This quick Pork Stir Fry with Green Beans packs a big flavour punch! It’s a fast take on the classic Szechuan dish, Stir Fried Green Beans with Minced Pork. Made with ground pork, this recipe comes together in just over 10 minutes. Don’t skip charring the beans, it’s the defining feature of this stir fry!
Pork Stir Fry with Green Beans
If you’ve ever been to a Chinese Szechuan restaurant, you might be familiar with a green bean and pork stir fry which is a firm favourite among spicy Asian food lovers. Chopped green beans cooked over high heat until blistered, then stir fried with a spicy intense flavoured sauce and pork.
If the full blown Szechuan version is what you’re after, you’ll need a couple of speciality ingredients requiring a trip to the Asian grocery store – Szechuanpicked mustard greens (Sui Mi Ya Cai), Szechuan peppercorns, dried chillies. And here are a couple of recipes from my most trusted Chinese cooking blogs – Woks of Life and Omnivore’s Cookbook.
This Pork Stir Fry with Green Beans recipe is a slightly simplified version of the authentic Szechuan version. It packs a similar flavour punch, and it still has the signature charred green beans, but I pick up everything from the supermarket. In fact, if you have pork mince (that’s ground pork to those of you in Canada and the States!) and beans, there’s every possibility you have everything you need to make this right now.
This pork stir fry is a quick and easy pork mince recipe with big flavours!
Magic 4 ingredient stir fry sauce
The sauce for this Pork Stir Fry with Green Beans only has 4 ingredients in it:
Chinese cooking wine (see recipe notes for subs)
dark soy sauce (for colour)
Chilli Garlic Sauce (for spice / vinegar / general Asian tasty flavour – see notes for subs)
sugar.
The reason this recipe gets away with such a simple sauce is because of this – the charred green beans. Char any vegetable, and you take it from bland to amazing. Steamed beans vs charred green beans is simply no contest!
Best charred in a hot skillet
Unlike most of my stir fries, I like to cook this in a cast iron skillet so you can spread the beans out to char them. It takes a mere 2 ½ – 3 minutes, faster than using a wok.
Because of this extreme high heat cooking – that skillet gets stinking hot – the one tip I have for this stir fry is to chop rather than grate / mince the ginger and garlic. It will stop it from sticking to the skillet and burning in 2 seconds.
Actually, that’s a general stir frying tip. 🙂 Chop instead of grate the ginger and garlic. Never again suffer burnt garlic in your stir fry!
Oh PS That’s the Chilli Garlic Sauce I use. ↑↑↑ Available at supermarket – Woolies, Coles etc. BUT if you can’t find that exact brand or similar, sriracha or even non Asian hot sauces will make a terrific sub. Anything that is spicy but also a bit vinegary – which most hot sauces are. Even Franks Hot Sauce!
You won’t miss sauciness
When it comes to stir fries, I’m usually all about the sauce, the sauce, the sauce. And if you’re in the sauce camp with me, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how you don’t miss sauce with this Pork Stir Fry.
The pork mince sucks up all that sauce and is actually quite intense flavoured – you’d find it rather salty without rice.
So mix it up with the rice, then enjoy the leisure of a stir fry you can eat with a spoon. It’s perfect Couch Food – which I define as food you can eat with a spoon without taking your eyes off the TV. 😂 – Nagi x
PS And because my mother will never forgive me if I don’t mention this – this Beans and Pork Mince Stir Fry is the Japanese version of this stir fry on her website, RecipeTin Japan. Similar flavour, but made using Japanese sauces.
WATCH HOW TO MAKE IT
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Pork Stir Fry with Green Beans
Ingredients
- 300g / 10oz green beans (Note 1)
- 220g / 7 oz pork mince (Note 2)
- 1/2 small onion , finely chopped (about 1/2 cup)
- 2 garlic cloves , finely chopped (Note 3)
- 2 tsp ginger , finely chopped (Note 3)
- 2 1/2 tbsp peanut oil (or vegetable or canola)
Sauce
- 1 tbsp dark soy sauce (Note 4)
- 1 tbsp Chinese cooking wine (shaoxing wine) (Note 5 for subs)
- 1 tsp white sugar (sub any sugar or faux sugar)
- 1 1/2 tsp + Chilli Garlic Sauce (Note 6)
For serving
- Rice of choice
- Sliced red chilli
Instructions
- Sauce – Mix Sauce ingredients in a bowl.
- Trim the stem end of the beans, then chop into 2 – 2.5cm / 4/5 – 1" pieces.
- Char Beans: Heat 1 1/2 tbsp oil in a heavy based skillet over high heat (I use cast iron) until smoking. Add beans, spread out to cover base. Leave for 1 minute. Quick stir, spread out, cook for 30 seconds. Stir, then leave for 30 seconds, then repeat once more (so 2 1/2 minutes in total cook time) until beans are charred but tender crisp (not withered and floppy). Remove into bowl.
- Sauté aromatics – Turn heat down to medium high, add 1 tbsp oil. Add onion, then garlic and ginger. Cook for 1 minute until edges of onion are golden.
- Cook pork – Turn heat back up to high. Add pork and cook, breaking it up as you go. Cook for 2 minutes until the pork is cooked through, then add Sauce. Cook for 30 seconds, then add beans and stir for another 30 seconds.
