By:Nagi
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A Beef Stir Fry to die for! Tender strips of beef with a stickyhoney black pepper stir fry sauce, this is one of my favourite dishes at my local Chinese restaurant. This may well be thefastest stir fry recipeyou make all year – 1 minute to cook the beef, 1 minute to make the sauce. And you’re DONE!
Beef Stir Fry with Honey Pepper Sauce
Chinese Beef with Honey Black Pepper Sauce is one of my favourite dishes that I order at Chinese restaurants. Never take out. It has to be at arestaurant because I love the theatrics ofhow it’s served – sizzling in a cast iron dish.
I don’t recreate the sizzle at home – I wish I could!If you have a cast iron dish or a small skillet so you can take it straight from the stove to the table, then you’ll get the sizzle. And I’m jealous.
But I have managed to recreate the glorious sauce for this stir fry! Sweet, salty andwith a subtle peppery heat, this really does taste like what you get at restaurants. Look at it! Who could resist that??
What you need
I promised you simple, and I exaggerate not! Here’s all you need:
Beef – rule of thumb for stir fries: if you’d serve it as steak, it’s ideal for stir fries! Use a decent-to-good tenderloin, flank, New York strip / Porterhouse / Sirloin (same thing!), boneless ribeye/scotch fillet. It doesn’t need to be a high end dry aged steak!To use a budget slow cooking cut of beef, tenderise it the Chinese way before using (“velveting beef”);
Honey and black pepper– the two dominant flavours in the sauce!
Oyster sauce – loaded with complex flavours, a secret weapon in Chinese/Asian cooking. Sub with Hoisin;
Chinese wine akaShoaxing wine – the secret ingredient in 99% of Chinese cooking. Read more about it here, sub with Mirin, dry sherry or cooking sake. For a non alcoholic sub, use chicken broth/stock (see recipe notes);
Soy sauce – everyday, ordinary all purpose soy sauce. Or light soy. Don’t use dark soy – too strong!
Garlic and onion – because not much food happens in this kitchen without these two!
How to make it
As with all stir fries, once you start cooking it moves super fast so be sure to have everything ready to toss into the wok before you start cooking!
In this recipe, we cook the beef first, then take it out – this is to control the cook time of the beef. Then we simmer the sauce in the pan until it becomes syrupy, then toss the beef back in.
Intense flavoured stir fry sauce!
My stir fry recipes tend to err on the side ofgenerous amounts of sauce, because a stir fry isn’t a stir fry if you don’t get to eat sauce soaked rice. Nobody wants to be left with a bowl of plain rice after eating the stir fry!!
However, this is particular Beef Stir Fry is one of the exceptions. The flavour of this honey pepper stir fry sauce is quite intense, being a concentrated syrupy sauce as opposed to being thickened with cornflour/cornstarch like they usually are.
So you don’t want nor need loads of sauce. But there’s enough to carry plenty of flavour through the rice!
And another difference to most of mystir fryrecipes – this Beef Stir Fry is light on the veg, whereas most stir fries are a kaleidoscope of colour of a small amount of protein with lots of veggies!
So serve this with a fresh side – like a crunchy Asian Slaw, this Chinese Lettuce with Creamy Sesame Dressing or a leafy Asian Side Salad with Sesame Dressing.
You could also sneak some veggies into the stir fry – some julienned carrots and similar shaped vegetables would be ideal.
Enjoy!– Nagi x
PS For a healthy low carb optiontryCauliflower Rice– 77% fewer calories and 87% less carbs than rice.
Watch how to make it
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Beef Stir Fry with Honey and Black Pepper Sauce
Author: Nagi | RecipeTin Eats
Prep: 10 minutes mins
Cook: 5 minutes mins
Total: 15 minutes mins
Stir Fry
Chinese
4.97 from 152 votes
Servings4
Tap or hover to scale
Recipe video above. Copycat of restaurant style Chinese Beef with Honey and Black Pepper Sauce. Very fast and easy to make - it's on the table in 15 minutes! The sauce is absolutely divine - sticky, sweet, salty and with a subtle burst of heat from the black pepper.
Ingredients
Sauce
- 2 1/2 tbsp soy sauce (Note 1)
- 3 tbsp honey
- 1 1/2 tbsp Oyster sauce (sub Hoisin)
- 1 1/2 tbsp Chinese cooking wine , Mirin or dry sherry (Note 2)
- 2 tbsp water
- 1 tsp coarsely crushed black pepper (or 1/2 tsp normal ground black pepper)
Stir Fry
- 2 tbsp peanut oil (or vegetable or canola oil)
- 1 garlic clove , finely minced
- 1/2 onion , peeled and sliced
- 500g/1 lb thinly sliced tenderloin, flank, sirloin/Porterhouse/strip, or any other cut of steak suitable for stir frying (Notes 3)
Instructions
Mix the Sauce ingredients in a bowl.
Heat the oil in a wok or large heavy based skillet over high heat until it is smoking.
Add the onion and garlic and cook for 1 minute or until the onion becomes translucent. Keep it moving so the garlic doesn't burn.
Add the beef and stir fry for 1 minute until just cooked to your liking, then remove into bowl.
Turn the heat down to medium high, pour in Sauce - it will start simmering very quickly! Let it cook for 1 minute or so until it becomes syrupy - the bubbles will be larger and caramel colour.
Add the beef and onion back into the wok, along with any juices pooled on the plate. Toss in the sauce until just warmed through - 1 minute at most. Don't overcook the beef - that would be tragic!
Serve immediately with rice - or for a low carb, low cal option, try Cauliflower Rice!
Recipe Notes:
1. Soy Sauce -Use ordinary all purpose soy sauce or light soy sauce. Do not use dark soy sauce - flavour too intense.
2. Chinese cooking wine is an essential ingredient for making a truly "restaurant standard" Chinese stir fries. Click here to read more about it.
