How To Make Chicken and Broccoli Stir-Fry in Any Pan

Chicken and vegetable stir-fry should be a staple of every home cook’s weekly meal plan — it’s quick-cooking, flavorful, and can be better than takeout with just a few key ingredients and one brilliant step. If you’ve spent anytime at the stove trying to stir-fry without a wok and found that your chicken and vegetables sauté rather that stir-fry, then this recipe is for you.

With expert advice from Grace Young and a deep dive into the pure magic that is velveting chicken for stir-fry, this is literally everything you need to know to make a better weeknight stir-fry without a wok.

Before we dive into how to stir-fry without a wok, we really need to understand the mechanics of traditional stir-frying. Stir-frying means to cook small pieces of food in a little oil in a wok. Grace Young, author of Stir-Frying to the Sky’s Edge, describes the technique as more of a “gentle tumbling” than the high-frying, constant-motion version we see on movies and television. Woks are the perfect pan for stir-frying, as their natural nonstick surface can withstand high heat and its high sides allow food to cook even when tumbling up the sides away from the hot oil.

While we think every kitchen should have a wok, we also understand that many don’t. And Young has suggestions for what to use instead.

“Anytime you’re thinking about stir-frying, you should be reaching for a wok,” says Young. “But a 12-inch straight-sided skillet will work, too. You’ll need more oil to keep the chicken and vegetables from sticking. Whatever you do, though, don’t reach for nonstick. Most nonstick skillets can’t take the high heat required for stir-frying and you’ll damage the pan if you try.”

So for this recipe, grab you largest skillet, skip the nonstick, and you’re ready to go.

• This recipe calls for one pound each chicken breast and broccoli.
• You’ll also need cornstarch, rice vinegar, soy sauce, and one large egg white.
• A large, straight-sided stainless steel skillet is best for this method.

If the tender, succulent chicken that comes in many takeout dishes has eluded you at home, velveting is the answer. Velveting is a combination of coating meat in a mixture of cornstarch, egg white, and rice vinegar before briefly poaching in boiling water, although Young notes that many Chinese restaurants use oil. This tenderizes the chicken while coating it in a protective layer that keeps it from becoming tough and dry in the pan. Velveting is especially beneficial for stir-frying without a wok, because it ensures that the chicken cooks faster within the smaller cooking area of a skillet.

• Parboil hearty vegetables like broccoli and carrots. You’ll have some water boiling for velveting the meat, so take advantage of it for tenderizing vegetables that would otherwise take a long time to stir-fry in a skillet.
• Take the time to velvet your chicken. If you do this step first, stick the coated chicken in the fridge and then measure and prepare everything else. Your water will be boiling and ready for cooking the chicken right as the 30-minute timer for the chicken is up, and this step will cut its time in the skillet in half.
• Have everything ready to go before you heat the pan. The cooking time once your chicken is velveted and your broccoli is parboiled is less than five minutes. You won’t have time to pull the sauce together while the meat cooks, so be ready before you start.

When you’re done stir-frying the chicken and broccoli, you’ll have a pan full of vibrant bright-green broccoli and chicken so tender and full of fragrant garlic and ginger. You can serve this stir-fry just as it is, warm from the pan, or over rice, soba noodles, or even pasta.