- Serve over rice. Garnish with slices of large red chilli (it's mild), entirely optional. To eat, mix the pork into the rice then eat it with a spoon – forget chopsticks for this one! (For a low carb, low cal option, try Cauliflower Rice)
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
Originally published June 2014, long overdue for an update with fresh new photos and a recipe video!
More quick pork mince recipes (ground pork)
Also, try the popular Quick Asian Beef Ramen Noodles or Asian Beef Bowls using ground pork / mince instead of beef!
Life of Dozer
At the coffee shop, when he spies food on neighbouring tables. He’s been known to make grown men give up huge chunks of their breakfast with just a glance…
This is fantastic! Hubby loved it and kids really liked it too. It’s nice to hear “Mom, this is really good. The beans taste good too”, as they gobble it all up. Thank you, Nagi!!!
Thanks Nagi!! This is the fifth yummy recipe of yours that has turned me from a ‘mediocre trainee cook’ to ‘experienced’!! Thanks so much. Keeps hubby happy!
Lisa
So glad you and hubs enjoyed this Lisa!!! N x
Add this to the already long list of delicious recipes that I’ve already tried. I thank you every night when I’m making dinner….it’s quick, easy and delicious!!
Great Recipe Nagi,
Do you know the secret to making steamed green beans?
We had a local Asian buffet that closed.. 🙁
I loved their green beans.. they had a smokey flavor that I cant figure out..
They called them steam green bean.. small bits of onion and a light liquid.
I saw no meat .. so where did the smoke come from?
Thanks 🙂
SO good! My green beans were not enough so I complimented with edamame beans 😀
Your recipes are very easy and delicious.
Thank you Katharina! N x
I’ve cooked this a few times from a different recipe with ketjap (or kecap manis) instead of soy sauce and sugar. Will try your sauce this time. It’s also great with a fried egg on top, and if you use lean beef mince instead of pork, some chopped bacon is a great addition too. Thanks for the recipe!
Made this tonight. Husband went back for seconds and he is always so picky and skeptical of new recipes! Thank you!
Love pork mince, love beans, love this recipe. Such a winner, everyone went back for seconds. I doubled the recipe. Thanks for another great recipe.
That’s great to hear Jenny! Thanks for letting me know you enjoyed this! N x
I made this dish and it was AMAZING! My mom doesn’t really particularly enjoy spicy food, so I left the chili garlic sauce out and it still tasted great! It tastes just like Chinese restaurant food. Thank you so much for the simple and easy to follow recipe.
Does this keep well in the fridge as leftovers for a few days? I’m excited to try it- it looks delicious!
Yes it does! Much better than most stir fries because the beans don’t go soggy 🙂
Another winner ! My husband said it was very tasty!! Thanks Nagi!!
I love hearing that! So glad you enjoyed this Wanda ! N x
Another awesome recipe. Followed it as is – yummy!! So much flavour in this. I always find it helpful to read the extra notes you put at the end of the recipes. SUPPER WINNER!
🙌🏻 🙌🏻 LOVE hearing that! Thanks for letting me know AGill! N x
Just made this again this week and have to tell you, Nagi, that this is one of our absolute favorite recipes – my husband and I both love it ! ! ! Even though there’s just the 2 of us, I double the main ingredients, and make 4x the sauce, because we love it stirred into rice (for hubby) or cauliflower rice (for me). I make it in my cast iron skillet so I can get it as hot as possible, and one thing I like to do is to cook the pork until it is well browned and has crunchy bits. Sooooo good! Thank you, thank you, thank you for this AMAZING recipe ! (I would give it 10 stars, if I could ! ! !)
That’s great to hear Penny! So glad you and your husband enjoy it so much ! N x
Years ago I cut a recipe for pork stir fry with green beans from a magazine and I used to drool over the photo but never got around to cooking it. Today we had lunch at a Chinese restaurant and I finally got to taste it and loved it. As soon as I got home I looked it up on Pinterest. I picked out the photo that most resembled what we ate and came up with yours. I could have just looked here in the first place! 😄 Another Nagi recipe to add to my TO COOK list.
One of my favourite quick evening meals! So much flavour, and super quick to make once you’ve done the prep for it all. Also a big success with a picky eater at home! Thanks Nagi!! 🙂
Love hearing that Lara! Thanks for letting me know 🙂 Have a great weekend! N x
Delicious, another one of your recipes that I can add to the family dinner rotation. You are my go to website for recipes. Thanks
We had a lot of beans from our garden that needed to be used so I searched recipe tin eats for green bean recipes and came across this. It was so yummy and will be a regular mid week meal. Thank you
That’s so great to hear Carol! I’m so happy to hear that! N x ❤️
This was the bomb loved it!!!!!!!!!
That’s great to hear Zoe! Thanks for taking the time to leave your feedback! N x ❤️
I made this at weekend and it will be one of my quick meal staples. Amazingly I had all the ingredients in from about 12 months ago when I was perfecting my hot ‘n’ sour soup. That garlic/chilli sauce seems to last forever in the fridge! To only need two main ingredients and everything else is basically pantry food but yet end up with something so fresh and healthy tasting is fab.
Anyway, I really enjoyed this meal. I love your website – which I’m scouring on a daily basis for new recipes and I love the accompanying no-nonsense(though very well shot) videos.
LOVe hearing that Jason!!! N x