Try these 21 best stir fry recipes to lose weight and fill your belly without unwanted calories.
Stir fries are great if you’re trying to lose weight. Not only are they quick and easy, but they’re healthy and completely customizable.
While you can basically create your own stir fry with whatever you have lying around, here are 21 stir fry recipes to help you lose weight.
What Makes a Healthy Stir Fry?
So, what makes a healthy stir fry? Well, any (or all) of the following:
- They’re low in fat
- They can be low in carbs
- Most stir fry recipes contain loads of vegetables
- You have plenty of options for protein
- You can include lots of healthy extras, such as nuts, seeds, and so on
- It’s easy to make your own sauces
- There’s no need to include additives or anything unnatural
The beauty of stir fries is that you can adjust them based on your dietary needs, whether this is putting on muscle, losing fat, or something else.
Why are Stir Fries Great for Weight Loss?
Stir fries are great for weight loss because they’re low in fat, contain lots of veggies, and can cater to pretty much any dietary need. Importantly, too, there’s enough variation that you can eat a stir fry every day and never get bored with them. This is useful when dieting, particularly as they’re so quick and easy to make.
Let’s break this down a bit further:
Veggies in stir fry
Vegetables are arguably the main ingredient in a stir fry, and you can throw in whatever you want. But the main bonus is that you don’t cook a stir fry for very long, meaning the veg is just cooked yet still very crisp and retains a higher proportion of its nutrients than if you boiled them.
I highly recommend using frozen ORGANIC veggies for most cost savings and vitamins. Frozen veggies are flash frozen which locks in the nutrients right away. Water soluble vitamins found in fresh veggies on the refrigerated shelves can dissipate with air.
Low in fat
You need very little cooking oil when making a stir fry, meaning they’re very low in fat. If you opt for lean meat like chicken, the fat content is almost non-existent.
While you can use pretty much any oil you want (and only about a tablespoon of it), you’ll need to choose one with a high smoking point. These include:
- Sunflower
- Peanut
- Soybean
- Canola
- Vegetable
Of course, you can use a cooking spray or even organic broth (veggie, chicken or beef) instead for even less fat.
Low in carbs
Traditionally, you’d serve a stir fry with noodles or rice, but if you’re trying to lose weight you don’t have to do this. Instead, you could switch it out for something like courgetti, cauli rice, or shirataki noodles (which are made from yam flour).
If you’re really carb conscious, you can even avoid carb-heavy vegetables altogether and just stick with protein-rich options instead.
In short, stir fries are great for weight loss diets because there’s just so much you can do with them. The concept of a stir fry is about as vague as a sandwich; your options are almost endless in terms of how you adjust them to your needs.
A WOK IS KEY
Best thing about stir fry is the cooking utensils needed to make your healthy recipes. A good wok is the most important factor for making stir fry recipes.
Cast iron woks are a must have for making good stir fry recipes.
Here’s one on Amazon that will last and give you some great food >> A GREAT WOK
21 Easy Stir Fry Recipes to Lose Weight
Now that we’re all on the same page about how great stir fries are, it’s time to look at some of the best recipes. If you’re conscious of things like sodium content in soy sauce, replace half of the required amount with rice wine or balsamic vinegar.
Low-sodium soy sauce is still fairly high in sodium. If it’s an important part of the dish, add less than half the amount right at the end of cooking. This will keep the flavor fresher, meaning you need much less.
Here are 21 of the best stir fry recipes that’ll help you lose weight.
Chicken Stir Fry Recipes
I highly recommend that you use Free Range Chicken and Organic Vegetables.
Make sure to check ingredients and never use sauces or broths with preservatives or artificial additives.
This recipe is all natural and packed with veg. It only uses 2 tbsp of soy sauce, but you can replace this with more vinegar or mirin instead. Of course, you can pack more veg in if you want to and serve it with a rice alternative.
This stir fry is a good one if you like things a bit sweeter. It’s a little bit heavy on the soy sauce, but there’s no problem switching this out or cutting through the saltiness with a bit of vinegar. Importantly, this recipe is gluten free.
Go for this stir fry if you want to get the closest option to “real” takeout but without all the nasty additives. It’s a bit saucier than some of the other options, but this isn’t a bad thing! It’s easy to make gluten free with the addition of tamari sauce.
This recipe contains no soy sauce at all. It calls for sweet chili sauce, which is traditionally quite high in sugar. If this is a problem, make your own instead.
Fried rice is still a stir fry, it just has a different cooking method. The recipe calls for frozen mixed veg, but you can swap this out for whatever fresh veg you have to hand.
Bok Choy is a type of Chinese cabbage that’s both tasty and healthy. The recipe is low in soy too, making it a good choice for low sodium diets.
Sweet and sour chicken is often a favorite choice at take outs, so why not make your own? Again, you can add as many vegetables as you like, and swap the ketchup and soy out for low-sodium options.
Beef Stir Fry Recipes
I highly recommend using only ORGANIC BEEF AND VEGGIES
Broccoli is always a good choice when dieting. Combine it with some lean beef and you’ve got yourself a great, healthy stir fry.
As you may have guessed, teriyaki sauce goes with just about anything! It’s super easy to make your own version at home, as this recipe explains.
Bell peppers are a great addition to stir fries because they stay crunchy and add a nice sweetness that sits well against this savory sauce.
Kung Pao is the typical savory and spicy Chinese sauce that works well against lean beef. The recipe calls for bell peppers, but broccoli is another great addition to this dish.
Beef and mushrooms are a classic pairing that’s combined with a host of other stir-fried veg. You can always switch the rib eye out for a leaner cut of beef, too.
This recipe uses ground beef instead of cuts, giving it a completely different texture. The base recipe is soy and wheat free, is paleo and AIP, and can easily be made for a keto diet.
The sauce in this stir fry combines everything that’s great about Chinese cooking: it’s savory, slightly sweet, and super spicy. The recipe uses bell peppers, but you can pad it out with whatever veg you want.
Veggie Stir Fry Recipes
This recipe is vegan, gluten-free, and paleo, making it a great choice if you’re looking to completely cut out sugar. It also doesn’t contain any soy sauce.
You’ll be hard pressed not to love this vegan stir fry recipe. It calls for sriracha and teriyaki sauce, both of which you can make yourself if you want it to be all natural.
Tofu is a great source of protein for veggies and is the perfect vehicle for this sweet and spicy sauce. Of course, you can swap the tofu out for tempeh or simply more veg.
There are so many exciting flavors in this recipe, and it’s great cold, too. As always, you can swap the noodles out for a low-carb alternative like cauliflower rice.
You’ll find a novel ingredient in this stir fry: chickpeas. While not traditional, it’s an easy way of packing in more plant-based protein and they give plenty of extra texture to the dish.
Sesame and ginger is a classic pairing in Asian cooking, and tempeh is a great vehicle for these strong flavors. It’s super easy to make and you definitely won’t notice there’s no meat in it.
It’s hardly a surprise that teriyaki would appear on this list again. Of course, it’s worth using homemade teriyaki sauce so you can fiddle with the ingredients to make it as healthy as possible. There are a few good recipes for this elsewhere on this list.
Conclusion: Stir Fry is a great way to cook healthy.
As you can see, there are so many options for making a healthy and interesting stir fry. If you’re trying to lose weight, choose a few base recipes and play around with them to find flavor combinations you love.
And remember, you’re not restricted by what the recipe suggests. Add as much veg as you like and swap things out based on what you have to hand. After all, that’s the joy of stir fries!
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