This is a great quick meal. For absolute speed you can use store bought hoisin sauce or make a large batch of the sauce below and freeze portions. The ‘from scratch’ method tries to use the principles of Dr Michael Greger’s ‘Daily Dozen’ for optimal vegan nutrition on a plant based whole food diet. As such, this is oil free and you can tick off beans, other vegetables, herbs and spices, cruciferous vegetables, nuts and seeds (only a small amount), and whole grains on the amazing and free Daily Dozen app. It is also refined sugar free and uses no artificial sweeteners. Dates provide the sweetness in the hoisin style sauce.

20 min prep

Up to 10 minute cooking

Around 30 minutes in total

Serves 4

Ingredients

300g wholemeal noodles

1 clove garlic, minced

1 red chili pepper, reseeded and finely chopped

1 tbsp ginger, minced

1 red onion, diced

1 yellow pepper, diced

1/2 small head of broccoli, chopped into bite size florets

1 cup frozen soya beans

Small handful of basil, roughly torn

For the sauce:

7 dates

4 tbsp tamari

2 tsp Chinese 5-spice

2 tbsp cashew butter

1/2 cup boiling water

Method

1. For the sauce, add 1/4 cup of boiling water to the rest of the ingredients (holding remaining water back). Blend. Add tbsp of water at a time if needed to get to a sauce consistency.

2. Prep all the ingredients for the stir fry.

3. Bring a pan of water to the boil for the noodles.

4. In a wok or frying pan, stir fry the garlic, chili and ginger for a couple of minute before adding the rest of the veggies (except the basil).

5. Add the noodles to the pan of boiling water.

6. Stir fry the veg until tender.

7. Stir in the sauce to the veggies and heat through with the basil, reserving a few leaves as garnish. You can add the cooked drain noodles too or simply serve the veggies over the noodles in a large bowl

If you give this recipe a try, use Twitter or Instagram to show us the results @veganleanne #veganleanne