You’re going to love this easy 4-ingredient teriyaki ground beef stir fry with zucchini and mushrooms. Paired with a lower calorie yum yum sauce and a blend of cauliflower and jasmine rice, it’s perfect for meal prep or healthy weeknight dinners.
Teriyaki Beef Stir Fry
This is a short and sweet recipe, with only 4 ingredients in the primary stir fry. Here’s a look at everything you’ll need:
- 96/4 Ground Beef – Can’t make a stir fry with ground beef without it, right? That said, ground chicken, turkey, or pork would all work fine as well.
- Chopped Zucchini – You could add/substitute other vegetables like broccoli or green beans. Check out my ground beef and cauliflower skillet and sweet chili ground beef and brussels sprouts for ideas.
- Sliced Mushrooms – I used a pre-sliced blend of shiitake, oyster, and baby bella.
- Teriyaki Sauce – I used Kevin’s Natural Foods teriyaki, which has 15 calories and 2 grams of carbs per tablespoon. You could also make your own healthy teriyaki sauce or use other options like my Japanese BBQ, firecracker, Chinese five spice, or black pepper sauces.
You’ll also need a half tablespoon of oil for browning the ground beef. I typically use avocado or olive oil.
And if you wanted to add more vegetables and really add some volume to your meal, I added eight ounces of broccoli florets and diced carrots in my teriyaki turkey stir fry. Though you’ll want to slightly change the cook method by cooking the vegetables on their own before the beef.
How to Make Ground Beef Meal Prep Bowls
The recipe is one of the best ways to meal prep with ground beef I’ve ever made. It makes 5 servings made up of 8 ounces of the teriyaki ground beef stir fry, 2 tablespoons of yum yum sauce, and 3/4 cup of a rice blend.
Low Calorie Yum Yum Sauce
If you’re unfamiliar with yum yum sauce, it’s a mayo-based dipping sauce typically found in American-Japanese steakhouses. It’s tangy, sweet, and slightly spicy. There are tons of variations, but I like the following combo:
- Light Mayo
- Sriracha
- Honey
- Rice Vinegar
- Garlic Powder
You can use other ingredients like chili garlic sauce, fat free Greek yogurt, and sugar free ketchup to make it even lower calorie or adjust the flavor to your preference. To pack some extra nutrients into the sauce, check out the blended kimchi sauce in my ground beef bulgogi bowls.
Update January 2024: I now have a low calorie yum yum sauce recipe made with Greek yogurt!
As a bonus ingredient, I highly recommend adding a drizzle of the Bachan’s Japanese barbecue sauce I used in my ground beef stuffed Japanese sweet potatoes and BBQ chicken fried rice recipes.
Cauliflower Rice Blend
Cauliflower rice is “meh” at best. But when you mix it with “real” rice, like my Tex-Mex ground beef skillet, it becomes nearly indistinguishable. This is a great way to bulk up your meals.
You can obviously play around with ratios, but I think 3 cups of cauliflower rice to 2 cups of jasmine or basmati rice is the magic number.
Side note: I also love a stir fry paired with noodles. I used knife cut noodles from Trader Joe’s to make teriyaki stir fry noodles and give them two big thumbs up.
Assembly and Macros
The recipe makes the following:
- about 20 oz or 5 cups of rice: 510 calories, 16g protein, 106g carbs, 0g fat
- about 1/2 cup of sauce: 240 calories, 1g protein, 30g carbs, 14g fat
- about 40 oz of teriyaki ground beef: 905 calories, 95g protein, 38g carbs, 31g fat
You can tweak the amounts in each meal prep bowl to fit your macros as needed.
And that should cover it. Have a question about this teriyaki ground beef I forgot to cover? Drop it in the comments below. I hope you enjoy this recipe!
Teriyaki Ground Beef Stir Fry
Ingredients
- 1 pound Extra Lean Ground Beef
- 1 Tablespoon Olive Oil, divided
- 2 Zucchini, chopped
- 6 oz Sliced Mushrooms, I used a blend of shiitake, oyster, and baby bella
- 2/3 cup 169g Teriyaki Sauce (I used Kevin’s)
For the Yum Yum Sauce
- 1/4 cup 60g Light Mayo
- 1 1/2 Tablespoons 23g Sriracha
- 1 Tablespoon 21g Honey
- 1 Tablespoon 15g Rice Vinegar
- 1/2 teaspoon Garlic Powder
For the Rice
- 3 cups 340g Cooked Cauliflower Rice
- 2 cups 280g Cooked Rice
Instructions
- Brown the ground beef in a large skillet over medium-high heat with 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil. Break apart, fully cook, and push to one side of the pan.
- Add the remaining olive oil and zucchini. Cook until the zucchini starts to pick up color and soften, about 3 minutes.
- Add the mushrooms and stir everything together before adding the Teriyaki sauce. Cook until the sauce is evenly distributed and sticking to the stir fry, about 1-2 minutes.
- Serve the ground beef over rice with the sauce. Garnish with scallions and sesame seeds, if desired.
Does the nutritional information include the rice mixture?
Yes, the serving size is above the calories and macronutrients in the recipe card. 8 oz of the stir fry, 1 cup of the rice mixture, and 2 tablespoons of the sauce.
Reallllly good! My husband said it’s now in his top five and it’s “lick your plate clean good.” 🙂
What an awesome recipe! It’s always in my rotation. My pots and pans are limited in size, so I find it easier to cut the recipe in half (scales very easily) to make sure I have enough space to get some color on the zucchini.
Give this a try!!
1
Something this easy should not be this good! I have now made this five or six times, and it always hits the spot. I usually have the ingredients on-hand. Instead of making the sauce, I bought some siracha mayo at the store. Otherwise, I do it exactly as written each time. Great for meal prepping!
Is the yum yum sauce separate from the teriyaki sauce? If so, when do you add it?
The teriyaki goes in the stir fry, and the yum yum sauce is for serving over the finished dish.
This stir fry is so good! Made it for the first time tonight and my husband and I both thought it was delicious. The yum yum sauce is the perfect addition. Will make again for sure.
This is my go-to easy/healthy/quick dinner recipe! I’ve made it many times and it’s so delicious! 5/5
Delicious and comes together quickly!