How to Make Restaurant-Style Beef and Broccoli Stir Fry

If you’re craving a delicious beef and broccoli dish that reminds you of your favorite Chinese restaurant, then you’ve come to the right place!

This dish features thinly sliced beef and crisp broccoli, coated in a thick and savory soy-based sauce.

In this recipe, we’ll include a secret restaurant hack called velveting, which guarantees ridiculously tender beef.

You’ll dinner on the table in less than 30 minutes.

What You Will Need

To recreate this restaurant-style beef and broccoli, you’ll need the following ingredients:

For the beef marinade:

Beef — You have a lot of options. You can use New York strip steak, sirloin steak, flank steak, ribeye, or tenderloin.

Since we using a restaurant hack to tenderize the beef, you can also use economical cuts of beef.

This includes leaner and therefore tougher cuts of beef, such as eye round, bottom round, top round, and any roast cuts.

Regular or light soy sauce — Light soy sauce, also known as all-purpose soy sauce, is the main flavoring agent that provides a salty umami flavor to the dish. If you have a bottle of soy sauce that isn’t labeled light nor all-purpose, you have light soy sauce. You can use it for this recipe.

We are lightly marinating the beef with light soy sauce. We will add a lot more to the sauce.

Baking soda — Baking soda is our secret ingredient to tenderize the beef. In Asian restaurants, the technique to tenderize meat with baking soda is called velveting.

Water — Helps to activate the baking soda and spreads it evenly on the beef.

Corn starch — Corn starch helps to absorb any excess moisture to prevent frying grease when deep-frying.

It also creates a crust that will absorb the delicious sauce.

If you don’t have corn starch, substitute with tapioca starch or potato starch.

Egg — I’m using one whole chicken egg. The egg binds the starch to the beef.

For the sauce:

Water — The base of the sauce.

Regular or light soy sauce — Light soy sauce is the main flavoring agent for the sauce.

Oyster sauce — Oyster sauce is another popular flavoring agent that adds a different level of salty umami to the dish.

Sugar — I’m using granulated cane sugar to balance out the salty flavors of soy sauce and oyster sauce.

Dark soy sauce — Dark soy sauce is mainly used to darken the sauce.

For the stir-fry:

Garlic — You can’t make a savory dish without an aromatic. For this recipe, we are using fresh garlic.

Vegetable oil — Vegetable oil is used to deep fry the beef and a little is used to fry the garlic to bring out its aroma.

Broccoli florets — Fresh broccoli complements the tender beef.

You can also replace some broccoli with some thinly sliced carrots for a more colorful dish.

If you’re not a fan of broccoli, you can substitute it with other vegetables like snap peas, bell peppers, or bok choy.

For the slurry:

A slurry is a mixture of corn starch and water. This is used to thicken the sauce.

How to Make it

Step 1: Prepare the Beef

Trim off the excess fat, cut out the gristle, if any, then slice it into thin bite-size pieces, against the grain.

In a bowl, combine the thinly sliced beef with soy sauce, baking soda, and water. Set aside and let it marinate and sit for at least 15 minutes.

The baking soda will work its magic, tenderizing the beef. If you are using tougher cuts of meat, let it sit a bit longer. Then add beaten egg and corn starch and mix to combine. Set aside.

Step 2: Prepare Sauce and Slurry

In medium bowl, whisk together water, soy sauce, oyster sauce, and sugar until combined.

In a small bowl, whisk together water and corn starch until the starch is completely dissolved.

Step 3: Blanch Broccoli

In a large wok or skillet, bring water to a boil. Add the broccoli florets and blanch for 2-3 minutes or until they turn bright green and can be pierced with a fork with some resistance.

Step 4: Fry the Beef

Using the pan from earlier, discard the water and wipe dry. Add oil and heat over medium-high heat to shallow fry the beef until they are golden brown on all sides. Remove the beef from the skillet and set it aside.

Step 5: Stir Fry Everything Together

Remove the oil from the pan. Wipe wok clean with paper towels. Add a little bit of the used oil from the beef back into the wok. Heat on medium-high then add garlic and sauté until fragrant. Add sauce.

Add beef and broccoli. Toss everything together until the sauce coats the beef and broccoli evenly. Continue cooking for two minutes, allowing the flavors to meld together.

Step 6: Add Slurry and Finish

Add the slurry, which should thicken the sauce almost immediately.

You’re done. Transfer the beef and broccoli to a serving dish. Serve with rice or noodles for a complete meal.

FAQs

Is baking soda safe to eat?

Yes, of course. Just remember baking soda is in a lot of baked goods. So if you’re not dead yet, I think we’re good. However, a lot of baking soda can cause bitterness so don’t add more than what’s stated in the recipe.

I don’t have oyster sauce. What can I use instead?

You can replace the oyster sauce with hoisin sauce. Keep in mind hoisin sauce has a hint of sweetness. If using hoisin sauce, lower the granulated sugar amount by adjusting to taste.

You can also replace the oyster sauce amount with more soy sauce.

I don’t have dark soy sauce. What can I use instead?

Dark soy sauce is mainly used for color. So if you don’t have dark soy sauce, you can simply omit and the dish will be a bit lighter in color. Alternatively, you can replace the granulated white sugar with dark brown sugar to replace the missing color.

This is too much work. Can’t I just put everything together in a wok?

Of course, you can, but it won’t be as good. I tried this once on a day when I was incredibly tired and didn’t feel like doing any extra steps. It turned out edible, but far from any restaurant’s version.

If you want a much simpler version, check out this recipe instead.

But if you want high-quality beef and broccoli of tender beef and crisp and vibrant-green broccoli, there are extra steps. But don’t you worry. There are no extra pots or pans to wash. This recipe takes you through a succession of steps that only uses one pan for everything.

Recipe below. Enjoy!

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