 mg · Calcium: 43 mg · Iron: 1 mg

Author: Namiko Hirasawa Chen

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Japanese

Keyword: stir fry

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Editor’s Note: The post was originally published on July 17, 2015. The post has been republished with updated content on November 14, 2017.