Flavorful 5-Minute Simple Stir Fry Sauce Recipe

To follow along with this life-changing homemade stir fry sauce recipe, be sure to watch the video! If you’re not already, it would mean a lot to me if you could please subscribe to my YouTube channel, and don’t forget to press the bell button so you’re notified when all of my video recipes are live! Let’s get mixing!

Why You Need to Make Your Own Simple Stir Fry Sauce!

• Easy and fast to make: This stir fry sauce recipe is extremely quick and simple to make! All you need to do is gather your ingredients and mix! There are some optional additional steps if you would like, but in essence, this sauce is one of the easiest out there, and you can quite honestly make this whenever you would like!
• This sauce is loaded with flavor: You’ll be obsessed with this Asian stir fry sauce! When you make this, you’ll notice the wonderful aroma from the ginger, garlic, and sesame oil. A little bit of this Asian stir fry sauce will really go a long way in enhancing your food.
• Make-ahead friendly: You can make this when you’ve got a pocket of time and it’ll be ready for you in your fridge for whenever you need it! Read on to see how to properly store this stir fry sauce so it stays fresh as long as possible.
• Plenty of uses: This stir fry sauce recipe is extremely versatile, and you’ll want to explore plenty of recipes using this sauce! Check out just a couple of ideas later on in this post!

Dietary Information for This Quick Stir Fry Sauce Recipe

This 5 Minute Stir Fry Sauce recipe is…

• Vegetarian and vegan
• Can be gluten-free: See below on how to do this.
• Can be low-carb: See below on how to do this.
• Low in fat
• Low in calories

Tools Needed to Make This Basic Stir Fry Sauce Recipe

• Salt crock
• Ramekins
• Measuring cups
• Measuring spoons
• Garlic press
• Whisk
• Grater

Ingredients for This Quick and Easy Stir Fry Sauce Recipe

Scroll to the bottom of this post for the FULL PRINTABLE recipe card or by pressing the “Jump to Recipe” button to see all ingredients and their quantities. The recipe card will also allow you to scale the recipe based on how many portions of sauce you want to make! By default, this recipe will yield about 12 small servings.

• Soy sauce: You can use a low sodium soy sauce if you want.
• Rice vinegar: You can use either seasoned or unseasoned rice vinegar. I’ve used seasoned rice vinegar, but if you’re using unseasoned rice vinegar, then you can add more sweetness and/or salt to taste in the final dish you’re preparing.
• Maple syrup: Use your favorite type of maple syrup. I’m using dark maple syrup since it has lots of flavor.
• Sesame oil: You can also toast your sesame oil if you would like, as I’ll mention later on in the variations portion of this post.
• Red pepper flakes: A little bit to add heat to the sauce.
• Ginger: Fresh ginger root, grated.
• Garlic cloves: Mince fresh garlic cloves.
• Fish sauce: Optional, but to add umami and savoryness to round out the sauce.
• Corn starch: Optional to thicken the sauce.

How to Make Stir Fry Sauce From Scratch

Combine all the ingredients together besides the cornstarch.

If using the sauce to create a gravy, combine 1/2 to 1 tsp of cornstarch with 2-3 Tbsp of cold water and whisk well. Add to the sauce and simmer for 1-2 minutes or until thickened.

Tips for the Perfect Quick Easy Stir Fry Sauce

• The sauce has components to hit the main flavors that make up a dish, saltiness from soy sauce, sourness from rice vinegar, sweetness from maple syrup, umami from fish sauce, or oyster sauce, heat from chili flakes and aroma from the ginger and garlic. You can now try this sauce, and adjust and tweak any of these components to make it personable to your palate.
• For a silky gravy-like finish, add the cornstarch slurry only if you’re cooking a saucier stir-fry or want to coat noodles or rice. Let the sauce simmer for 1–2 minutes after adding the slurry. It’ll thicken and bring the flavors together.
• Be ready for when the craving hits! Make a bigger batch and store it in an airtight jar in the fridge for up to a week. Great for last-minute meals!
• This sauce works beautifully as a marinade for tofu, chicken, beef, or shrimp.

Variations of Stir Fry Sauce Recipe

• Gluten-free: Use a certified gluten-free soy sauce or substitute with coconut aminos or tamari.
• Sweetener: Other delicious sweeteners for this stir fry sauce recipe would be honey or brown sugar. Keep in mind that if you use honey as a sweetener, this sauce recipe will no longer be vegan.
• Flavor: You can toast the sesame oil with garlic and ginger to add depth to the sauce.
• Thickness: If you want to use this sauce as a gravy, then you can make a corn starch slurry. Combine 1/2 to 1 tsp of cornstarch with 2-3 Tbsp of cold water and whisk well.
• Keto: If you are opting out of thickening the sauce, then this stir fry sauce recipe is keto-friendly. However, if you do want to thicken the sauce, then you can skip the corn starch and instead use arrowroot powder or xantham gum. For the sweetness, you can use a keto-friendly sweetener to cut the carbs, such as monk fruit.
• Spicier: Add more chili flakes or add chili garlic sauce.
• Umami: I’ve added fish sauce to add umami to the sauce. Alternatively, you can use oyster sauce.

