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:
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 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);
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 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!
Mmmmmm, mmmmmm. #Salivating. Interesting NO meat marinade, all flavor coming from the beautiful looking (and from the ingredient list) delicious sauce! LOVE oyster sauce. You nailed it too, it’s the extra nuanced layer of flavor that takes it to the Nth degree.
I’ve marinated before but there’s no point, the sauce is so strong you can’t taste any marinade in the meat!! N x
It’s so hard to believe such a rich and delicious dish can be ready in just 15 minutes – but you do it over and over again! You kill me, Nagi! This recipe’s a keeper! Gorgeous!
Thanks Annie! Just about finding the right recipes I guess! 🙂 Midweek is busy for me, I don’t have time to make elaborate meals!!
I’m glad that picture is a complete fabrication, otherwise I’d start to wonder about you!!! I can’t believe you don’t have a cast iron skillet, we need to fix this Nagi, you’ll love it! This is my kind of beef, it looks amazing and so delicious.
Oh no, I DO have a cast iron skillet, just not one small enough so the beef is piled up enough to keep the sizzle! I don’t know if I’m making sense. 🙂 I’m just thinking about sizzle!
Hi Nagi, this recipe sounds and looks delicious! Great photos that make me want to jump through the screen and grab a bite!
My current favorites? One is kung pao tofu from one restaurant in myarea. I think they cook the sauce separately for a while until it takes on a very deep, almost smoky flavor – so wonderful since tofu doesn’t have a lot of flavor and I’ve never found a similar flavor anywhere else. My other favorite lately has been honey walnut shrimp.
Kung Pao Tofu? You know what? I’ve never actually made Kung Pao with tofu! I must try it! 🙂
Hi Nagi! I’ve been trying to write a comment, but will first tell you I’m again having a lot of trouble reading your blog on Google Chrome. It’s something to do with the scrolling. At first it scrolls fine, but then begins to jump on its own – while I’m typing this, the screen is jumping back and forth from my comment to half-way back up just above your recipe, and I have to scroll back down again. It’s really hard on the eyes, and this only happens with your blog for some reason. ???
Barb
Hi Barb! I am sorry you are experiencing problems, I have someone looking into it. Thank you for your persistence in leaving a comment and I’m really sorry it bothers your eyes! I think I know what you mean, I have had the problem on other sites. 🙁
Hi Nagi! Beef stir fry s one of my favorites! I use ribeye steak which is usually quite expensive but my local butcher is very good to us price wise! I have cast iron skillets, but knowing me I’d grab the handle of that hot pan, so I’ll stick to plating! Small plates just look so nice and, trust me, I’m all for refilling (once or twice)! That way I don’t look quite so piggish! 🙂
That’s one reason why I love eating at Asian restaurants – small bowls and refilling plenty of times!! And my aren’t you lucky to have a butcher that treats you so well! Rib eye is definitely a TREAT in my house! (I bet you bribe him with cookies!)
Hi Nagi! You know me so well! 🙂 It’s not always cookies, sometimes it’s cake or pie and occasionally dinner for him and his wife – works for both of us!
Ha! Love your disclaimer that you would never use such a small dish when serving yourself 😉 Definitely has a nice aesthetic, but I’m with you and would totally grab a giant plate of this awesome dish!
It’s hard to believe that you can get such a wonderful and deep glaze with such few ingredients and in such a short amount of time! But then again, you’re always brilliant at pulling maximum flavor out of dishes 😉
I know, right? It reminds me of that gochujang marinade you have on the ribs. Few ingredients, big flavours. 🙂 It comes down to using the right combo!
Hi Nagi, I love your photography, as always it inspires and pushes me to do better. Also, I think this is a great recipe, I am always afraid to try to make Chinese food at home, but I start getting more comfortable, that juicy sticky sauce looks amazing!
Thanks Katalina! If you enjoy Chinese food and want an easy one to start with, this is really great because you can get everything at the supermarket and there are less ingredients than most Chinese stir fries 🙂 Hope you consider giving it a go! N x
nagi! We both have Asian steak on the blog today 🙂 great minds…. I too love how Chinese wine or hoisen transforms a dish!!! It’s kinda like how fish sauce or tamarind transforms Thai! Super yummy honey! Looks really sticky and delicious! And I love those adorable plates 😉
Oooh, really? Jumping over to check it out! N x
Mmm, such a delicious and easy way to jazz up beef. 🙂
Thanks Krista! It really is an easy way to dress up beef! 🙂