Another quick under 15 minutes dish from start to finish, shrimp stir-fry with black bean sauce is our instant meal solution on any cold or rainy day.
Ingredients are all always available in our fridge: shrimp, sweet onion, and a bunch of things to make our delicious thickening sauce. Speaking of the sauce, if you can’t find black bean sauce, using oyster sauce is fine. Though the best flavor is a combination of both black bean sauce, oyster sauce, and sesame oil flavored chicken stock.
To quickly thickening the sauce, I’d use cornstarch mix with chicken stock or cold water, then add one spoon of roasted sesame oil. This slurry will be added at the very end.
To spice up the flavor, ground pepper can not be omitted. Though, if you can take the heat, a little red hot chili would be even better, especially in the cold season.
This dish is really versatile, as you can replace shrimp with chicken, beef, pork, or even tilapia. Though each one will require adding some other spice, like ginger or mirin to contemplate the flavor. For vegetarian, substitute shrimp with tofu, and maybe tamari for all the sauce.
Recipe for Shrimp stir-fry with black bean sauce
Ingredients
- ½ lb large shrimp shelled and de-veined
- ½ sweet onion dice
- 2 Tbsp chopped mint leaves or basil
- 1 Tbsp unsalted butter
- 2 cloves garlic chopped
- 1 Tbsp black bean sauce
- 1 Tbsp oyster sauce
- ½ tsp ground pepper or adjusted to your spice tolerant
Sauce Slurry
- 1 Tbsp cornstarch
- ½ cup stock or water
- 1 Tbsp sesame oil
Instructions
- Dice, chop, and prep all the ingredients.
- In a small bowl, combine cornstarch, stock/water, and sesame oil. Stir well to mix into the slurry sauce.
- Bring a saucepan or wok over medium/high heat, when hot, add butter.
- Twirl butter around the pan with your spatula to coat the surface.
- When butter melt, stir in garlic, saute to brown for a couple of seconds.
- Add all the shrimp, stir well until all the shrimp are starting to change their color.
- Stir in black bean sauce, oyster sauce, diced onion, and ground pepper. Keep on stirring.
- When all the shrimps are done (do not over cook), pour in the slurry sauce.
- Keep stirring constantly to thicken the sauce, then sprinkle in the chopped mint leaves.
- Stir to mix and immediately remove the saucepan from heat.
- Serve hot immediately with some rice or pasta as a side.
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