Beef Chow Fun

Beef Chow Fun is a classic Cantonese noodle dish made with marinated steak, onions, and dark soy sauce. It is simple and quick to make for a delicious Chinese meal.

Easy Beef Chow Fun Recipe

Beef Chow Fun is a classic Southern Chinese and Hong Kong-style dish on the menu of almost every Chinese restaurant. But just because you can easily order it doesn’t mean that it is not worth your time to cook at home.

If you love Beef Chow Fun, this simple recipe gives you all the fantastic flavor of the local takeaway without requiring you to be a stir-frying expert or even have a wok!

What is in Beef Chow Fun?

This recipe is pretty basic, but you need to use the right ingredients to get the best taste. Luckily, you can find all of them at larger grocery stores and online. Here is some more information on a few key ones:

Noodles

The most important thing you must have to make this Beef Chow Fun recipe is the correct noodles. Don’t try to use Italian-style pasta in this recipe because it just won’t work.

Unlike Italian pasta, chow fun noodles are made from rice flour and are thicker and wider, giving them a unique texture and taste that pasta won’t match. The rice noodle is critical to this dish.

You can usually find dried Chow Fun noodles wound into small bundles and sold in packages of two to three bundles.

Dark Chinese Soy Sauce

Another way that you can mess up this recipe is by using the wrong soy sauce. The type of soy sauce you want to use is dark Chinese-style soy sauce, not Japanese, Thai, or Indonesian-style dark soy sauce because there are all very different from each other.

You will also want to stay away from Chinese-style light soy sauce, the kind you probably already have in your fridge, because it tastes much too salty for this dish. Getting this recipe to come outright requires the additional sweetness that comes from the molasses or sugar in Chinese-style dark soy sauce.

Oyster Sauce

The oyster sauce brings another layer of sweetness to this Beef Chow Fun recipe. Despite its name and the fact that it is made with the liquid leftover after cooking oysters, this sauce is not very fishy at all.

In fact, it has almost a barbeque sauce flavor that helps increase the savory nature of this dish. If you are allergic to oysters or just want to leave it out, you can use an equal amount of hoisin sauce.

Rice Wine

Yes, this recipe does contain a little bit of alcohol, but it mostly burns off during the cooking process. But, if you can’t have any alcohol, you can feel free to leave it out.

Wine adds a bit of character to the dish, and if you choose to use it in the dish, try to get the Chinese cooking wine called Shaoxing. Shaoxing will give you the most authentic flavor. You can use dry sherry, Japanese mirin, or cooking sake if you prefer.

Ingredients

Here’s a list of what you need:

• Dried wide rice noodles
• Dark soy sauce
• Dry sherry or Chinese rice wine
• Cornstarch
• Flank steak
• Beef broth
• Oyster sauce
• Vegetable oil
• Onion
• Green onion also known as scallions

Difference Between Dark Soy Sauce and Regular Soy Sauce

Dark soy sauce is darker, thicker, and not as salty as regular or light soy sauce. It is almost black in color and adds a classic dark caramel color to dishes prepared with it.

You can find dark soy sauce in Asian markets or online. If you cannot find dark soy sauce, you can substitute regular soy sauce for it in this recipe.

How to Make Beef Chow Fun

Here are the steps to make this easy beef chow fun recipe:

1. Soak the dry rice noodles in warm water until softened, about 30 minutes. Drain noodles.
2. Combine dark soy sauce, sherry, and cornstarch in a bowl.
3. Add sliced flank steak and stir to coat. Let stand for 10 minutes.

4. Combine beef broth, oyster sauce, and dark soy sauce in a bowl.
5. Heat wok or non-stick skillet over medium-high heat.
6. Add the oil, swirling around to coat the sides.
7. Add sliced onions and stir-fry for 1 minute.

8. Add marinated beef and sliced green onions.
9. Stir-fry until the beef is no longer pink, about 1 to 2 minutes.
10. Add the noodles and toss gently.
11. Add the sauce toss to coat evenly.
12. Cook for about 2 minutes then serve.

Tips For Preparing and Cooking Beef Chow Fun

• Freeze the meat. The thinner you cut the beef, the crispier it will fry up. Putting the beef in your freezer until it is semi-frozen can make it much easier to slice slivers of meat.
• Toss the noodles in a little oil. Traditionally, cooks in China coat chow fun noodles with lard before frying to give the noodles a crispier surface. You can get a similar texture by tossing the drained chow fun noodles with a tablespoon of vegetable oil before adding cooking.

Check out all of our Asian-style recipes on YouTube!

Love Chinese food? Try these popular recipes!

• Crab Casserole
• Cream Cheese Rangoons
• Egg Foo Young
• Fried Wonton
• Honey Walnut Shrimp Recipe
• Hunan Chicken
• Panda Express Chow Mein
• Panda Express Mixed Vegetables
• Sweet and Sour Chicken
• Chinese Cookies

Favorite Beef Recipes

• Beef Casserole
• Beef Shanks
• Easy Instant Pot Beef Stew

Be sure to check out more of my Chinese food recipes and easy beef recipes here on CopyKat.com!

Thanks to CarolynTLyons for sharing this recipe.