Easy Chicken Stir Fry Without Soy Sauce

This simple stir fry without soy sauce recipe is a perfect easy weeknight dinner recipe.

If you’ve followed me and my recipes for a while, you know that my Mawmaw Ween was the woman who most influenced my love of cooking. I talk about her a lot and the love we shared of cooking, baking and even at an early age for me, nutrition.

When you read all that you may think to yourself

“Wow. Her mom must’ve been a real dud in the kitchen.”

Mom feels that way too when she reads my blog. Sigh.

I want to clear the air. My mom was and is a great cook.

Her cornbread dressing is requested annually from all corners of our extended family. Her potato salad is spot-on fine Southern cooking. And her banana bread is the stuff my children gobble up by the plate-full.

But growing up, my mom always worked outside the home. For portions of my childhood and teenage years, she was a single mom and even when she was remarried, she didn’t have a husband who was terribly helpful in the ways of kitchen prep, in my opinion.

Her commute each day to work could range from two to three hours round-trip. Every time I think about that fact compared to how stressed I feel each day to put dinner on the table (when I work from home and my longest commute is to Starbucks), I’m reminded that even then, #TheStruggleWasReal.

Mom semi-jokes these days that I basically don’t remember anything she ever cooked growing up. That’s really not true. I remember plenty of things…

…Like the Shrimp Alfredo she mastered when I was a teenager. Or the traditional marinara-based spaghetti she tried to get me to help with during those same teenage years only to be sassed-mouthed when I refused to help.

Sidenote – payback is hell. My oldest son has a sassy-mouth that I know I deserve.

I also remember that she was a threat to make a Bundt cake and apparently I got that same gene.

And I recall that one of her more popular dinners was stir fry.

While I don’t remember a ton about what she put in her stir fry (I actually think it was a meatless version, but not 100% sure. I’m sure mom will tell me after she reads this), I do remember the cabbage.

I grew up in a small town in Alabama. We didn’t have bok choy or any variations of Chinese cabbage in our supermarkets (and I doubt they do today.) So mom used cabbage.

A lot of cabbage.

And I remember loving it. She also used ample amounts of soy sauce, but when developing today’s recipe I found I had none on hand.

I improvised — just like I’m sure mom would’ve done — and have come up with this simple stir fry without soy sauce recipe for the perfect easy weeknight dinner recipe.

Mom, if you’re reading this, thanks for all the many nights you managed to put dinner on the table after a long commute and a full work day, when you had very little help from anyone else at home. I may not remember a ton about what was in the stir fry, but I remember who made it and how much I liked it. And that’s what matters. ~Regan