An easy bok choy mushroom stir fry that can be whipped together quickly for a speedy weekday dinner. The tender mushrooms and crisp bok choy are brought together with a gingery garlicky brown sauce, which tastes comforting and satisfying. Serve it as a side or a main course over steamed rice. {Vegan, Gluten-Free Adaptable}
Baby bok choy is one of my favorite vegetables and I have shared quite a few recipes for it in the past – Stir Fried Bok Choy with Tofu Puffs, 4-Ingredient Baby Bok Choy Stir Fry, and Bok Choy Soup. Today I want to share another super simple and delicious recipe for your weekday dinner.
A twist on the classic bok choy and mushroom dish
Bok choy and mushroom, or 香菇菜心, is a classic Cantonese dish that is quite popular in China. In the original version, the dish uses blanched baby bok choy as a bed, topped with shiitake mushrooms smothered in a brown sauce. The rich taste of the mushrooms works with the blanched bok choy, and the presentation is quite beautiful.
However, I am not a big fan of using shiitake mushrooms in this dish, because they have a very intense flavor and sometimes a rubbery texture. You can use fresh shiitake mushrooms instead of rehydrated dried shiitake to make the dish milder, but fresh shiitakes are quite expensive and sometimes hard to find.
So I made some changes to the dish by:
- Replacing the shiitake mushrooms with the regular brown mushrooms.
- Stir frying the bok choy and mushrooms together instead of using blanched bok choy.
It results in a dish that is as satisfying as the original version, if not better.
How to prepare bok choy for stir frying
Ideally, baby bok choy that is about 5” to 6” (12cm to 15 cm) works the best. For this type, you probably need a run to the Asian market. But if you can only find larger heads of bok choy at your local grocery store or farmers market, that’s totally fine.
To prepare bok choy for stir frying:
- Slice the tough end off
- Once the end is off, you can easily tear off the outer large leaves, leaving the core intact (usually contains 4 pieces of medium leaves with a tiny core inside)
- Halve the core lengthwise
- (Optional) If you use a large head of bok choy, further cut the white part of the outer leaves into bite-size pieces. Leave the green part intact without cutting, or cut it into large bite-size pieces, depending on the size of the bok choy.
If you use baby bok choy, the 4th step is not needed since the outer leaves are quite thin and will cook evenly. But for larger heads of bok choy, the white part can be quite thick and takes longer to cook through. Also, very large pieces of leaves may be difficult to eat.
Ingredients for bok choy and mushroom stir fry
When you’re ready to cook, your table should have:
- Minced aromatics in a bowl
- Dried chili peppers (you can add them to the aromatics bowl)
- Sliced and washed bok choy
- Mixed sauce
- Sliced mushrooms
- Cornstarch slurry
- Pinch of salt
Flexible aromatics
This dish uses the combination of ginger, garlic and green onion, which has the nickname “the holy trinity of the Chinese stir fry”. It’s something we use in almost every stir fry dish by default. But if you do not have all of them on hand, please feel free to skip one or even two. If you skip two of them, make sure to double the amount of the single aromatic you do plan to use.
Cooking process
Cooking the bok choy and mushroom stir fry is super easy. Instead of blanching the bok choy, I steam it in the same pan you use for the stir fry, further reducing the steps and equipment needed.
- Steam the bok choy in a big pan with water
- Once the bok choy is just softened, transfer to a plate
- Stir fry the mushrooms
- Add the aromatics and cook together
- Add the bok choy back in and pour in the sauce
- Mix everything together, then thicken the sauce with the cornstarch slurry
That’s it!
It results in a large, hearty stir fry that is vegetarian but satisfying enough to serve as a main dish over steamed rice. Of course, you can serve it alongside your main dish as well.
Serve this dish with
- Air Fryer Chinese Chicken Wings
- Air Fryer Garlic Ribs (蒜香排骨)
- Easy Salt Baked Chicken (简易盐焗鸡)
- Easy Mongolian Meatballs
- Sichuan Shrimp Stir Fry
Bok Choy and Mushroom Stir Fry
Ingredients
Sauce
- 2 tablespoons water
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon vegetarian oyster sauce (or regular oyster sauce)
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
Slurry
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- 2 tablespoons water
Stir-Fry
- 1 lb (450 g) baby bok choy , cut to large bite-size pieces
- Pinch of salt
- 2 1/2 tablespoons peanut oil
- 1 lb (450 g) brown mushrooms , halved (or quartered if the size is too big)
- 4 dried Chinese chili peppers
- 2 garlic cloves , minced
- 1 thumb ginger , minced
- 2 green onions , sliced
Instructions
- Mix the sauce ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.
- Add the slurry ingredients in a small bowl and stir to mix well.
- Heat 1/4 water in a large skillet over medium high heat until hot. When the water starts to boil, add the baby bok choy and sprinkle with a pinch of salt. Cover the pan and let steam for 30 seconds. Uncover the pan and stir the bok choy. Cover again and cook for another 30 seconds, until the baby bok choy has softened. Transfer the bok choy into a big platter.