Substitute with Mirin, cooking sake or dry sherry.
Non alcoholic substitute - sub both the cooking wine AND water with low sodium chicken broth/stock, reduce soy sauce to 2 tbsp.
3. Beef -As with all stir fries, this cooks very quickly so you need to use a decent cut of beef for it. Rule of thumb: if you'd serve it as a steak, you can stir fry it. Rump, flank, sirloin/strip/Porterhouse (same thing), t-bone and scotch fillet/boneless rib eye are excellent for this recipe.
Slow cooking cuts, like chuck, are not suitable unless you tenderise it (seeHow to tenderise beef the Chinese restaurant way)
Slice the beef against the grain. When you look at the beef, you will notice that the fibres are mostly going in one direction. Place the beef in front of you so the fibres are going left to right. Then cut through the fibres i.e. cut perpendicular to the direction of the fibres (see here for illustrative image). Cutting it this way makes the beef more tender!
Otherproteins -terrific with pork, chicken and turkey (finely sliced).
4. Nutrition per serving, excluding rice.
Nutrition Information:
Serving: 178gCalories: 473.68cal (24%)Carbohydrates: 16.02g (5%)Protein: 24.21g (48%)Fat: 34.34g (53%)Saturated Fat: 12.39g (77%)Cholesterol: 87.5mg (29%)Sodium: 876.12mg (38%)Potassium: 423.93mg (12%)Fiber: 0.32g (1%)Sugar: 13.77g (15%)Vitamin C: 1.25mg (2%)Calcium: 11.91mg (1%)Iron: 3.27mg (18%)
Keywords: beef stir fry, honey pepper sauce, stir fry sauce
Did you make this recipe?I love hearing how you went with my recipes! Tag me on Instagram at @recipe_tin.
Originally published July 2015. Updated November 2019 with new photos, new video and the most important thing – Life of Dozer section added!!!
Life of Dozer
It’s Melbourne Cup tomorrow, the race that stops the nation! 🐎🐎🐎 We’re heading out to a lunch and Dozer’s coming. So here he is being fitted for his Race Day outfit! 😂 Turns out his hat is a little small…. need to find a bigger one!
Hi, I'm Nagi!
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404 Comments
D says
So good, next time will add broccoliReply
Kiki says
This was very good once I doubled the honey & tripled the pepper and a squirt of keep mania. Served with hokkien noodles – thanks for the inspo!
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Neil Berry says
P.S. we also add julienne carrot and spring onion to the stir fryReply
Kiki says
*kejap manis (bloody auto-correct!)
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Noelly says
This is now a much loved regular in our home. I however use chicken (velvetted of course thanks Nagi lol) & add bok choy & shredded carrots & broccoli. Bloody delicious!!Reply
MikeG says
My kids absolutely love this dish. If we don’t know what to make this is an easy go to. I double up on the sauce because the kids love it with jasmine rice.
Reply
Maria says
Quick, easy and tasty! I tossed in some egg noodles and served with broccolini.Reply
MO says
The first time I made this it came out amazing! It was a sticky (but not saucy) flavorful steak.
The second time I made this it was watery. I’m not sure what the difference was, did I forget to add the water the first time I made it? I will try again and make sure to use no water. I know the second time I did dump the steak in with all its juices (and there was a fair amount of juice) so that could be the culprit as well
Reply
Crista says
An absolute favourite in our household! My husband requests this atleast every other week. Love how simple it is. We go through alot of meat here so I use cheap blade steaks for this recipe and velvet for 40 minutes. Turns out just like a Chinese takeaway. Love it!Reply
Rob says
Have cooked thus a number of times when entertaining, always a hit!I add chopped mushrooms which rounds out the flavour nicely.
Reply
Dianne says
This was one of the easiest recipes to make and I love how all of the ingredients are items that you most likely already have at home if you do any Asian cooking. My kids loved it, this will be on repeat at my house.Reply
Leanne says
Love this recipe, I double the sauce ingredients except for the honey. It’s really good with chicken too.Reply
Lydia says
Tastes just like a takeaway! So yummy and quick and easy.Reply
Christina Robison says
Super yummy! Made it last night. Added sweet peppers that were almost black on the outside, dark green on the inside. Beautiful (and tasty) with this dish. Thank you, Nagi & Dozer!Reply
Rebecca Burnett says
I made this last night with pork and hubby and my 6 yr old loved it! I had a second helping myself. Definitely going to make again. Delicious sauce.Reply
Tami S. says
Wow! This was really, really good. My husband wouldn’t stop raving about this! I cook a lot of your recipes and he loves them but this one was a 10+ for him and it’s so darn easy!
I made it with jasmine rice and your roasted asparagus recipe.
You are the best Nagi!Reply
Amy Russell says
Was so easy to follow and delicious! Will be coming back to this recipe
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Rob says
I made this for a lunch visit from brother-in-law (who is a fan of your recipes) and his wife. I velveted the beef before cooking.
Rave reviews from everyone! My wife rates it as the best meal I have ever cooked, displacing my own steak recipe and my puffed pastry prosciutto pizza.
So simple to make and so full of flavour!
Reply
Bev says
Another great dish. Simple but so tasty. I added some extra veg and topped with shallots and capsicum just to freshen it up
Reply
Zanda says
So easy and really good flavour. I added some veggies and cashews. I will definitely make this again.Reply
koen says
This one came out really really good! This could become the new standard stir fry.Reply
Kezza McD says
This is my go to stir fry sauce. Lost count of the times I have made it. I use beef or chicken & add lots of stir fry veggies & serve with noodles. Love love love. Thanks Nagi xxReply