A Beef Stir Fry to die for! Tender strips of beef with a sticky honey black pepper stir fry sauce, this is one of my favourite dishes at my local Chinese restaurant. This may well be the fastest stir fry recipe you 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 a restaurant because I love the theatrics of how 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 and with 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:
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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”);
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Honey and black pepper – the two dominant flavours in the sauce!
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Oyster sauce – loaded with complex flavours, a secret weapon in Chinese/Asian cooking. Sub with Hoisin;
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Chinese wine aka Shoaxing 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);
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Soy sauce – everyday, ordinary all purpose soy sauce. Or light soy. Don’t use dark soy – too strong!
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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 of generous 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 my stir fry recipes – 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 option try Cauliflower 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
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:
Nutrition Information:
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!
Where have you been all my life! My family just discovered you this week and have been a big hit. This is just one of the many meals we made this week. So easy and flavorful.
This is an awesome quick dinner! I cooked some boiled rice in my Thermomix and steamed some green beans to go with this fast and simple dinner. 10/10!
Hi Nagi,
I made this tonight snd it was fantastic. I did add some chilli flakes to make it a bit hotter.
I also added some veg, julienne carrot, capsicum, mushroom and broccoli. Finished it with a sprinkle of sesame seeds prior to serving.
It was fantastic.
Thank you.
Hi Nagi, I made this recipe tonight for my husband and father-in-law and we all enjoyed it. What a simple, yet delicious meal and so, so fast to make. Thank you!
Scrumptious and easy… another Nagi win!
What a fabulous easy stir fry, so tasty and quick to prep.
Added some sweet chilli sauce, beans and served with broccolini. A definite winner in this household!
sauces made the dish, 72 single guy , live Caloundra. Your recipes tips I’m eating really well . Thank you
I love this recipe, but I change it just a little.
Instead of honey, I use the same quantity of Sweet Baby Ray’s.
The sweet, smoked hickory flavour works awesome with this.
So good, next time will add broccoli
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!
P.S. we also add julienne carrot and spring onion to the stir fry
*kejap manis (bloody auto-correct!)
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!!
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.
Quick, easy and tasty! I tossed in some egg noodles and served with broccolini.
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
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!
Have cooked thus a number of times when entertaining, always a hit!
I add chopped mushrooms which rounds out the flavour nicely.
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.
Love this recipe, I double the sauce ingredients except for the honey. It’s really good with chicken too.
Tastes just like a takeaway! So yummy and quick and easy.
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!