- Wipe the pan clean with paper towels and add 2 tablespoons of the oil, turn to high heat. Add the mushrooms. Let sear for 1 minute without touching. Then flip the mushrooms, cook and stir occasionally, for 2 to 3 minutes, until the mushrooms are browned and there’s no juice left in the pan.
- Move the mushrooms to one side of the pan. Pour the remaining 1/2 tablespoon oil on the other side and add the chili peppers, garlic, ginger and green onion. Stir a few times until the chili pepper turns dark red. Then stir everything together.
- Pour in the sauce. Stir and cook for 30 seconds. Stir the slurry mixture again until the cornstarch is fully dissolved. Swirl into the pan. Cook and stir until the sauce thickens, then transfer everything to a big plate. Serve hot as a side or over steamed rice as a main dish.
Great flavor and very quick to make. I swapped the peppers for jalapeño and added thick white onion pieces for texture
This is an incredible recipe!! I will be making this regularly! I love bok choy and mushrooms and this is perfection!! Thank you so much!
Made this for the first time and I love it. Tastes like in the restaurant
Made this recipe and it was great! I altered it slightly by making it with chicken. I sliced up a couple of chicken breasts and marinated it in a couple tablespoons of shaoxing rice wine, some cornstarch and salt (as per Maggie’s recommendation in the comments). I cooked off the cabbage, mushrooms and chicken separately (just cooked the chicken halfway so it would finish later in the sauce), and then added them all back to wok with the sauce and slurry. It turned out delicious. My boyfriend loved it!
I am thinking about making this for a work party but was wondering if I could make ahead?
You can make ahead, but the bok choy will lose some color and look a bit droopy. I’m not sure if you plan to heat it up when you serve it. If yes, I would slightly undercook the bok choy so they won’t be too soggy when you’re heating it up.
This recipe came out decent but I feel like it was lacking something. Maybe some black vinegar, or Shaoxing wine, or another ingredient that expands the flavor profile beyond just sweet and salty. If it wasn’t vegetarian I would say to substitute the vegetarian oyster sauce for the real stuff to get some added funkiness. Even a star anise thrown in along with the peppers might do the trick. While the sauce wasn’t quite as “finger-licking good” as what you get from an exceptional batch of Chinese stir-fry, nonetheless, it still made for a nice meal and was a good way to use up half a bag of baby bok choy.
Love this recipe! What a nice combo. Super delicious. Thank you so much.
YUM. .. thank you
Great recipe! I make it often, adding tofu to make it a main dish. Adding cashews also for crunch. Thank you.
This recipe is so delicious!!
Looks scrumptious!! Saving – our baby bok choy is almost ready to pick and I’m compiling a list of recipes – this will be my first. From reading the ingredients and technique, I’m sure this will be 5 stars, will leave feedback when I make it. Thank you!
SO good! I swear it tasted just like at a restaurant. A new favorite for me!
This was delicious, but added strips of chicken. I don’t think just bok choy and mushrooms would have have been enough. Even some tofu or something hearty needed to be added for my personal taste, but the sauce was wonderful and was an overall very healthy meal! Thanks for sharing 😉
Absolutely delicious… I had it as a main but thought it accompany a nice pork chop. Any suggestions for the pork chop marinade? Wouldn’t want to overpower/compete with the already delicious flavours but… any pork chop marinade advice/recipe (or not) would be super!
I have this pork chop recipe that I really like: https://omnivorescookbook.com/fried-crispy-pork-chop/
For a more simple marinade, this one is nice too: https://omnivorescookbook.com/salt-pepper-pork-chops/ (you don’t have to cut the pork chop and fry them. For cooking the whole chop, I would just dust it with some cornstarch and pan fry it)
I made this for the first time tonight as a side dish for pan fried salmon. My wife and I agree it was delicious. I resisted the temptation to use my homemade chili oil to cook it in because I thought the 4 chilis were more for presentation. But I used the peanut oil as recommended. There was a subtle spiciness that came from the chilis that worked well with the other ingredients. I’d like to add that the video really helps to set the order of events in prepping your recipes. This one is a keeper.
Just made this with mini king oyster mushrooms! I know it’s supposed to feed four but I think my husband ate 2 portions. There isn’t a lot left! A definite “do-over”.
Tasty dinner that takes no time to make. Thanks for posting on the internet.
Delicious! Instead of sugar, I used, honey. And added some shrimp.
This was so delicious! Though the prep took me longer than the estimate given. But the cooking bit was fast. To make this a main dish, I doubled the sauce and added tofu. Note to self: next time use extra firm tofu and cook over high heat quickly with a splash of soy sauce and add at the end.
My family and I loved this recipe. I only made two changes. I left out the ginger, because I’m allergic to it, and I added snow peas. Delicious!