Noodles with Ground Beef & Stir-Fried Vegetables
Most stir-fry noodle recipes run the same playbook: soy sauce, sesame oil, maybe a squeeze of lime. This one throws cumin, curry powder, and paprika into the pan. The warm spice trio coats the ground beef as it browns alongside ginger and teriyaki, building a base that has nothing in common with the usual soy-only stir-fry.
The full plate lands at 611 kcal with 36g of protein and 16g of fiber, the fiber split between the whole wheat pasta and the vegetables. Fifteen minutes, start to finish.
Most stir-fry noodle recipes run the same playbook: soy sauce, sesame oil, maybe a squeeze of lime. This one throws cumin, curry powder, and paprika into the pan. The warm spice trio coats the ground beef as it browns alongside ginger and teriyaki, building a base that has nothing in common with the usual soy-only stir-fry.
The full plate lands at 611 kcal with 36g of protein and 16g of fiber, the fiber split between the whole wheat pasta and the vegetables. Fifteen minutes, start to finish.
Ingredients
- spaghetti, whole wheat 3 ounces
- onion 0.5 piece
- garlic 1 clove
- ginger 1 slice
- olive oil 1 tablespoon
- 96% lean ground beef 3 ounces
- ground cumin 0.5 teaspoon
- curry powder 0.5 teaspoon
- paprika (ground spice) 1 teaspoon
- tomato paste 1 teaspoon
- mixed vegetables, Asian style 1.5 cup
- teriyaki sauce 1 tablespoon
Method
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Cook the spaghetti according to the instructions on the packaging.
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Finely chop the onion and finely dice the garlic. Grate the ginger.
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Heat the oil in a pan. Sauté the onion, garlic and ginger for 2 minutes. Then, add the ground meat to the pan along with the cumin, curry and paprika powder. Cook the meat until browned.
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Add the tomato paste to the pan and cook for another minute. Add the stir-fry vegetables along with the teriyaki sauce and stir-fry until they are crisp-tender in about 6 minutes.
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Stir the drained spaghetti into the vegetables. Toss everything together well and season with pepper and salt.
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Serve the stir-fried noodles on a (deep) plate.
Cook the tomato paste in the pan for the full minute before adding vegetables. That brief toast caramelizes the paste and builds a concentrated savory base that coats every noodle. Skip it, and the raw paste stays sharp and one-dimensional.
Behind this recipe
Can I use regular spaghetti instead of whole wheat?
Any spaghetti works here. The difference is fiber: whole wheat contributes to the 16g of fiber this plate delivers, split between the pasta and the 249g of mixed vegetables. Swapping to white pasta drops that number but keeps the protein and overall calories close. Research on fiber and body composition found that fiber from food showed stronger associations with fat loss than supplemental fiber.
Read the full evidence reviewWhy does this recipe use cumin and curry in a stir-fry?
This is a fusion dish. The warm spice trio (cumin, curry powder, paprika) coats the ground beef during browning, while the ginger and teriyaki handle the vegetable side. The two spice systems meet in the pan but never overlap: the warm spices stay on the meat, the teriyaki stays on the vegetables. The result tastes different from a standard soy-based noodle stir-fry because neither flavor system drowns the other.
Is 36 grams of protein enough from one dinner?
This plate pulls its 36g from the ground beef and the whole wheat spaghetti together. Controlled trials tested doses in this range and found the muscle-building response kept climbing, with no hard ceiling per meal. The old gym rule that anything above 20 or 30 grams gets wasted did not survive the data.
Read the full evidence review
