Summer is finally in swing in the Pacific Northwest! Finally my summer vegetables are coming in! So far, I’ve picked up three boxes of my CSA (community supported agriculture) boxes. My last two boxes had generous portions of snap peas. The first set of snap peas were easily destroyed. Raw snap peas are delightful as a crunchy snack by themselves or dipped in a hummus, spinach dip, or ranch. I wanted to cook this second set of snap peas, but wasn’t entirely sure what to make. I remember eating shrimp & snow pea stir fry with my family at Chinese restaurants, so I just swapped the snow peas for snap peas!
Ingredients
Shrimp – Really any protein could work here if you don’t want to use shrimp. Swap with chicken, pork, beef, tofu, or any other alternative proteins.
Snap peas – Because we cook these snap peas hot and fast, they can maintain their green color and still have a bite to them. If you don’t have snap peas, you can swap the vegetable here for another crunchy-adjacent vegetable like broccoli, brussels sprouts, or cabbage.
Soybean paste – The soybean paste adds a little funky fermented flavor to the sauce and also is where a majority of the sodium comes from. If you don’t have soybean paste, this can be substituted with bouillon.
cornstarch & soybean paste
Shrimp & Snap Pea Stir Fry
Ingredients
- 1 pound shrimp peeled & cleaned
- 3 cups snap peas trimmed
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1/4 onion sliced
- 1 tsp soybean paste
- 1 tsp cornstarch
- 1 cup warm water
- 2 tsp soy sauce
- black pepper
Instructions
- Peel and de-vein shrimp.
- Trim ends of snap peas to remove any tough parts.
- Slice onion and garlic. Saute with olive oil on medium high.
- While onion and garlic is softening, mix warm water with cornstarch, soy bean paste, and soy sauce to make the sauce.
- After onion and garlic has softened, add the snap peas to the pan, stirring gently.
- After 1 minute, pour in the sauce mixture and stir.
- After about 2 minutes, sauce should start to bubble and thicken. Push sauce and snap peas to one side of the pan and add shrimp to the open side.
- Stir shrimp after 1 minute to allow other shrimp to make contact with the pan.
- After another minute, mix shrimp with snap peas and sauce.
- Crack some fresh black pepper over top and serve with some rice!
Serve some Chicken & Cabbage Dumplings alongside this stir fry.
Want some dessert? Have some Kitchen Sink Cookies or a summer Peach Galette.