This hasn’t happened in quite some time, but I seem to be on a roll lately with recipe development! The new year has me inspired to create some new recipes. When I was making this one, I had no idea how it was going to turn out. Typically most recipes might need a couple tweaks. But this one came out great on the initial try. First of all, the SAUCE in this stir fry is AMAZING! I’m actually thinking of making a batch of the sauce to pour it on everything. Ok…..well maybe not everything. But almost everything.
It started out as a typical stir fry. I knew I wanted to use black beans in the recipe too so it could be vegetarian/vegan. As mentioned in another post, I’m trying to do vegetarian dinners more often. Right now I’m aiming for about 2x per week. I was doing a search online for inspiration and quickly discovered that most recipes with black beans had a Mexican flair. But, I didn’t want to do that this time around. I’m in taco overload most weeks, since my girls LOVE tacos, so we’re having them quite often.
So I decided to go more of a thai/asian route and I’m very happy that I did. The peanut sauce in this recipe could (and will) be used in many different ways. It would make a great rice bowl or salad dressing, a dip for salad rolls and in addition to this stir fry, it would be a great sauce over roasted veggies (I especially have broccoli in mind). I would have added broccoli to this dish, but I didn’t have any on hand.
But as with any veggie dish, use the veggies that you enjoy eating. Plus if you like peanuts and peanut butter it really is the sauce that makes this dish so delicious (sorry vegetables!). I served over some quinoa as I recently bought a huge bag of it. But any grain like brown or white rice, rice noodles or regular noodles would all work great. If you want to keep it lower carbs, just skip the grain or noodles altogether. You do get some carbs from the black beans anyway.
Next time you’re thinking of making stir fry, I hope you give this one a try!
- 3 cups green cabbage, shredded
- 1½ cups red pepper, sliced thinly (about 1 pepper)
- 2 cups chopped carrots
- 2 cups snap peas
- 1 - 398 ml (or 14 oz) can black beans, drained and rinsed
- ¼ cup natural peanut butter
- 3 Tbsp plain rice vinegar
- ½ Tbsp lower sodium soy sauce
- 2 Tbsp honey (or agave for vegan)
- 2 tsp fresh ginger, minced
- 2 tsp fresh garlic, minced
- Fresh cilantro
- Bean sprouts
- Slice of lime
- First chop up your veggies (cabbage, red pepper, carrots) Snap peas leave whole.
- Heat your large skillet or wok over medium/high heat.
- Spray with cooking spray.
- First add the carrots and cabbage as they take the longest to cook.
- Meanwhile, make the sauce. Put all the sauce ingredients into a blender, food processor, or if you don't have one, whisk it all together in a bowl.
- Then add in the other veggies (red pepper & snap peas) to the stir fry.
- Add in 2-3 Tbsp of the peanut sauce to the stir fry. Reserve the rest to drizzle over each serving.
- Once the veggies are cooked to your liking (I like mine still a bit crisp), add in the rinsed black beans and toss until coated.
- Serve over any grain or noodle and drizzle the rest of the sauce over each serving.