Napa Cabbage Stir Fry: Easy, Kid Approved, and a Super Food

Learn how to make a flavorful Napa Cabbage stir fry with Chinese sausage and dried shrimp.

Disclaimer: Please check that all ingredients are suitable for your allergies and be sure to ask your medical care team regarding any allergy related questions (I do not share medical advice). As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

A Kid Approved Vegetable & Easy to Cook

Our family enjoys napa cabbage a few times a month. My children like it enough to pick napa cabbage as a vegetable when we go shopping. I love that napa cabbage is ranked #2 in “10 Superfoods Healthier than Kale.” And thought you might enjoy learning how to make this delicious and healthy Asian vegetable side dish.

Napa cabbage, also known as Chinese cabbage or sui choy in Cantonese, is delicious as a vegetable side dish. It is super easy to prepare, tender, has a sweet, mild flavor that goes well with other foods. It is often used in potsticker filling, Korean spicy kimchi, and many other dishes.

I love that napa cabbage has a sweet, mild flavor, and delicious in soups. It’s great to add them to soup such as napa cabbage and carrot soup with potstickers. I also mix chopped napa cabbage with ground pork to make potstickers.

How to Shop For Napa Cabbage and Meal Plan

It’s so convenient that napa cabbage stores well. My mom used to buy a napa cabbage during our weekly trips to Chinatown. She cooked the more delicate and perishable vegetables earlier in the week. And then she had napa cabbage on hand for later in the work week for quick easy dinners.

• There are three different varieties of napa cabbage. The most common and easiest to find are big blocky oval-shaped napa cabbage. I prefer the smaller ones, about 2-3 pounds each.
• The second variety of napa cabbage has a long, thin, narrow shape like a head of celery. I usally find this variety in Chinese grocery stores.
• More recently I started to see baby napa cabbage. Each head is about the size of a papaya. They’re so cute and might be labeled wawa choy.

All three varieties of napa cabbage are wonderful. Fresh napa cabbage feels heavy for its size. Check that the white stems are free of blemishes or little black specks. The leafy parts should be frilly, yellow, and not discolored.

From Childhood Favorite to Food Allergy Mom Challenges

I learned how to make delicious napa cabbage stir fry dish from my mom. She sauted some lop cheong (Chinese sausage) and hai mai (dried shrimp). When fragrant, she added the napa cabbage with some broth or water. Later she adds the fun see (mung bean vermicelli threads) and cooks them until soft. The resulting dish was a glorious combination of savory morsels, sweet vegetables, with some slurpy noodles.

However, I was perplexed about why my children didn’t like this dish. My mom told me that they might not like the mung bean vermicelli noodles. Apparently there had been some recalls due to contamination with lead, use of toxic additives, and high levels of aluminum.

My mom was right because my children liked the napa cabbage without the mung bean vermicelli!

Organic Mung Bean Vermicelli That’s Allergen Free

Since then I found organic mung bean vermicelli from Costco that the whole family enjoys. I shared about cooking with them my recipe for fuzzy melon and in Chinese New Year Jai (a vegetable stew).

I like mung bean vermicelli made in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, or United States and/or when labeled as organic. There are plenty of options similar to bean vermicelli. See if bean noodles, shirataki noodles, and potato starch noodles might work for you. They all of cook in a similar way and have a similar texture.

We definitely had some napa cabbage related challenges and victories. My favorite napa cabbage with bean vermicelli dish became just napa cabbage. We struggled through a few years of food allergy uncertainty: with and without dried shrimp, with and without oyster sauce, with and without mung bean vermicelli.

Napa Cabbage is a Super Food!

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website, “Defining Powerhouse Fruits and Vegetables” ranked napa cabbage as number 2 by nutrient density.

Now if I ask my children to pick a vegetable from an Asian market to buy and make, they always pick a napa cabbage. Whoo-hoo, a win-win! Who would have thought the humble napa cabbage would be so illustrative of a family’s journey with food allergies?

Allergy Aware Napa Cabbage Stir Fry

This recipe is free of peanut, tree nut, egg, dairy, fish, and sesame as written.

The following recipe is a simple recipe and it’s our current favorite way to enjoy it. The recipe can be modified for your specific allergies and preferences.

Chinese sausages are likely to be seasoned with soy sauce (contains soy and wheat) but can easily substituted with soy-free, gluten-free, allergy friendly bacon or 1/4 cup of ground pork.

Dried shrimp can simply be omitted, or use bacon or ham for flavor, or use an aromatic such as minced garlic or minced ginger.

Oyster sauce can be substituted with a drizzle of your flavoring of choice at the very end: soy sauce with a pinch of sugar, other soy sauce alternatives, a drizzle of sesame oil or other savory or spicy flavors you might like. 

5 from 1 vote

Print

Napa Cabbage Stir Fry: Easy, Quick, and Kid Approved

Learn how to make a flavorful Napa Cabbage stir fry with Chinese sausage and dried shrimp.

Course Side Dish, vegetable side dish

Cuisine Chinese

Keyword napa cabbage

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes

Total Time 25 minutes

Servings 4

Calories 70 kcal

Author Sharon Wong at Nut Free Wok

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon dried shrimp
• 1 Chinese sausage
• 1 pound napa cabbage approximately football sized
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 2-3 teaspoons oyster sauce to taste, or use suggested substitutions

Instructions

1. Rinse the dried shrimp and then soak in a small bowl of cold water for 10 minutes, drain and set aside.
2. Separate napa cabbage leaves (discard any brown or wilted outer leaves), rinse with water, and shake excess water out.
3. Stack a few napa cabbage leaves at a time and slice crosswise into bite size pieces.
4. Thinly slice the Chinese sausage and add to a wok or large stock pot, and slowly render the fat on low heat for about 5 minutes.
5. Turn up the heat to medium-high, add olive oil and shrimp and stir fry for 1 minute.
6. Add all of the napa cabbage and stir fry for a minute or two, add a splash of water (just enough for a sizzle, no more than 1/4 cup), cover the wok or stock pot with a lid for two minutes.
7. Drizzle in oyster sauce and stir fry for a few more minutes until the cabbage is wilted and soft.

Nutrition Facts

Napa Cabbage Stir Fry: Easy, Quick, and Kid Approved

Amount Per Serving

Calories 70 Calories from Fat 27

% Daily Value*

Fat 3g5%

Saturated Fat 1g6%

Polyunsaturated Fat 0.2g

Monounsaturated Fat 1g

Cholesterol 43mg14%

Sodium 352mg15%

Potassium 324mg9%

Carbohydrates 4g1%

Fiber 1g4%

Sugar 3g3%

Protein 7g14%

Vitamin A 361IU7%

Vitamin C 31mg38%

Calcium 105mg11%

Iron 1mg6%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

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