Steve Haywood Health & Fitness

Stir fries are a quick and easy way to eat healthily. The recipe can be altered to include whatever’s in the cupboard and there are added health benefits from eating the vegetables crunchy rather than soft. Rice has is low on the GI index, so it will release energy more slowly throughout the day helping you to train, concentrate and/or lose weight.

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon oil
• 1 onion
• 4 skinless chicken breasts (diced)
• Selection of chopped vegetables - choose your favourites. Try to chop the vegetables into the same sized pieces
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce - or try Chinese five spices, chillies or even curry powder
• Vegetable stock cube
• Packet of bean sprouts - optional
• 200g rice

Method

• Cook the rice according to the pack’s instructions.
• While the rice is cooking, heat the oil in a large pan or wok.
• Add the onion and diced chicken and cook for 5 mins.
• Add the remaining vegetables to the heat and stir.
• Add a little water and the soy sauce or spices to flavour.
• Dissolve the stock cube in a cup of boiling water then add to the pan and heat for a further 5 minutes.
• Drain the rice and serve with your delicious stir-fry onto 4 plates.

Variations

To speed things up even further, use a packet of pour on sauce instead of the stock cube and spices. Also, use fresh noodles instead of rice as they can be simply poured into the same wok as the other ingredients and heated through.

Favourite vegetables for stir fry include; bell peppers (capsicum), mushrooms, mange tout, pineapple, green beans and broccoli.