How to Use Stir Fry Sauce

As I mention in my free motivational guide to exploring your potential in the kitchen, Make Cooking Fun!, having a theme for the week can get you going to try out plenty of new recipes for lunch or dinner! With this multipurpose stir fry sauce on hand, you can explore lots of easy and satisfying Asian-style recipes, from main dishes to vegetable sides. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Main Dishes

• Tofu Noodle Stir Fry
• Keto Egg Roll in a Bowl
• Super Simple Chinese Egg Fried Rice
• Better than Takeout Beef Fried Rice
• 30-Minute Shrimp Fried Rice
• Proteins: Add this to flavor your pan-seared chicken breasts or chicken thighs, pork, steak, or tofu!
• Fillings: I’ve been loving making sushi cones and spring rolls with rice paper, and this sauce has been super convenient to flavor my fillings for those! You can make chicken and veggie fillings or tofu and veggie fillings, and add the sauce at the end.

Sides

• Noodles: This will be great in any noodles, such as udon, egg noodles, soba, or you could even make your own Silver Needle Noodles!
• Rice: Mix this in with some simple steamed white rice or even in sushi rice.
• Vegetable stir fries: You can use this with cabbage, carrots, green beans, peas, cauliflower, broccoli, zucchini, onions, and peppers!

Other Fast and Delicious Sauces

• No-Cook Italian Pizza Sauce
• 15 Minute Marinara Sauce
• Authentic Greek Tzatziki Sauce
• Classic Basil Pesto Sauce
• Fresh Quick Chimichurri Sauce

How to Mix and Store Your Stir Fry Sauce

There is no cooking involved, so the easiest way to make this is straight in a mason jar: add the soy sauce, rice vinegar, maple syrup, sesame oil, red pepper flakes, grated fresh ginger, minced garlic cloves and the optional splash of fish sauce, screw on the lid and give it a hard shake. A small bowl and a whisk work just as well, but the jar means you can store the sauce in the same vessel you mixed it in.

Kept in an airtight container in the refrigerator, this homemade stir fry sauce holds for about a week. The aromatics settle to the bottom as it sits, so give the jar another shake before every use. If you want to keep leftover sauce longer, freeze it in an ice cube tray and transfer the cubes to a bag once solid, which gives you single-portion amounts to drop straight into a hot pan. Hold the cornstarch back until you are actually cooking, since a sauce that has already been thickened does not freeze or reheat as cleanly as the plain liquid does.

Substitutions to Suit Your Pantry

Nearly everything here is a pantry staple, and most of it swaps out without changing the method:

• Soy sauce: low-sodium soy sauce lets you control the salt yourself, which matters because the soy sauce is doing all the seasoning. For a gluten-free version, use tamari or coconut aminos in the same quantity.
• Rice vinegar: apple cider vinegar is the closest everyday stand-in if you have no rice vinegar. Remember the recipe already offers 1½ tablespoons instead of 1 for a sharper sauce.
• Sweetness: honey or brown sugar can replace the maple syrup, though honey means the sauce is no longer vegan. To keep it vegan, stay with maple syrup and skip the fish sauce.
• Umami: fish sauce is optional here. Oyster sauce does the same job, and a spoonful of hoisin sauce gives you a sweeter, thicker result.
• Thickener: the cornstarch slurry can be swapped for arrowroot or xanthan gum, which is also the keto route since it skips the corn starch entirely.
• Optional extras: a splash of Shaoxing wine or dry sherry adds the depth you taste at Chinese restaurants. Neither is in my base recipe, but both belong to this family of flavors. If you want to stretch the sauce to coat a bigger pan of vegetables, thin it with a little chicken stock or vegetable stock rather than water so you do not dilute the flavor.

How to Build a Stir Fry With This Sauce

The sauce is mixed cold and added at the end, so the actual stir fry is about heat and order. Get a large skillet or wok properly hot over medium-high heat, cook your protein first and set it aside, then start the vegetables with the hardest ones. Carrots, broccoli and onion go in before bell peppers, snow peas and mushrooms, which need far less time. You are aiming for tender-crisp, not soft.

Return the protein to the pan, pour the sauce over everything and toss for a minute so it coats rather than pools. If you want a glossy, gravy-like finish for noodles or rice, whisk the half teaspoon of corn starch with an equal part of cold water and stir the slurry in, then simmer 1 to 2 minutes until it thickens. Chicken, beef, pork, shrimp and tofu all work; start with a few tablespoons of sauce, taste, and add more, since the recipe card makes about 12 small servings and scales to whatever size batch you need.

Why Homemade Beats Store-Bought