Stir fry concepts have become one of the most popular stations in onsite foodservice, and the reasons are clear. Stir fry offerings:

• allow frequent ingredient and flavor profile rotations.
• provide an exciting platform for live-action cooking.
• permit the use of more vegetables and less protein.
• leverage the interest many consumers have in Asian cuisine and more healthful meal options.

At Duke University Hospital, customers can tuck into a plate of stir fried pork that has been marinating overnight in beet juice to give it a cool red color and a distinct sweetness. At Scripps College, students are nibbling stir fries made of quality seasonal ingredients, simply prepared, with a freshness that speaks for itself. Even middle school students have been feasting on reimbursable stir fry bowls complete with authentic Asian flavors but using less sodium and less fat.

Stir Fry Success

Stir frying meets all the modern challenges and goals of 21st-century cuisine. It is intrinsically quick, with its components chopped into very small pieces that cook quickly in a very hot pan. Vegetables step up while protein steps back. Meat and seafood play a major role, but more often as an accent rather than as the star.

At Duke University Hospital in Durham, NC, an Asian noodle bar concept debuted about four years ago and attracted approximately 250 customers daily. Four offerings — a variety of four noodle bowls one day, four stir fry choices another, or a series of dim sum, as well as grab-and-go — were available.

“Asian-style noodle bars put an emphasis on seasonal ingredients,” says Duke's Chef and Foodservice Manager Cherie Smith, who focuses on freshness by sourcing the best possible ingredients and chopping them on a bias to give them even more eye — and plate — appeal.

While the noodle bar has since been changed to an exhibition cooking station to allow for more flexibility in the menu, the Asian influence has remained strong with a rotation of dishes like chicken and vegetables in a spicy ginger-garlic sauce over jasmine rice or the stir-fried chicken & vegetables in a savory bourbon sauce prepared a la minute.

“The secret to stir fry is to be sure you maintain a balance of flavors and temperatures,” says Smith. “Because you're cooking these components quickly over a very high heat, they will retain texture and flavor, but they need to be uniform in size and temperature before they hit the pan.

“Some ingredients, like tofu, won't keep their form in this environment, so we like to deep fry it for just a few seconds before we add it to the wok,” she adds.

Dale McDonald, executive chef at Scripps College in Claremont, CA, agrees that freshness and presentation are the keys to stir fry success. With his hugely successful sizzling salad bar — a marriage of the salad station and the exhibition station — McDonald is better able to please Scripps' ever-demanding, all female student demographic.

“Students can opt to have the hot protein components from the stir fry station added to their salads to create a ‘sizzling salad’,” he says. “Customers can either order the stir fry components from the menu directly or design their own if they want since each warm salad is made to order.”

The best seller is a chicken stir fry salad, he says, but other favorites include a szechuan beef stir fry salad, and a fried tofu with stir fried vegetables over a bed of greens.

McDonald says that customers select their own vegetables, meats and sauce ingredients for the wok chefs to cook in the exhibition stations. “We tend to only put items on the bar that complement one another, flavor wise. That way, it becomes kind of fool-proof,” he adds.

Stir fry has a light and healthy connotation, which, as McDonald has learned, is key when you're serving primarily female students. “The Asian flair also adds a lot of flavor,” he says, “and it's very reasonably priced. It doesn't cost us a lot to create these dishes.”

Breakfast of Champions

Who says you can't have stir-fry for breakfast?

“We use our stir fry station once a week at breakfast,” says Dave McElhinney, general manager, Cornell College, Mount Vernon, IA. “We have done filled crepes, some potato dishes, and omelet spin-offs.”

Since tofu has the same consistency as egg whites, it's not all that far of a reach to feature a breakfast stir fry. Plus, it's a great way to use chopped vegetables and add a new type of exhibition station to breakfast, beyond the omelet or waffle station.

With the stir fry station still being a relatively new addition to Cornell though, McElhinney and his team strive to keep the menu new and innovative beyond just breakfast.