Beef stir-fry with bell pepper & peas
Hot from the wok, cold from the cutting board. Beef strips get a fast sear, come out, and the vegetables take their turn in the same pan. Everything reunites in soy sauce, then sits next to brown rice and raw cucumber slices that cool the whole plate down.
Eight ingredients, 670 calories, 32g of protein, and enough carbs from brown rice to refuel without a second helping. Done in 20 minutes.
Ingredients
- brown rice 3 ounces
- cucumber 0.5
- bell pepper 1
- scallion 1
- olive oil 1 tablespoon
- beef strips 3 ounces
- garden peas (frozen) 3 ounces
- soy sauce 1 tablespoon
Method
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Cook the rice according to the instructions on the package.
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Halve the cucumber lengthwise. Cut the cucumber into thin diagonal slices and the bell pepper into pieces. Slice the scallion into rings.
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Heat oil in a wok or large pan over medium heat. Cook the beef strips for 3-4 minutes until browned and cooked through. Remove the beef from the pan and set aside.
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Add the bell pepper and peas to the same pan and stir-fry for 2-3 minutes until the vegetables are tender but still crisp.
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Then add the scallion and beef strips back to the pan. Pour in the soy sauce and stir everything well. Season with salt and pepper.
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Serve the stir-fry with the rice and the fresh cucumber on the side.
Pull the beef out of the pan after 3-4 minutes, even if you want to keep everything cooking together. Removing it before the vegetables go in prevents the beef from steaming in the liquid the frozen peas release. When it returns for the final toss, the texture holds.
That tablespoon of soy sauce is doing more than adding flavor. Researchers tested rice-based meals with and without soy sauce and found the version with soy sauce absorbed 3.3 times more non-heme iron. Fermented soy products create amino acids that form soluble complexes with iron in the gut, making the mineral in brown rice and peas significantly more available.
Iron Absorption — Baynes 1990 · DOIBehind this recipe
Can I use white rice instead of brown?
Yes. Any rice variety will do. Brown rice carries more non-heme iron than white, so the soy sauce absorption boost (3.3-fold in research) has a larger iron pool to act on. Swapping to white keeps the same macros from the FitChef app but reduces that mineral advantage.
Is 32 grams of protein enough for a dinner?
Research has tested whether a per-meal protein ceiling exists. At 32 grams, this dinner sits comfortably below the thresholds most studies have examined. The deeper question is how meal timing, total daily intake, and protein type interact above those numbers.
Read the full evidence reviewAre frozen peas as nutritious as fresh?
Frozen peas are blanched and flash-frozen near peak ripeness, which locks in most of their vitamins and minerals. For iron content, the form does not change between fresh and frozen. Stir-frying them briefly (2-3 minutes as this recipe does) preserves more nutrients than boiling, since the peas never sit in water that carries vitamins away.
