Easy, Classic Chinese Beef with Broccoli

This Beef with Broccoli has tender, savory strips of thinly sliced beef with juicy, flavorful bites of tender-crisp broccoli.  It’s an easy, Chinese-food stir-fry take-out classic, except this version is way better and healthier too!

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Go to any Chinese restaurant in the USA and you are going to find Beef with Broccoli somewhere on the menu.  It’s classic, iconic take-out fare and it’s my little Rosie’s (age 3) favorite dish when we get Chinese food – she hoards it like a dragon hoarding treasure.  My 6-year old Clara is the same way with Honey Walnut Shrimp, another Chinese food take-out classic that I need to learn to make and recreate on here.  Needless to say, we have been doing Chinese food take-out a little too often lately.

But I am admittedly less familiar with the flavors and methods of cooking Chinese cuisine.  Enter my friend Charmaine, from the wonderful Wok and Skillet blog, where she shares recipes that are a fusion of her Asian roots having been born and raised in Malaysia and her American experience having also spent much of her life in the U.S. as well.  She focuses on easy, simple recipes with an Asian flair.

Just a few months after starting this blog, I met Charmaine in a small group of other food bloggers on Facebook.  Together we have shared our blogging journeys in our little “mastermind” group and become friends, encouraging each other on an almost daily basis and helping each other out as we have tried to become better bloggers.  The vast majority of the blogging community is so supportive and friendly, and I’m lucky to have made so many new friends through this blog!

So when a publisher approached Charmaine about publishing a cookbook, we were all thrilled for her success!  It’s been so interesting watching her go through the process of writing her first cookbook.  I even got to test some of her recipes early on (her Egg Drop Soup is wonderful and super simple, btw) and they are easy to follow and way better (and healthier!) than take-out.

Charmaine knows her stuff and there is some major deliciousness and amazing flavors in the recipes in her book, The Healthy Wok Chinese Cookbook, which you can pre-order now on Amazon now before its May 23rd release date.  You should totally pre-order, because I have had a chance to see a copy of it and it’s awesome.  Plus, your favorite Chinese food dishes are most likely represented in there.

I’m even doing a giveaway of a copy of The Healthy Wok on Instagram over the next couple of days if you want to enter by leaving a comment!

When Charmaine told me that I could share a recipe from her book here on the blog, I knew I wanted to make the beef with broccoli, since everybody in my house loves it and it comes together quick and easy, which is always good with our insane schedule of swim team, dance lessons, and Spanish class these days.

Slicing the beef as thinly as possible and tossing it in a little cornstarch before stir-frying it helps make the meat extra tender.  As an added benefit, the thinly sliced meat is also a great for kids because it means I don’t have to spent the first few minutes of dinner sitting at the table cutting things up for them.

After cooking the beef in a little peanut oil in the wok, you remove it and set it aside while you quickly stir-fry the broccoli florets with a little garlic and water that helps it steam to a perfect tender-crisp.  One of my pet peeves is when you get beef with broccoli and the broccoli is overcooked and mushy, which is another reason why it’s so much better to make this dish at home.

Then you add the cooked meat back to the wok along with the sauce for the beef with broccoli and toss and cook for just another minute or two thicken ever so slightly and let the broccoli and beef get coated in that delicious sauce.  It’s maybe 10 minutes of total cooking time and I’m all about that on busy weeknights.  Especially when I don’t have to coax the 3-year old to eat every bite and the 6-year old is groaning her approval and breaking rules about talking with her mouth full in order to call dibs on any leftovers.

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5 from 1 vote

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Beef with Broccoli

Prep Time

5 mins

Cook Time

5 mins

Total Time

30 mins

 

Servings: 4 people

Ingredients

Brown sauce

• 1/2 cup chicken stock
• 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
• 1/2 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch
• 1/2 teaspoon brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon sesame oil

Marinade

• 2 teaspoons cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce
• Pinch of freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 pound beef tenderloin or sirloin steak, thinly sliced

Stir-fry

• 1 1/2 tablespoons peanut oil
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 heads broccoli, cut into florets
• 1/4 cup water

Instructions

1. Put all the brown sauce ingredients into a small jar with a tight seal. Shut the lid tightly and shake to combine. Set aside.
2. Combine the cornstarch, soy sauce, freshly ground black pepper, and beef in a medium-size bowl and stir to coat the meat. Allow to marinate at room temperature for 20 minutes.
3. Add the peanut oil to your wok and heat over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, add the beef and stir-fry 3-5 minutes, just until the meat is no longer pink. Remove the meat from the wok and set aside.
4. Add the garlic to the wok and stir-fry just for a few seconds, then add in the broccoli and water. Stir-fry until the water has evaporated and the broccoli is tender-crisp.
5. Return the beef to the wok and add the brown sauce to the beef and broccoli. Toss and stir another 2 minutes, until the sauce has thickened just a bit, then remove from the heat and transfer the prepared beef with broccoli to a serving dish. Serve with rice.