Easy Chicken Stir-Fry Recipe — Simplified for ADHD, Dyslexia & Busy Moms

Have you ever started a recipe, gotten to step three, and completely lost track of where you were? Or read the same instruction four times and still felt confused about what you were actually supposed to do?

That’s been my life in the kitchen for as long as I can remember. And for a long time, it made cooking feel like a chore I could never quite get right — even when the recipe was supposed to be “easy.”

I prefer baking over cooking for exactly that reason. Baking tends to be more precise and straightforward — the steps are clear, the measurements matter, and there’s less room for ambiguity. Cooking, on the other hand, often comes with vague instructions like “cook until done” or paragraphs of directions where I’d lose my place and have no idea how to recover.

So I stopped fighting it and started rewriting recipes my way.

Why I Created My Own Recipe Cards

About three years ago I started taking recipes I found — from old cookbooks, from creators sharing their meals on TikTok, from family — and doing two things to them. First, I modified them to actually suit my family’s taste. Second, I rewrote the instructions in a format that I could follow without making a mistake.

No long paragraphs. No flipping back and forth between an ingredients list and a directions list. Instead, each ingredient sits right next to the action step that goes with it. You move down the card the same way you move through the recipe — one clear step at a time.

I made these cards for myself. I printed them out, kept them in my kitchen, and they genuinely changed the way I cook. Then I started using them with my kids, and realized they worked just as well for little hands learning their way around a kitchen as they did for me.

Who These Recipe Cards Are For

If any of this sounds familiar, these cards were made with you in mind:

• You have ADHD and lose your place mid-recipe or get distracted between steps
• You have dyslexia and dense paragraphs of instructions are hard to follow
• You’re neurodivergent and need information presented in a clear, predictable format
• You’re a mom trying to get a meal on the table without a lot of back-and-forth
• You’re teaching your kids to cook and want something simple enough for them to follow on their own
• You just prefer things simple — the result is the same either way

Around 15 to 20 percent of the global population are neurodivergent, which means a lot of people are out here trying to follow recipes that were simply never written with them in mind. That’s the gap I’m trying to fill — one recipe card at a time.

The Recipe: Chicken Stir-Fry

This is one of my family’s most-used weeknight meals. It is fast, colorful, kid-approved, and the chicken can be marinated ahead of time and frozen so on a busy night you just thaw and cook. That kind of flexibility is exactly why it made the cut.

Here it is written out the traditional way, followed by a look at how my card simplifies it.

Ingredients

• 1 lb chicken breast, thin sliced
• 1 red pepper
• 3 carrots
• 1 head broccoli
• 1 T garlic
• 1/2 T ginger
• 2 T sesame oil
• 1 T soy sauce (plus more for serving)
• 1 c basmati rice

Directions

Start your rice first. Add 1 cup of basmati rice to a pot with 1/2 cup of water, bring to a boil, then cover and steam on low for 25 minutes.

While the rice cooks, chop and slice your vegetables evenly — red pepper, carrots, and broccoli. Even cuts matter here because everything needs to cook at roughly the same pace.

In a bowl, combine your thin sliced chicken with the garlic, ginger, sesame oil, and soy sauce. Toss to coat and let it marinate while you finish prepping your vegetables. This is also a great point to freeze the chicken if you want to prep ahead — just seal it in the marinade, freeze flat, and thaw on the night you plan to cook it.

Heat a large pan to high heat. Add the marinated chicken and stir-fry until cooked through. Then add your vegetables and keep stir-frying until they are crisp-tender — cooked but still with a little bite.

Serve over rice with extra soy sauce on the side.

My Simplified Version

On my recipe cards, the ingredients and steps live together. No separate lists. No hunting. It looks something like this:

Simple. Scannable. You always know exactly where you are and what comes next.

Want the Printable Card?

If this format would help you in your kitchen, I have a print-ready version of this recipe card available for purchase. It is formatted exactly like you see above — clean, simple, easy to follow — and designed to be printed and kept right on your counter.

Get the Chicken Stir-Fry Recipe Card →

I’ll be adding new cards regularly across a variety of categories — different proteins, salads, soups, drinks, and desserts — all tested by my family and written in the same simplified format. When you purchase, you are automatically added to my list so you’ll know when new cards are available.

Monica Guy is a Houston-based Realtor, baker, and mom who spent years feeling defeated in the kitchen before she started rewriting recipes her own way. Her simplified recipe card system was built out of personal necessity and has been used in her family’s kitchen for three years. She believes good food should be accessible to everyone — regardless of how their brain processes information.