How To Cook Carrots For Stir Fry (2024)

FAQs

How to soften carrots for stir fry? ›

In a large saute pan or deep skillet with a tight-fitting lid, place the carrots, water, salt, and pepper. Bring the water to a boil, then cover the pan and reduce the heat to medium low. Cook for 7 to 8 minutes, until the carrots just reach fork tender (don't let them turn mushy).

Blanching the carrots before stir frying ensures that they are perfectly cooked while retaining their vibrant color and crunchy texture. To blanch the carrots, bring a pot of water to boil and add a pinch of salt. Carefully place the carrots into the boiling water and cook them for 2-3 minutes.

Absolutely not. They develop much more flavor if stir fried without boiling. You just have to slice them fairly thin put them in pretty early in the process, as they take a while to cook—a bit longer than the onion. If you include beets, turnips or parsnips in your stir fry, threat them the same way.

Here's how long that may take depending on how they're cut: 6 to 9 minutes for ¼-inch slices. 5 to 7 minutes for ¼-inch strips. 7 to 9 minutes for baby carrots.

No matter which way you cook them, carrots are a healthy choice. Steaming is a slightly better pick since the carrots don't lose as many of their nutrients to the water. (Steaming is also more environmentally friendly since it uses less water.)

Place the carrots in a microwave-safe dish and add a few tablespoons of water, just so it covers the bottom of the dish. Cover the dish with a lid or microwave-safe plastic wrap, leaving a small vent for steam to escape. Avoid using a metal bowl in the microwave.

Stir Fry Tips and Variations

While I usually make quick vegetable stir fry with avocado oil, you can also use grape seed oil, olive oil or even ghee. Regular butter has too many fat solids and will smoke and burn.

The carrot trick, which is as simple as adding pieces of raw, trimmed carrot to your frying oil, could prevent whatever you're frying and the oil itself from burning. When your frying oil doesn't burn away quickly, you won't have to keep adding more to the pan.

Slice each chunk lengthwise into thin planks and then cut the planks lengthwise into thin matchsticks. To work more quickly, you can stack the planks as you cut them into matchsticks. Use in carrot salads, stir fries, or any recipe that calls for julienned carrots.

"If [the carrot] is smooth and can easily be scrubbed, then I don't bother to peel if using in a soup or stir fry," she says. Blanchard points out another benefit of not peeling carrots: less food waste. To answer the question, "Do you have to peel carrots?" it's mostly a matter of preference.

How to soften vegetables before stir frying? ›

Add veggies in order from hardest to softest to ensure even cooking and a crisp-tender texture. To speed up the cooking process, consider steaming or blanching harder vegetables before stir-frying. Cook until just beginning to soften. Use our easy healthy stir fry sauce to make this recipe 100% homemade!

In a giant skillet or pot, heat olive oil and enough soy sauce to generously cover the bottom of the pot. Dump in onions and carrots and stir. Cook over med/low heat till soft, but not mushy (about 30 min).

Add a whole trimmed carrot to the frying oil along with the latkes. Not only does the carrot help regulate the oil temperature, but it also serves as a magnet, collecting tiny particles and keeping the oil more pristine and less prone to burning.

Cut: Quartering carrots by first halving them crosswise and then halving those pieces lengthwise provides flat surfaces that readily brown against the hot surface of a rimmed baking sheet. Fat: These carrots are cooked in butter, which adds deep flavor, but olive oil works well too.

To prepare vegetables for stir-frying, blanching is the perfect way to jump-start the cooking process, especially for dense vegetables like broccoli or cauliflower (which usually take a while to stir-fry and often get soggy).

Place carrots into a microwave safe dish, like a pyrex and then add just couple tablespoons of water. Cover the dish with a microwave safe lid or a large plate and microwave on high for 3 minutes. Check for doneness. If carrots are still a little crunchy, continue cooking in 30 second intervals.

Cut a thin slice off the bottoms and submerge them in a bowl of cold clean water, which you'll place in your fridge on the coldest shelf. Sure, you can use them after about an hour of soaking, but if you ignore them until the next day you should have crisp carrots just begging to be eaten.

In a heavy 12-inch skillet, heat the olive oil over high heat. Add the carrots, season with salt, and cook, stirring almost constantly with a wooden spoon, until the carrots soften and wilt slightly, 3 to 4 minutes. They should no longer be crunchy.