Tender beef steak, stir fried with broccoli and a heavenly Chinese-style stir fry sauce. Simple, quick and delicious! This beef and broccoli recipe all ready in 20 minutes, so it makes a great mid-week meal for the family.
Gotta love a quick dinner that basically tastes like a tasty takeaway!
Table of Contents
This recipe uses a reasonably inexpensive cut of beef, sliced extra thinly – so it’s nice and tender. It’s fried quickly before being smothered in a delicious Chinese-style savoury sauce along with lots of crunchy broccoli. I love serving it on a big pile of fluffy white rice for a comforting weeknight dinner.
📋 What do we need?
- Steak – I like to use beef skirt or flank as it’s a fairly inexpensive cut of meat with good flavour. It does have to be cut thinly though. If it’s cut too thick, it will be chewy. If you prefer you can use sirloin or ribeye steak. These cuts are more tender (and more expensive!) – so they can be cut a little thicker if you prefer.
- Broccoli – I use tenderstem broccoli (or broccolini) as we’re only cooking it for a few minutes, so you want nice thin broccoli stalks to give a bit of crunch – rather than regular broccoli florets that will be too thick to chew through.
- Soy sauce – I use a mixture of light and dark. Light for salty seasoning, and a dark for that wonderful colour and a little sweetness.
- Chinese rice wine – A REALLY important ingredient to add depth to the sauce. Sherry is a good replacement if you haven’t got any rice wine.
- Sesame oil – for a golden toasty-ness and delicious aroma.
🔪 How to make this Chinese Beef and Broccoli
**Full recipe with detailed steps in the recipe card at the end of this post**
- Mix together the sauce ingredients and put to one side. The sauce is a combination of beef stock, light and dark soy sauce, Chinese rice wine (you can swap for sherry if you haven’t got rice wine), sesame oil, sugar, white pepper and black pepper.
- Fry up slices of very thinly sliced flank/skirt steak. Remove from the pan, then fry up plenty of tenderstem broccoli. We only need to fry for a couple of minutes – so it retains that lovely crunch. Remove it from the pan too.
- Next we fry up a little ginger and garlic, just for 30 seconds or so (so the garlic doesn’t burn), then add in the sauce and bubble it all together.
- Thicken the sauce with a little cornstarch slurry, then add the steak and broccoli back to the pan and toss together.
👩🍳PRO TIP
To ensure you get really thin slices of steak (which is important, so the steak isn’t chewy), place the steak in the freezer for 10-30 minutes before slicing thinnly with a sharp knife. This will make the meat firmer and easier to slice thinly.
🍽️ What to serve it with
Serve with fluffy Boiled Rice and top with a sprinkling of sesame seeds. Or why not serve with:
📺 Watch how to make it
🍲 More fantastic Stir Fry recipes
❓Frequently Asked Questions
I like to use beef skirt or flank as it’s a fairly inexpensive cut of meat with good flavour. It does have to be cut thinly though. If it’s cut too thick, it will be chewy. If you prefer you can use sirloin or ribeye steak. These cuts are more tender (and more expensive!) – so they can be cut a little thicker if you prefer.
The sauce is a combination of beef stock, light and dark soy sauce, Chinese rice wine (you can swap for sherry if you haven’t got rice wine), sesame oil, sugar, white pepper and black pepper.
No you don’t need to par-boil the broccoli first. I use tenderstem broccoli (or broccolini) as we’re only cooking it for a few minutes, so you want nice thin broccoli stalks to give a bit of crunch – rather than regular broccoli florets that could be too thick to chew through. We want the broccoli for this dish to be tender, but still bright green and with a bit of crunch. If you like your broccoli softer, stir fry for an extra couple of minutes. You can add a tablespoon of water to help it cook quicker and more evenly.
Yes, substitute the soy sauce for gluten free tamari and make sure the beef stock (beef broth) you use is gluten free too. Also check your Chinese rice wine (Shaoxing wine) is gluten free, if not replace with dry sherry (which is usually gluten free, but be sure to check first).
