(Image credit: Unknown)

Cooking a healthy dinner from scratch doesn’t have to mean spending hours in the kitchen. In fact, it doesn’t even need to mean spending half an hour in there if you use this super-fast vegetarian stir-fry recipe from Waitrose which takes less than 15 minutes to make.

A third of that time is spent chopping and assembling the various parts of the dish, so anyone who’s a wizard with a kitchen knife might be done in nearer to ten minutes than 15. Then it’s simply a case of chucking it all in the frying pan for a few minutes. If you’re a fast eater and a demon when it comes to washing up, you might be out of the kitchen having cooked, demolished and cleaned up all trace of your meal within 30 minutes. Barely longer than if you’d gone for a microwave ready-meal, and cooking this dish is a far tastier and healthier option than doing that.

The recipe can be cooked as a pure veg and mushroom combo, or if you want some extra protein in the dish, add in your favourite veggie meat alternative like Quorn. Or if you’re not veggie at all, add in some meat (just add a couple of minutes’ cooking time before you add the mushrooms in step 1). And if you’re not interested in upping the protein content but want more food, you can always just increase the amount of vegetables and mushrooms you throw into the mix. It’s a stir-fry – go wild. With the sesame oil, teriyaki sauce and rice wine combo you’ll be using, this will taste great whatever else you throw in.

Ingredients (Serves Two)

1tbsp toasted sesame oil
125g chestnut mushrooms, thickly sliced
300g stir-fry vegetables (eg cabbage, baby sweetcorn, red onion, carrots), sliced
4 salad onions, sliced
2tbsp teriyaki sauce
2tbsp rice wine
275g wholewheat straight-to-wok noodles
Optional: 200g protein-rich meat alternative such as Quorn pieces

Method

Heat the oil in a wok or large frying pan and fry the meat alternative (if using) and mushrooms for one minute. Add the stir-fry vegetables and cook for three minutes.
Stir in the salad onions, teriyaki sauce, rice wine, 2tbsp water and noodles, and stir-fry for two minutes before serving.

Recipe and image via of Waitrose.com

Nick Harris-Fry is a journalist who has been covering health and fitness since 2015. Nick is an avid runner, covering 70-110km a week, which gives him ample opportunity to test a wide range of running shoes and running gear. He is also the chief tester for fitness trackers and running watches, treadmills and exercise bikes, and workout headphones.