I love Thai food! Anyone else a Thai food fan? It’s one of my fave takeaways, so I was thrilled when I made my own Thai Style Basil and Chili Stir Fry at home!
I came up with this recipe on a whim one night when I had fresh chilis and basil out of my Mum’s garden. So delish! When I made it for the second time I had some Thai basil from my friends garden, which gave it a great flavour too. So feel free to use standard basil, or thai basil (or both!)
I’ve used a vegan fish sauce in this recipe, which I got from a specialised shop. You can usually get it at a Cruelty Free Shop or perhaps online. If you don’t have it, then a good substitute is soy sauce mixed with fresh lime juice. The recipe already has soy sauce in it, so just add a good squeeze of lime juice to give it a nice tang. A vegan fish sauce is a handy edition to your kitchen though – check out our Vegan Fish Fingers recipe which also uses it! It’s also a fantastic addition to a laksa or curry!
We’ve made this recipe with both tofu and tempeh and they both work very well! So pick your protein, or just have it with veggies. Mix up the veggies as much as you want. We also added fresh ginger, and I’m sure garlic would work very well too! We always seem to have weird dreams after eating garlic so we left it out of this recipe!
Please give this Thai Style Basil and Chili Stir Fry a go! And share this recipe with your Thai loving family and friends!
- Dash of sesame oil
- 1 tsp grated ginger
- 1 red onion peeled and sliced (optional)
- 1 fresh whole chili cut a slice in in so it doesn't burst!
- 2 carrots peeled and chopped
- small bunch of brocollini (100g)
- 1/2 small cauliflower (350g) chopped into florets
- 1 medium zucchini chopped
- generous handful of basil leaves
- 200g tempeh or tofu (press your tofu, it'll taste better!)
- 1 Tbsp vegan fish sauce
- pinch of chili flakes (optional - use more or less as desired)
- 2 - 3 Tbsp mirin
- 1 Tbsp soy sauce
- 1 - 2 tsp vegan worcestire sauce
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Heat the sesame oil in a large fry pan or wok. Add the ginger, whole fresh chili and red onion and stir fry for a few minutes. Then add the harder veggies (broccolini, carrot, cauliflower) and stir fry for 7 - 10 minutes, or until softer. Then add the tempeh or tofu (precook this if you like, but I just add it in at this stage) zucchini, vegan fish sauce, mirin, extra chili flakes, soy sauce and vegan worcestire sauce and stir fry for another 3-4 minutes. Add the fresh basil leaves right at the end and stir through. Now it's time to eat!
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Best served with jasmine rice.
Hi – do you remove the whole chilli before serving?
Hi Andrena – I just leave it in there and eat around it! So you can if you want, or you can omit it totally and use chili flakes instead. Up to you! Enjoy!