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Beef and Broccoli Recipe
Ingredients
- 3 tbsp neutral oil (I use avocado oil, or swap for any other high smoke point flavourless oil)
- 500 g (1.1 lbs) skirt/flank steak sliced very thinly, against the grain *Tip 1
- 450 g (1 lb) tenderstem broccoli (broccolini) any thicker pieces sliced in half length-ways
- 1 tsp minced ginger
- 2 cloves garlic minced
Sauce Ingredients:
- 250 ml (1 cup + 2 tsp) hot beef stock (water + 1 stock cub is fine)
- 3 tbsp light soy sauce
- 1 tbsp dark soy sauce
- 1 tbsp Chinese rice wine you can swap for sherry if you like
- 2 tsp sesame oil
- 3 tbsp light brown sugar
- ⅛ tsp white pepper
- ⅛ tsp black pepper
- 2 tbsp cornflour (cornstarch) mixed with 5 tbsp cold water to make a slurry
To finish:
- 1 tsp sesame seeds
Instructions
- Start by mixing together all of the sauce ingredients EXCEPT the cornflour (cornstarch) slurry in a bowl. Put to one side.250 ml (1 cup + 2 tsp) hot beef stock, 3 tbsp light soy sauce, 1 tbsp dark soy sauce, 1 tbsp Chinese rice wine, 2 tsp sesame oil, 3 tbsp light brown sugar, 1/8 tsp white pepper, 1/8 tsp black pepper
- Heat 2 tbsp of the oil over a high heat in wok or large frying pan.3 tbsp neutral oil
- Add the sliced steak and cook for 2-3 minutes, turning once or twice, until the steak is just cooked.500 g (1.1 lbs) skirt/flank steak
- Transfer to a bowl using a slotted spoon (leaving any oil behind in the wok).
- Add the broccoli to the wok and stir fry for 2 minutes, stirring often. Then transfer to the bowl with the steak. (see Tip 2 re: frying for longer if you like your broccoli softer).450 g (1 lb) tenderstem broccoli
- Turn the heat down to medium and add in the remaining tablespoon of oil.
- Add the ginger and garlic and fry, stirring often, for 30 seconds.1 tsp minced ginger, 2 cloves garlic
- Add in the sauce mixture, turn up the heat to high and stir together.
- Allow the sauce to come to the boil, then slowly pour in the cornstarch slurry, whilst stirring, until the sauce thickens. You may not need all of the slurry.2 tbsp cornflour (cornstarch)
- Add the beef and broccoli back into the wok and toss together. Cook for a further minute, then turn off the heat.
- Serve with boiled or fried rice and topped with a sprinkling of sesame seeds.1 tsp sesame seeds
Video
Notes
I like to use Beef skirt/flank as it’s a fairly inexpensive cut of meat with good flavour. It does have to be cut thinly though. If it’s cut too thick, it will be chewy.
If you prefer you can use sirloin or ribeye steak. These cuts are more tender (and more expensive!) – so they can be cut a little thicker if you prefer. Nutritional Information is approximate and is per portion, without rice.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
This beef and broccoli recipe was first published in January 2021. Updated in February 2025 with extra information and for housekeeping reasons.
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Have you done a book with videos with these Chinese recipes in it??
I am not the best cook but, I have tried this and both my husband and I liked it. My question is – could I precook my meat the day before and put together the sauce to take camping- I would add broccoli and thicken sauce on the day needed
Hi Julie, I haven’t tried it this way, but yes, I think that would work well.
Can you just use regular GF soy sauce? I don’t have light or dark soy sauce
This is a delicious and tasty dish. Great recipe and one well keep for our family favourites. Thank you 😊
Very good but I did make some changes. I didn’t have Chinese wine or Sherry but I did add some Oyster sauce. I only added 2 tablespoons of brown sugar because the oyster sauce is sweet. It was really good. I’ll make it again. Btw I’m celiac so I used all gluten free products.
This recipe has been a part of our weekly rotation for almost a year now. We love it. The beef is a really chewy unless I sous vide cook it. Great flavors! When I cook per the recipe instructions it always takes min 45 min. Cooking is my favorite hobby so I’m not a beginner lol! Thank you for sharing
An excellent way to tenderise the beef for certain recipes including this is to velvet it by rubbing bicarbonate of soda (baking powder) into the strips of beef. Refrigerate for 30 minutes to allow it to work its magic then rinse and pat dry.
Then just continue with the recipe.
Very easy recipe ! Very tasty..