Healthy Ground Pork Stir-Fry Recipe
You are going to love this easy ground pork stir-fry recipe! Not only is it delicious and made with nutritious ingredients, but it’s also ready in 20 minutes, making it a dinner winner for busy weeknights! Serve the stir-fried ground pork over rice and you have a meal that’s loaded with protein, flavor, veggies, and carbs. Just like my chicken lettuce wraps, we’re drizzling these bowls with a delicious peanut sauce, you don’t want to miss it. Serve it family style, it’s an excellent meal for the whole family. See my tips below for how to serve this to the entire family.
If you love easy stir-fry recipes like this one, give my healthy orange chicken, shrimp teriyaki stir fry, pan fried noodles, ground turkey stir fry, moo shu shrimp, or pepper steak stir fry next time.
Estimated reading time: 10 minutes
What You’ll Love About Stir-Fried Ground Pork
- Incredible rich and bright flavors
- Nutritious and delicious
- Made with basic ingredients you can find at any grocery store
- Just 10 minutes prep time
- Just 20 minutes total time
- Easy to prep ahead
- Easy to make gluten-free
Ingredients
- Rice – Use your favorite here! White rice or brown rice. Microwavable or made from scratch, your choice. You can also use any grains or vegetables like quinoa, rice noodles, udon noodles, ramen noodles, or cauliflower rice. Save leftover rice to make onigiri for lunchboxes.
- Garlic – Use fresh or frozen garlic for a short cut.
- Fresh ginger – Using plenty of ginger gives this stir fry lots of classic flavor. Use frozen minced ginger for a shortcut.
- White mushrooms – Can also use any mushroom. Shitake would be delicious!
- Green onions – Save both the green parts and and the scallion whites.
- Peanut butter – Creamy peanut butter works best for the flavorful sauce . You can also use another nut butter like almond or cashew butter.
- Soy sauce – You can use low-sodium soy sauce if you prefer or coconut aminos or tamari for gluten-free options.
- Sriracha – Sambal oelek or chili flakes are another great way to add some heat to the healthy pork stir fry. If you don’t want any heat, simply omit this.
- Honey – Honey works well, but you can also use brown sugar or maple syrup.
- Rice vinegar – Rice vinegar is a staple in my stir fry recipes, but you could use white wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar, or fresh lime juice.
- Oil – Use any oil with a high smoke point. Vegetable oil, avocado oil, peanut oil, or coconut oil would all work.
- Ground pork – You can’t make ground pork stir fry without the pork! But you can also use other ground meat options like ground beef, ground turkey, ground chicken, or even your favorite meatless crumbles. If you wanted to use a different cut of pork, pork loin, pork tenderloin or boneless pork chops are all popular options for stir fry. You’ll need to adjust the cooking time, but they would all be delicious.
- Sea salt
- Spinach – The baby spinach doesn’t require much prep and isn’t strong in flavor, making it a good intro veggie! You can also try sliced greens like kale or baby bok choy; green beans or haricots verts; snow peas or snap peas; red bell pepper; air fryer broccoli; or even cauliflower rice.
How to Make Pork Stir-Fry Recipe
This is an overview on how to make stir-fry pork, the detailed instructions can be found below in the recipe card.
FAQs
What can I use ground pork for?
Uhhhh, this GROUND PORK STIR-FRY! I also have a delicious recipe for easy udon noodle stir fry or Thai ground pork lettuce wraps that feature ground pork. Or try it in these ground turkey lettuce wraps instead of the turkey.
How do you saute ground pork?
It’s so easy to make ground pork stir-fry, it’s one of the reasons that I love this meal. It cooks up in a matter of minutes, which again, makes it a great weeknight meal.
It has a bit of fat in it (not a lot, but it isn’t fat free) so I’ve found that I usually don’t need to oil the pan. You can add a bit however if you want to ensure that nothing sticks.
Do you need oil to cook ground pork?
If you are using a nonstick skillet, you can probably get away without adding any oil as the ground pork will release some fat while it cooks. I’ve used just a touch for this recipe, but you can omit it if you prefer.
How do you know when ground pork is done?
You’ll want to cook ground pork to an internal temperature of 160 degrees F. With a stir fry recipe like this one, we’re cooking the pork long enough to be safely cooked through. (It takes about 4-6 minutes.)
Is ground pork healthy?
Ahhhh, the old healthy vs. unhealthy battle. If you eat meat, then yes, I think ground pork is healthy. If you don’t eat meat or don’t eat pork, NO. Ground pork isn’t healthy for you. It’s all a matter of personal opinion. Seriously! It is a great source of protein.
Storage Instructions
Store any leftover easy pork stir-fry recipe in the refrigerator with the components stored in separate containers. It’s delicious the next day. 🙂
How to reheat
Reheat rice and pork stir-fry in the microwave or hot skillet and top with peanut sauce.
Can you freeze ground pork stir-fry?
Yes, you can also freeze the stir-fry for 2-3 months.
How to Feed Stir-Fry Ground Pork to the Whole Family
I get it, feeding kids can be tough! But following the Division of Responsibility and knowing your job and your child’s job makes it SO much more enjoyable. You’ll be able to feed your kids any meal, which will help ensure that they are eating a variety of nutritious foods – with plenty of play food sprinkled in.
