Best Chinese Beef And Vegetable Stir Fry Recipe

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This Beef Vegetable Stir-Fry is one of those quick and easy dishes that you can throw together in minutes if you prepare properly ahead of time. Tender beef, crunchy vegetables, and that perfectly flavored sauce you expect from really solid Chinese food (the right amount and the right consistency!) make this stir-fry an ideal weeknight dish.

Chinese bok choy is the primary vegetable in this dish. Back in the day, a classic, old-school Chinese restaurant menu item was “beef with bok choy.” This recipe was inspired by that dish, but other vegetables can definitely be thrown in—carrots, celery, peppers, snow peas, mushrooms, onions—whatever you’ve got in the refrigerator that looks good (or that has to get used before it goes bad!).

Best Chinese Beef And Vegetable Stir Fry Recipes

We decided to use bok choy, bunashimeji mushrooms, and whole snap peas, but the flexibility and simplicity of this dish is the beauty of it!

A lot of people would agree that bok choy is crunchy, sweet, and healthy to boot, but most probably don’t realize how many varieties are available today. The various bok choy varieties are differentiated by texture and flavor.

Read more in our Chinese leafy greens ingredient page, and try the different types to find your favorite. (Pro-tip, keep our ingredients pages bookmarked for easy access the next time you are wandering in a confused daze through your local Asian grocery store!)

Easy Vegetable Stir Fry Recipe

The key to success for this beef vegetable stir-fry (or any stir-fry for that matter) is preparation! I remember when Sarah and Kaitlin were young, and Judy and I were balancing our career ambitions, family time, household responsibilities, and meal prep. It was challenging, if not completely exhausting!

To make meals easier, I used to get the cutting board out the night before the week started and prepare at least two plates each of cut vegetables and marinated meat.

They would sit, covered and stored neatly in the refrigerator ready for the wok. Then, when I got home the next day, I started the rice in the rice cooker, and when the rice was almost ready, I would heat up my wok. Minutes later, we would have hot beef with bok choy over rice, the perfect comfort food after a hectic day in the “jungle.”

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In case you’re wondering, yes, feel free to substitute in pork, chicken, or even tofu. The end result is a healthy weekday meal that ends your day right!

Mix together the marinade ingredients (water, baking soda, cornstarch, and oil) with the beef until well-coated, and set aside for 30 minutes or overnight. For more information on preparing beef, see Bill’s post on How to Slice and Velvet Beef for stir fries.

Next, prepare your veggies and set aside. We used bok choy, mushrooms, and snow peas, but use whatever you like or have available. 

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In a small bowl, mix the water (or beef stock, if using), sesame oil, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, oyster sauce and sugar, and set aside.

Heat your carbon steel wok on high heat and spread 2 tablespoons of oil around the perimeter to coat. Once the wok and oil start to smoke, add the beef, and use your metal wok spatula to spread the beef in one even layer. Sear for 30 seconds.

Turn the beef to sear the uncooked sides for another 30 seconds. At this point, the beef should be about 80% done. Turn off the heat and transfer the beef back to the marinade bowl.

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Next, with the heat back on high, add the ginger and 1 tablespoon of oil to the wok. Cook for 10 seconds, and add the garlic.

Next, add the snap peas and the bok choy, and stir fry on the highest heat for another 20 seconds until the bok choy begins to wilt.

When everything comes back up to a simmer, and the sides of the wok begin to super-heat, Stir fry everything in a circular motion so the beef and vegetables hit the sides of the wok–this gets you that wok hay flavor!

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Pour the cornstarch slurry in the center of the wok while stirring. The sauce will immediately thicken, so work fast to stir everything together for another 20 seconds to evenly coat the beef and vegetables in the sauce.

There should not be any standing sauce – everything should be clinging to the beef and vegetable stir fry. This is the classic restaurant-style preparation, but you can add more stock and salt or soy sauce to taste if you like a saucier stir-fry.

Turn off the heat and transfer your beef vegetable stir-fry to a serving plate; you can also dish it out individually on a bed of rice for a great one-plate meal.

