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!
hi nagi,
do you think lamb would be ok with this recipe?
Yes definitely Amy! N x
When I made this today, my sirloin were swimming in a pool of their own juices instead of having that effect that you had on your video. Any idea why?
Hi Hector, sounds like the meat has stewed. This can happen when the temperature of the pan cools too much and the meat doesn’t sear. To avoid this, cook the meat in batches so the pan stays super hot and browns the meat. N x
Certainly no surprises here… amazing, as always! Was just wondering… if I make a big batch is this suitable to freeze?
I’m so glad you love it Ana – it’s perfect to freeze! N x
Perfect! Thanks Nagi… One double batch… coming right up!! 🤗🤗
I was wondering if anyone has tried this with kangaroo?
Hi Jo – I can honestly say I haven’t, I’d just be mindful of the cook time as kangaroo is lean and will overcook quickly. N x
The dish seemed to be missing something. I followed the recipe exactly, but there just wasn’t a lot of flavor in the dish. I am surprised, as I have loved all of your other recipes that I have made. This just needed more of a “kick”. Perhaps I didn’t simmer the sauce enough for it to become syrupy.
added some sesame oilp
Hi JC, sorry you found it lacking, it definitely shouldn’t be as I pride my recipes on being big on flavour! Was there a lot of liquid with the meat that could have possibly watered down the sauce? N x
Hi Nagi!
Although I am a vegan, I LOVE your recipe blog. I always try to veganise your recipe and they turn out great! Thank you 🙂
Do you think this recipe works with tofu/tempeh as beef substitute?
<3
Hi Stella, 100% yes!!! You’ll love it! N x
How do you think this would turn out with ground beef?
Funny you mention that. I literally just made this with cabbage and ground beef last night! Delicious! Increased sauce by 50% (use the recipe scaler), 500g/1lb ground beef plus about 3 cups of shredded cabbage. If you skip the cabbage, use 2 cups of any veg cut into thin batons. YUM!
Yum, yum, yum Nagi, loved this, made it with velveted Chicken thighs, added carrot, pak choy and broccolini and tripled the sauce, thank for another 5 star recipe 🙂
Hi just wondering if you can add veges to this and how much more sauce would you add to include them?
Hi Sylvia, you can definitely add veggies like broccoli, carrot capsicum – there should be enough sauce for a cup or so of add ins. N x
So easy and delicious. My family raved about this meal and my youngest son says it’s as good as Mongolian Beef at our local Chinese (which is the ultimate standard for him!).
Wahoo, that’s great to hear Kate! N x
Once again yum yum. 🤩 Doing your roast chicken tomorrow with salad and homemade bread. 🤩🤩🤩
Enjoy Alison! N x
Wow. Fantastic recipe. So easy and full of flavor. I’ve made it twice now and it’s a new fav. I didn’t change anything and thought it might be too peppery initially which I love. But it was perfect. Even my man who’s a planner eater loved it.
Woot!! That’s great to hear Meg!! N x
Hi Nagi! I’m Anis from Malaysia. I just found your blog. I’ll try this beef stir fry with a few modified as I am Muslim.
Thanks!
I hope you love it!! N x
Dear Nagi,
This recipe was amazing. It’s quick, very easy to make and tastes super legit.
I also wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart for all those recipes you’ve shared with us… Clear instructions, useful info, video material to guide us through everything, personal input… and all that for free, no ads and no sign-up required.
If you keep digging around the internet, you can sometimes find gold. In that regard, your website is one big fat nugget!
Greetings from Switzerlands
Thanks SO much Vince, that’s so nice to hear ❤️ N x
Hiya Nagi & Dozer 🙂
So I’ve tried a few of your recipes now & they’ve all come out delish…this one too…I just can’t get the sauce to thicken…followed recipe & directions except substituted white wine for (mirin) best I can do in Dubai. Any tips?
You can use baking powder, flour, or cornstarch to thicken it up. use a tablespoon or 2 mixed with some of the sauce and re-add to the pan.
My new favorite stir fry recipe! Your videos are my absolute favorite! Thank you for sharing
Thanks so much Jessica!! N x
I recently did the honey pepper beef, It was not easy to describe, It was so good in so many ways that my wife and I ended up saying that it was ‘Interesting.’ To say the least, it was astounding. Thank you for the lessons in Asian cooking.
I’m so glad you enjoyed it Rod! N x
Delicious. Thank you for always having excellent recipes with good instructions. Please never stop posting recipes!! ❤️
Thanks so much for the amazing feedback Brook ❤️
Yum! What else can I say really. The flavour is devine.
Thanks so much Jenelle!! N x
We loved this, added a julienned carrot and capsicum plus a little extra garlic. Served over brown rice.
Makes a small amount of good meat go a lot further. Thank you!
Perfect Fleur! N xx