I would recommend serving the stir-fried pork in a pinch bowl (taster bowl) if it’s a new or learning-to-like it food and let everyone build their own rice bowl. Serve the meal with a few items you know your kids will eat, like fruit, milk, and/or bread and butter if they don’t do rice.
If they want to pick out the veggies from the pork, let them do it! (I do my best not to pick out veggies for my kids, but they are welcome to do it themselves if they want to, and I am 100% ok with that!
What to Serve with Stir-Fry Ground Pork
This easy pork stir-fry recipe is designed to be a full meal, but if you want to add some more sides or veggies, here are a few ideas:
More Ground Pork Recipes
If you like easy ground pork recipes like this one, give these other ground pork recipes a try:
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Ground Pork Stir-Fry Recipe
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 7 minutes
- Total Time: 17 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Stir Fry
- Cuisine: Asian
Description
This easy ground pork stir fry recipe is a weeknight dinner that’s both delicious and nutritious. Easy, tasty, and incredibly flavorful!
Ingredients
- rice for serving
- 4 cloves garlic
- 1 Tbsp. minced ginger
- 5 oz. white mushrooms
- 4 green onions
- 2 Tbsp. peanut butter (creamy works best)
- 3 Tbsp. soy sauce
- 1 Tbsp. honey
- 1 Tbsp. rice wine vinegar or lemon/lime juice
- 1 tsp. sriracha (or more)
- 1 tsp. olive oil
- 16 oz. ground pork
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 6 oz. spinach
Instructions
- Prepare ingredients:
Cook rice as directed on package.
Mince garlic. Peel ginger and mince.
Chop mushrooms.
Thinly slice green onions. - Make peanut sauce. In a small bowl, whisk together peanut butter, soy sauce, sriracha (add more if you like spice!), honey, and rice wine vinegar until smooth.
- Heat oil in a large pan over medium-high heat. Add pork to pan. Break up with a wooden spoon for about 1 minute, then add mushrooms, garlic, and ginger to pan. Season with sea salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about 5-7 minutes, until cooked through.
- Add spinach to pan, toss with pork and cook for about 1 minute, until wilted.
- Serve stir fried pork over rice and top with peanut sauce, sliced green onions, sesame seeds, and sriracha to taste.
Notes
- Get your kids involved! They can: mix together peanut sauce, add sesame seeds and green onions to their rice bowls.
- SHORTCUT: Use microwavable or instant rice to make things really quick.
Food styling and photography by Loren Runion.
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Great healthy recipe for busy weeknights. I usually use tahini instead of peanut butter, just a personal preference. Thank you so much!
Oooh, love that swap, Karen! Thanks for sharing!
Amazing recipe! My husband and I loved it.
Hi Sharon, so glad you enjoyed! Thanks for sharing!
Was so sad when my leftovers were gone!!
Haha, I know how that goes!
This recipe was delicious. I made a few minor changes due to what I had on hand and to increase vegetables vs. the recipe, but didn’t change the taste profile. I used half of a chopped onion cooked with the pork instead of the green onions, added half a bag of frozen peas I’ve wanted to get rid of, increased the spinach, increased the amount of sauce, and mixed rice into the pork mixture at the end, as I will be taking this to work for the next few lunches. I’ve never used ground pork in a stir fry before, and I really like it. I will definitely be making this again. Thank you!
Yay, I’m so glad you enjoyed it! And I’m going to be trying it with peas next time, great idea. Thanks for sharing the changes, I know others will find this helpful as well.
Yummy!
I used small breakfast sausage links because I had them and browned them a a first step, added chopped onion to the stir fry and used crushed peanuts as a garnish instead of including them in the sauce. It was quick , easy and delicious. Thank you!!!
Oooh, what a great twist! Thanks for sharing, Patricia!
Hi, this was delicious! And so simple to make. My daughter (9) who doesn’t like mushrooms or spinach announced that she now likes both! Easy to add other veggies like shredded carrots. The PB sauce is so yummy- it pushes the dish over the top! Thanks for sharing this recipe!
Best review ever! Thank you! Glad you all enjoyed it.
Hello, I’m excited to try this recipe this evening. However, even after choosing print ‘options’, when I printed it, it also printed all the ads making it 4 pages! Of course I did front to back, but ads so distracting as well as flipping pages. But most of all, could not print to include the entire Nutritional Facts and NF gave info as 4 servings and not 1. Can I his brother fixed, or any suggestions?
Oh I’m so sorry! I’ll check with my network to get this fixed. Thanks for letting me know.
Made this wo the ginger bc included my father who doesn’t care for ginger. Me time though will include the ginger for myself and husband.
So glad you enjoyed it! Thanks!
Just made this again tonight, it’s in regular rotation in our family. Very quick to make and healthy. Thank you for sharing this!
Yay! Love hearing this, thanks for letting me know.
Love it! Takes a bit of time to prep but well worth it.the peanut sauce adds a great addition of flavor.yum yummy yummy..
Hi Sasha, so glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for your comment. 🙂
I used Kale instead of spinach and I don’t have a wok so I used my favorite, cast iron dutch oven. Cast iron skillet was not deep enough for kale. Excellent meal. Will do this again. Even the leftovers were delicious. Thank you.
Great to hear, Jim! Thanks!