Simple Frozen Vegetable Stir Fry with Rice Noodles

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Want a delicious and easy main dish in about 20 minutes? Don’t have much left in the fridge? Learn how to make a simple frozen vegetable stir fry with rice noodles. It’s satisfying, packed with veggies, and is one of the best frozen stir fry recipes for work from home lunch.

If you’re looking for a good recipe to use up a bag of frozen vegetables, you’ve landed at the right place. I’ve come up with a creative way to combine the Birds Eye frozen vegetable instructions with the convenience of instant rice noodles to make a tasty stir fry with frozen vegetables.

Ingredients for a simple frozen vegetable stir fry

Today I’m sharing how to take rice noodles from the store (aka rice linguini) and turn it into a quick stir fry meal with frozen vegetables from Costco (Birds Eye brand). You can use any frozen vegetables and sauce packets to make this recipe.

This is written as a stir fry recipe for 1 serving and can be easily scaled to feed more people.

Here are the ingredients – substitute them for what you have on hand

• Birds Eye frozen vegetable mix – You can use any frozen asian stir fry vegetables though I got mine from my once a month Costco stock up trip
• Asian sauce packets from Birds Eye vegetable package
• A Taste of Thai Rice Noodles – I use the Linguine variety here, but you can also use Vermicelli or Slim Cut. Thin rice noodles cook in a few minutes, while thicker linguini-style rice noodles take up to 10 minutes.
• Water to keep the sauce from burning (super important)
• Fresh cilantro and sesame seeds to garnish

Since the sauce packets are seasoned, you won’t need to add salt.

How to make a stir fry with frozen veggies and noodles

Step 1. Bring a pot of water to a boil and add A Taste of Thai Rice Noodles.

Cook as directed to al dente. Once done, strain and set aside.

 Step 2. Add Birds Eye frozen vegetables to a medium pan set on medium heat on the stove with ¼ cup water.

Cover pot cover and cook for ~2 minutes until most of the water evaporates.

Step 3. Remove the lid and add one sauce packet to the pan of vegetables.

Add 1/4 cup water to the pan, and stir together the vegetables and sauce packet. Adding this extra water will keep the sauce from burning.

The frozen veggies only need about 3-4 minutes to cook if you’re cooking them on high enough heat. They should keep a firm texture, and just be cooked through.

Step 4. When the water evaporates and the vegetables are covered in sauce, Add another 1/4 cup water to the pan and another sauce packet.

The mixture will bubble.

Immediately add cooked rice noodles and stir to coat the noodles in sauce for 10-20 seconds.

Plate and garnish with sesame seeds and cilantro.

Plating a stir fry with veggies

One of the best parts about this simple work from home meal is the lack of preparation it requires. Since the lighting is beautiful in my kitchen during lunchtime, so I go all out and garnish it with sesame seeds and cilantro. Then I snap a little pic for Instagram and dig in.

The sprinkle of sesame seeds and fresh cilantro add to the fresh taste. And the sauce? Can you believe it’s literally just the sauce packets that come with frozen veggies, with a few important enhancements? It’s totally transformed.

Tips on cooking rice noodles to perfect al dente

For this stir fry dish, I find A Taste Of Thai cooking instructions to work just fine.

The one thing to note is that cooking rice noodles can be a little daunting because they can be very fragile.

For the perfect al dente rice noodles

• Use a large pot to boil the water so the rice noodles can lay flat in the pot without bending. That way they will be fully submerged for cooking. Four quarts of water should be sufficient for boiling the pasta.
• Be careful when removing them from the packaging because they may easily break.
• Stir rice noodles regularly while they boil to avoid them sticking together.
• Test the noodles as they get close to the finish time – if they’re perfect, strain them immediately.
• If you’re not adding the frozen vegetable to rice noodles with sauce immediately, then either rinse the noodles or toss them in a little olive or sesame oil to prevent sticking.
• For this stir fry recipe, it’s okay if they are slightly undercooked because they’ll finish cooking once you add noodles to the sauce in the final step.

Tips for cooking frozen vegetables for stir fry

The best thing you can do for frozen vegetables is to cook them straight from your freezer. This prevents them from turning mushy while cooking. If they thaw first, they’ll be super mushy. So cook frozen vegetables without thawing them. Doing this will keep all my recommendations for making this stirfry correct, too.

If you want to add in other veggies, you’ll need to be very careful about cook times. A frozen vegetable medley has a variety of vegetables that will cook at the same time.

About Birds Eye frozen vegetables and sauce packets

This simple frozen vegetable stir fry recipe makes the most of the shortcuts from frozen vegetables and the sauce packets included in the bags. This recipe covers my personal recommendations for Birds Eye frozen vegetable instructions for stir-fries. 

If you use a different brand or variety, you may have to alter the amounts used. Here are details on what I used so you can adjust your recipe accordingly.

 What vegetables are in the Birds Eye frozen vegetable pack? In this recipe, I used the Oriental Stir Fry Mix from Birds Eye. In it is broccoli, carrots, sugar snap peas, pepper, mushrooms & baby corn.

Can you add veggies to the mix? Other frozen vegetables like shelled edamame or snap peas make great additions to this simple stir fry dish as well. Harder vegetables can withstand the heat and steaming and will add a variety of texture to the soft noodle dish – making it super delicious to dig in.

What sauce comes with Birds Eye frozen vegetables? Also included is “Asian-style sauce”. This recipe calls for two sauce packets. One sauce packet for frozen veggies and another sauce packet for rice noodles.

Wondering how big is a sauce packet in Birds Eye frozen vegetables? There is about 1/4 cup Asian sauce in each packet.

No sauce packet in your frozen vegetable mix? No problem – try adding peanut sauce instead.

An easy WFH lunch + quick weeknight meal

The irony of being a food blogger and sous vide cookbook author is that sometimes I can be too busy to cook! Mealtime in a rush calls for simple, yet completely satisfying meals like this one.

I’m so eager to hear how you like this recipe. I completely rewrote the rules on making a tasty dinner using frozen vegetables for this stir fry recipe and it’s been on repeat in my house for months.

While I love cooking fresh veggies, freezer foods are a must for busy weeknights. We make sous vide steak from frozen steak and other freezer dishes all the time since becoming new parents. In fact, I have a whole article on what to buy and freeze at Costco and another one on how to vacuum seal meat to freeze it for months.

Final tips for this frozen vegetable stir fry

• This is written as a stir fry recipe for 1 serving. Scale it up and down easily.
• This simple frozen vegetable stir fry recipe makes the most of shortcuts from frozen vegetables and the sauce packets included in the bags.
• Get tips on how to slice red peppers for stir fry
• I use two sauce packets from the Birds Eye frozen vegetable mix to have enough sauce to cover not only the vegetables but also the rice noodles.
• Add protein and make this stir fry with frozen vegetables and chicken. Leftover sous vide chicken tenders and this under 30-minute chicken breast recipe are perfect contenders for this.
• Make this a stir fry without vegetables and instead add sous vide pulled pork and avocado to make it a meal.

Love a good WFH lunch idea?

Me too! Many years ago, when we moved from San Francisco to Portland, I began working from home and started Sip Bite Go. Over the years I’ve shared many easy WFH lunch ideas on Instagram @sipbitego.

Want my latest tips for eating restaurant-style food at home? Subscribe to the Sip Bite Go channel on YouTube. And check out my new book: The Home Chef’s Sous Vide Cookbook.