Thai Stir-Fried Water Spinach
Looking for a new and exciting way to enjoy your greens? Try this delicious Thai stir-fried water spinach recipe!
Ingredients
- 350 g water spinach - soft stems cut into 3-inch length pieces and leaves kept whole. Discard any hard stems.
- 2 tbsp oil
- 4-5 garlic cloves - kept whole and crushed or chopped into chunks
- 4-5 Thai bird’s eye chili peppers - kept whole and smashed
- 1 tbsp yellow soybean paste
- 1 tbsp fish sauce
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1 tbsp oyster sauce optional
- 2-3 tbsp water
Instructions
- After washing and cutting the water spinach, keep the stems and leaves in cold water (then drain the water right before you start cooking – this will help keep the veggies crisp)
- Heat oil in a wok on high fire. Once oil is heated, add in garlic, and stir-fry over medium heat until fragrant – about half a minute. Garlic should be softened.
- Add in the chili peppers, yellow soybean paste, fish sauce, and sugar (and oyster sauce if using). Stir quickly to mix.
- Crank up the fire again to high and drop in the stems along with two tablespoons of water. Stir-fry for about 10-15 seconds.
- Then add in the leafy parts and stir-fry quickly to make sure all the greens are in contact with the heat (add another tablespoon of water here if you want more gravy). To retain the fresh look and crunch of water spinach, you want to work the spatula quick and cook the greens not more than a minute.
- As soon as the leaves just begin to wilt, turn the heat off and immediately dish out the vegetables from the wok.
Notes
* For the yellow soybean paste, you can alternatively use a whole bean version as I did for my recipe here. I prefer to use the whole bean form as it is less salty. If you decide to do the same, crush the beans coarsely with a fork to release the flavor.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!