Healthy and satisfying Simple Seafood Stir Fry with shrimp and scallops in an Asian infused sauce with colorful veggies and a bit of heat.
Simple Healthy Stir Fry
What’s not to love about a healthy stir fry! With briny seafood, hot chili cashews, crispy vegetables, and juicy fruits, I’d say we have ourselves the perfect Colorful meal!
This dish is all about the color, health, and crunch. You can swap out any of the ingredients, because the basic sauce and flavors will go with whatever you choose to use, or happen to have in your fridge.
Seafood Is The Perfect Stir Fry
Nearly every type of seafood cooks in minutes which makes it the perfect protein to stir fry. A stir fry pan, or wok is intended to be searing hot to do just that; sear in the juices of the seafood and cook the inside quickly.
I chose shrimp and scallops for this stir fry but any fish filet will work, cut into chunks, as will clams or mussels once removed from their shell.
Why Fruit In Stir Fry?
Since there isn’t any fat on these beautiful lean pieces of seafood, our stir fry needs the addition of a little fat, which we will be using a plant oil, toasted sesame oil.
Although toasted sesame oil is a healthy option, it can have a strong flavor, and so we will want to sweeten the sauce naturally by using the juice that will extract from the fruit while stir frying.
Also, another fruit in our stir fry is going to surprise you, cashews!
Besides cashews, considered a drupe (fruits that are fleshy on the outside and contain a shell covering a seed on the inside), they will provide texture.
Simple Texture In A Stir Fry
Because the seafood will be soft in texture, as will the fruit and rice, I wanted something to add a crunch of texture.
For this reason, cashews seemed the perfect addition of texture. As a matter of fact, most grocery stores now carry cashews that have been dusted in chili powder to bring more heat to this dish.
As for cashews being considered a type of fruit, which I only discovered while living in Brazil, they are highly prized for their flavor and uniqueness.
Evidently, each cashew fruit produces only one external seed, hidden inside of a shell, as it looks like an ‘appendage’ of the cashew fruit.
Ultimately many cashew fruits are picked to provide just one single sweet and crunchy cashew, we love so much.
Seafood Lovers
I grew up along the Chesapeake Bay of Maryland where seafood is just something we’ve always eaten.
While a stir fry is a fast and easy dish to whip up in under 30-minutes, so is a luscious Oyster Chowder, so do take a look at that recipe too, if you are a seafood lover!
Simple Seafood Recipes
Before I share several more of my simple seafood recipes, let me just say that you can hardly ever go wrong when cooking seafood.
It’s briny flavor, and particular selections, whether fish, or shellfish, have their own distinct taste and texture.
Therefore, all that is really needed, is just a few simple ingredients and a hot pan, pot or grill!
- Grilled Shrimp Salad – delicate shrimp takes on the char flavor of the grill bringing an abundance of flavor to a simple shrimp salad
- Japanese Fried Shrimp Balls – flavored in horseradish and fish sauce, formed into balls with rice flour and quick fried to perfection
- Pea Pesto Shrimp Wontons – nothing could be simpler than to puree fresh spring peas with a little heat from chilies and serve in a baked wonton wrapper with shrimp sitting proud on top
Ingredients Needed
- Shrimp
- Scallops
- Snow peas
- Carrots
- Pineapple
- Mandarin oranges
- Thai hot chili cashews
- Garlic
- Teriyaki sauce
- Sesame oil
- Salt
- Cooked brown or white rice
Equipment Needed
- Wok or large frying pan with a lid
- Metal spatula
- Measuring cup
- Measuring spoons
- Cutting board
- Chopping knife
- Stovetop or burner
Simple Seafood Stir Fry
Ingredients
- Shrimp – 2 cups
- Scallops – 2 cups
- Snow peas – 2 cups, be certain to remove the strings
- Carrots – 2 cups multi-colored, cut on the diagonal
- Pineapples – 2 cups, cut into long diagonal shapes
- Mandarin oranges – 1 cup
- Thai Hot Chili Cashews – 1 cup, (spice your own if you can’t find these)
- Garlic – 2 cloves, crushed
- Teriyaki sauce – ¼ cup
- Toasted sesame oil – 2 tbsp
- Salt to taste
- Cooked Brown rice – 2 cups steamed and served on the side
Instructions
- Pour the sesame sauce in a frying pan or wok. Toss in garlic and seafood. Stir quickly and cover for just a few seconds to infuse the flavor.
- Add carrots. Cover for just a few seconds and shake the pan a little. Add the remaining ingredients, (saving the steamed rice for plate-up time).
- Give a quick but gentle stir, and this dish is ready to serve in less than 10 minutes cooking time.
- This also makes for a great dish to prep ahead of time, simply by having all the ingredients cut and saved in separate containers. Cook time is fast!
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I believe the table... that place that draws people to gather, is the most powerful symbol of togetherness. All that happens before the table is set, the planning, the gathering, the preparing, are all an intricate part of the dance that create the mood of celebration to share with friends and loved ones.
