Name: Easy Zucchini Stir Fry
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 30 min
Ingredients: 3 carrots, sliced; 1 cup mushrooms, sliced; 2-3 medium zucchinis, sliced; 1 Tablespoon olive oil; 1/3 cup soy sauce (you can also use Temari or liquid aminos); 3 Tablespoon coconut sugar; 1 teaspoon ginger, grated (for dried ginger use 1 teaspoon); 2 garlic cloves, minced (for garlic powder use 3/4 teaspoon); 2 teaspoon corn starch

Make takeout at home with this easy zucchini stir fry! Each bite is filled with summer squash, crunchy carrots, and a flavorful homemade teriyaki sauce. It’s a weeknight meal that everyone will love!

White bowls with zucchini stir fry and rice in them.

Every summer our garden overflows with zucchini and I typically resort to Italian dishes to use it in such as our zucchini lasagna, zucchini “meatballs”, or creamy zucchini soup, but I also love adding it to stir fry recipes such as this one!

This is a dinner that everyone loves, and it takes around 30 minutes in total to make – making it perfect for busy weeknights! It’s also a clean-out-your-fridge kind of recipe, so if you have vegetables you need to use up, toss them into this stir fry. You can easily customize it to what you have on hand!

Ingredients – What You Need

The sauce and stir fry only require a handful of ingredients! See below for the full list.

Zucchini – you can use both yellow and green!
Carrots – for some crunch and color!
Mushrooms – used for flavor. If you aren’t a mushroom lover, you can swap out for another vegetable!
Ginger – I recommend fresh ginger for the best flavor, but you can use dried ginger too.
Garlic – fresh garlic is always best, but garlic powder can be used too.
Soy sauce – for seasoning the base of the teriyaki sauce.
Coconut sugar – is used to sweeten the sauce and balance the salty soy sauce.
Corn starch – this is used to thicken the sauce.
Olive oil – for sauteeing the vegetables.

How to Make Zucchini Stir Fry – Step by Step

1

Make the sauce. In a large bowl or liquid measure cup, mix together the soy sauce, ginger, garlic, coconut sugar, and corn starch. Set the sauce aside for later.
2

First, sauté the carrots. In a large pan or skillet with oil, sauté the carrot for about 3 minutes.

A collage of four photos showing step by step how to make zucchini stir fry.

3

Add the remaining veggies. Next, add the mushrooms and zucchini. Cook them with the carrots for about 8-10 minutes, or until the carrots are soft/cooked when tested with a fork.
4

Add the sauce. Lastly, pour in the sauce and let it cook with the vegetables for about 1 minute – the sauce will thicken as it heats up. (If the pan is cool, the sauce won’t thicken). Then serve!

Recipe Variations

Add meat/protein. If you want to add some protein to this dish you can do cooked chicken or for a plant-based option, cooked tofu!

Add more vegetables. To add more color, some of our additional favorites to add to this stir fry would be broccoli, bell pepper, cabbage, cauliflower, snap peas, edamame, or eggplant.

Instead of soy sauce. You can also use tamari (our personal favorite) or liquid aminos. Both of these options are gluten-free and equally delicious!

Thickeners. If you don’t want to use corn starch as a thickener, you can use potato or tapioca starch. You can also leave the thickener out completely and cook the sauce down a little bit with the vegetables.

Sweeteners we like to use. If you don’t have coconut sugar, you can also sweeten the sauce naturally with maple syrup, honey, or monk fruit. For a non-natural sweetener, you can use brown or white sugar.

Add some heat. Add a pinch of red pepper flakes with the sauce ingredients for a little kick of heat.

What to Serve it With

Rice/grains. Stir fries such as this one go perfectly with rice because it can absorb all the yummy sauce! We love to serve this with white, brown, or wild rice! For a protein-rich grain, you can use quinoa.

Low carb option. If you want a low-carb option, serve it over cauliflower rice instead.

More Stir Fry Recipes to Try

If you love this zucchini stir fry, we have a 30-minute vegetable stir fry you might also enjoy. For a meat recipe, try our popular 10-minute teriyaki chicken stir fry!