peanut butter

Stir-fries are one of my favorite ways to make a quick dinner that's also delicious, especially on busy weeknights. This version is made with Udon noodles, carrots, sugar snap peas, mushrooms, and a slightly sweet and spicy peanut sauce. But one of the great things about stir-fries is that they're flexible. Use different noodles, vegetables, or sauce, and it will still taste great!

If you want to try other vegetables in your stir-fry, choose ones that will hold up well and don't release a lot of moisture during cooking. Some other vegetables that are great for stir-fries include red bell peppers, broccoli, cabbage, green beans, water chestnuts, and baby corn. For another sauce option, try my vegan sweet chili stir-fry sauce.

One of my favorite flavor combinations is chocolate and peanut butter. Since I don't eat Reese's peanut butter cups anymore, I have to get my fix from other treats. Fortunately, peanut butter is a good vegan protein source. So with this recipe, I can have my flavors and get my protein too! (Feel free to substitute out the chocolate chips for nuts or dried fruit if chocolate's not your thing).

Recently I wrote about vegan protein and getting enough of each amino acid. If you haven't seen that post, you can find it here. Adding complete proteins to our diets can help us avoid amino acid deficiencies. While there aren't a lot of vegan foods that are naturally complete proteins, we can make our own complete proteins by combining protein from different sources. This recipe does exactly that.