I finally figured out why my stir fry was always soggy after 3 years of making it

I've been making stir fry every Tuesday for like 3 years now and it always came out kind of wet and limp. Last week I was watching a cooking video from some lady in Chicago and she said most people overcrowd their pan. I always dumped all my veggies in at once because I thought it saved time. Turns out that steams everything instead of searing it. I tried doing it her way this Tuesday where I cooked the chicken first then pulled it out then did the veggies in small batches. The difference was night and day the broccoli actually had some char on it and the sauce didn't just turn into soup. Has anyone else been making this same mistake with their weeknight dinners?

2 comments

2 Comments

fionaa3510h ago

Oh man that's such a good catch and honestly it applies to so much stuff. It's like when I try to fold laundry while watching TV and then wonder why my shirts look like wrinkled messes. You gotta give each thing its own attention or it all turns to mud. Probably why my attempts at meal prepping on Sundays always end in disaster too, I just throw every step together at once and then wonder why my containers look like a science experiment. That whole "less is more" thing people say, yeah turns out it's actually true for cooking and basically everything else.

gavinh261h ago

Wait @fionaa35, have you tried just doing one meal at a time instead of all the steps at once? I used to do the same thing where I'd chop everything then cook everything and it always turned into a mess. Now I just prep the main parts for one recipe, finish it, then move to the next one and it actually works way better.