Whacking some veggies in a pan with a bit of sauce seems pretty easy but anyone who’s eaten a soggy stir fry knows there’s a lot of room for error. But fear no longer! We are here to save you from the weeknight dinner blues with these simple tips to take your stir fries to the next level. Look out Sidney from The Bear, we’re coming for you!

CHOPPING QUICK FIX It’s very hard to wield a knife with confidence and skill. Not everyone has eight-hours a day with which to practice finely chopping carrot. But, the great news is you pretty much don’t have to chop veggies with a knife to get the job done. Enter: the mandolin. You’ll find some mandolins available in Asian supermarkets and they make cutting veggies so much easier. And everything is all so neat and uniform (assuming you don’t chop off your finger because, a word of warning, those things are sharp!).

PUMP UP THE HEAT When you’re cooking stir fries, you need to turn the LPG gas up, up, up to ensure your ingredients cook properly and quickly. If you need a new LPG gas connection, obviously make sure that’s sorted beforehand. Then once you’re going it’s good to cook your ingredients in batches so your pan or wok isn’t overcrowded. Then you can add them all back in at the end for a final mix.

THE RIGHT OIL Because the wok is going to get so hot, the type of oil you choose matters. Olive oil has quite a low smoke point, so unless you want to alert the fire authorities with your smoke alarm going off, it’s best to use an oil with a high smoke point such as vegetable oil.

PROCEED WITH PROTEIN When you cook your meat or tofu, you want to make sure every piece of it can touch the pan so it gets a nice little char happening. It’s super hard to do, but once you add your meat or tofu to the pan, leave it alone for a little bit so it can colour up nicely and not end up a soggy mess.

SAUCY STUFF There’s nothing wrong with store-bought stir fry sauces, but if you want to have your big chef moment there are so many amazing stir fry recipe sauces on the internet. You can make up a big batch of sauce and leave it in your fridge to use across three or so stir fries over a couple of weeks. Then when it comes time to cook you simply pour it in and your stir fry will taste amazing without even having to locate your oyster sauce.