Chinese Beef Stir Fry With Crunchy Vegetables

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This Beef Vegetable Stir-Fry is a quick and easy dish to make anytime. Made with tender beef, crunchy vegetables, and a perfectly flavored sauce--it makes for an ideal weeknight dish.

Calories: 377 kcal (19%) Carbohydrates: 12 g (4%) Protein: 29 g (58%) Fat: 23 g (35%) Saturated Fat: 6 g (30%) Cholesterol: 68 mg (23%) Sodium: 797 mg (33%) Potassium: 917 mg (26%) Fiber: 3 g (12%) Sugar: 4 g (4%) Vitamin A: 4435 IU (89%) Vitamin C: 57.3 mg (69%) Calcium: 136 mg (14%) Iron: 3.4 mg (19%)

Easy Beef Stir Fry

Is written and produced for informational purposes only. While we do our best to provide nutritional information as a general guideline to our readers, we are not certified nutritionists, and the values provided should be considered estimates. Factors such as brands purchased, natural variations in fresh ingredients, etc. will change the nutritional information in any recipe. Various online calculators also provide different results, depending on their sources. To obtain accurate nutritional information for a recipe, use your preferred nutrition calculator to determine nutritional information with the actual ingredients and quantities used.

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Bill is the dad of The Woks of Life family. He grew up in upstate New York, working through high school and college in restaurants with his father, a chef. Rose from modest beginnings as a Burger King sandwich assembler to Holiday Inn busboy and line cook, to cooking at the family's Chinese restaurant, while also learning the finer points of Cantonese cooking from his immigrant parents. Specializes in all things traditional Cantonese and American Chinese takeout.The flavors of my mom’s Beef and Vegetable Stir Fry rival any takeout! Tender steak & an extra generous portion of colorful, crunchy veggies cook on high heat in a wok or skillet with a rich homemade stir fry sauce. Serve a plate of beef vegetable stir fry over rice for a quick & easy, well-balanced weeknight dinner with outrageous flavor. This beef and veggie stir fry is one of my favorite childhood dishes! As a bonus, stir fry is a naturally flexible dish – feel free to use your all-time favorite veggies or whatever you have on hand!

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Zwilling, who I’m thrilled to partner with in 2022! The gorgeous Zwilling Pro Le Blanc Knives make meal prep easy & efficient with their super-strong German-made blades. They’ve become my go-to knives, especially for dishes with lots of chopping involved, like this beef and veggie stir fry recipe. All thoughts & opinions are my own.

My mom is the QUEEN of quick & easy cooking. This beef vegetable stir fry is exactly the type of meal she’d whip up any given night when I was a kid. It’s well-balanced & simple to make, but it’s also seriously delicious – a weeknight dinner trifecta! I’ve been dying to get my hands on her recipe so we could share it with you here on PWWB!

The key element to Mom’s beef and vegetable stir fry is her homemade stir fry sauce. To this day, we lovingly call it “brown sauce” at my house. This glossy, saucy, & flavor-packed Chinese stir fry sauce is loaded with garlicky, beefy, sesame-y flavor. As a bonus, it’s really easy to make from a few simple staple ingredients. Homemade is always the best!

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The brown stir fry sauce coats tender sliced beef & a variety of veggies picked for their combination of color & texture (broccoli! carrots! red onion! mushrooms! bell peppers! snow peas! napa cabbage!). This stir fry is seriously heavy on the veggies, which is one of the reasons I love it so much.

Good, sharp knives are one of the most important tools in any kitchen, but they’re an absolute must-have for prepping a chopping-intensive dish, like this beef and vegetable stir fry. Over the past year, I’ve used Zwilling Pro knives in my kitchen, & they continue to impress me. Their super-strong German-made blades are built to hold their edge, which keeps them sharp & helps efficiently cut an abundance of veggies into consistent sizes – the secret to a perfectly cooked homemade stir fry!

A childhood favorite that

Heavy On The Veggies Beef And Vegetable Stir Fry