Hunan-style beef stir fry—a dish popular across the country. This is the authentic Chinese version you can make at home easily.
Table of Contents
- 🥘What's Hunan beef
- What does Hunan sauce taste like?
- 🥩What cut of beef to use
- 🌶Pickled pepper and substitute
- 🌶🌶Szechuan cuisine vs Hunan cuisine
- Pick the side ingredient - celery
- Hunan beef ingredients
- How to make Hunan beef
- What to serve with human beef
- How to reheat it
- Other Chinese beef recipes
- 🧾Recipe
🥘What's Hunan beef
Hunan beef stir fry is the top beef stir fry from Hunan cuisine. It is made with beef slices, garlic, ginger, and a large number of fresh peppers and pickled pepper. As a foodie who loves spicy food, Hunan food is one of my top choices. It has a lovely Chinese name "小炒黄牛肉" meaning a small beef stir fry. We name small because it is only a short list of ingredients. is quite strong, dense, and appealing.
What does Hunan sauce taste like?
The flavor of Hunan beef is quite strong, dense, appealing, and spicy. Because it uses lots of fresh facing-the-heaven peppers (actually with similar hotness to Thai peppers). This dish is quite hot with a very faint of sour taste bought by the pickled wild peppers.
🥩What cut of beef to use
You can definitely choose the expensive steak to make this Hunan beef, but it is unnecessary. We use tenderloin for most of the Chinese beef stir-frying dishes. As long as the beef is well-velveted, the cheap cut can be tender and juicy too.
🌶Pickled pepper and substitute
There are several versions inside China, mostly with essential pickled yellow pepper. We call this 小米椒. It might be difficult to find outside China. This little pickled yellow pepper enjoys really high popularity in China in different cuisines (mainly in Hunan and Sichuan cuisine). It presents a unique sour flavor bought by the fermentation. If you love to make some at home, check out this guide to pickle it at home.
Substitution: if you don't have pickled wild pepper, you can replace it with other types of pickled peppers. Or add around 1 teaspoon of rice vinegar with fresh peppers to copy the faint sour taste.
🌶🌶Szechuan cuisine vs Hunan cuisine
Hunan and Sichuan (Szechuan) are two of the most iconic Chinese cuisines that are famous for their hotness and large amount of aromatics including ginger, garlic, and scallion. However, they differ substantially from one another. Hunan cuisine distinguishes itself by its assertive flavor, with heavy use of chili peppers. The food is known for its robust taste and intense heat. In contrast, Sichuan has a cuisine that is renowned for its unique numbing quality created by the addition of Szechuan peppercorns. Sichuan dishes are complicated but less hot than Hunan dishes.
Pick the side ingredient - celery
Traditionally, Hunan beef uses celery as a side ingredient. And celery can be replaced with coriander. Celery can add freshness and a lovely crunchy texture to Hunan beef.
Hunan beef ingredients
- Beef cut- you can use steak or beef tenderloin for this Hunan beef stir fry
- Aromatics (ginger and garlic) play a very important role and thus we need a large amount.
- Fresh Thai peppers are the main source of hotness and aroma.
- Pickled wide peppers enhance the hotness and give a lovely faint sour taste.
- Light soy sauce is used to marinate the beef slices
- Oyster sauce is widely and commonly used in beef stir-frying dishes. If you don't have oyster sauce by hand, you can use light soy sauce + sugar as a substitute.
- Celery is my top choice of side ingredient. Can be replaced by other crunchy vegetables.
How to make Hunan beef
Marinate the beef
Marinating beef is the key step to make sure you can make the beef tender after stir-fried. It is a technique widely used in Chinese cuisine. We use starch (cornstarch or other types) to coat the beef slices to create a lovely tender texture. You can simply mix everything up one time but we have a better way for the best result.
- add salt, oyster sauce, shaoxing wine, and white pepper. Mix the beef for a while to make sure the flavors are well attached.
- Then add cornstarch, which performs as the protecting layer of the meat.
- Finally, add some vegetable oil to coat all of the seasonings and protect the starch inside. This also helps to avoid the sticky problem.
Fry it up
- Prepare all the side ingredients, cut peppers, celery, garlic, and ginger.
- Heat the wok first and then also heat up cooking oil in a wok until warm and then spread the beef slices for around 30 seconds. Transfer out.
- Return the extra oil to the wok, and fry garlic, ginger, and all the peppers until aroma.
- Add celery and sprinkle a pinch of salt too. Return beef, add oyster sauce, and give a quick fry. Transfer and serve with steamed rice immediately.
What to serve with human beef
It is a very hot dish and thus the best serving way is to serve it with steamed rice or even noodles. I also love to serve it with rice noodles, making such an appealing bowl.
How to reheat it
I actually don't believe there will be leftovers because it is so delicious. Each stir-frying can only be made with a small batch at home. But if you need to reheat it, the microwave is the best option. Re-heating in a wok can cause the separation of the cornstarch and make the beef chewy and old.
Other Chinese beef recipes
- Shui Zhu Beef (Sichuan Boiled Beef)
- Hot Garlic Sauce with Beef
- Oyster Beef with Chinese Broccoli
- Braised Beef with Potatoes
- Beef with Snow Pea Stir Fry
- Black Pepper Beef Stir Fry
- Beef Wonton
🧾Recipe
Hunan Beef -A Spicy Beef Stir Fry Popular Across the Country
Ingredients
- 200 g beef tenderloin
- 5 Thai red peppers , or taste
- 5 pickled yellow pepper , or replaced by thai chili peppers (Note1)
- 1 bunch celery , cut into small sections
- 2 garlic cloves , chopped
- 1 thumb ginger , chopped
- small pinch of salt
- ¼ tsp. sugar
- 1 tbsp. oyster sauce
- 3 tbsp. cooking oil
Marinating sauce
- 1 tbsp. cooking wine
- 1 tbsp. oyster sauce , can be replaced by light soy sauce
- ½ tsp. dark soy sauce
- small pinch of salt , around ⅛ tsp.
- pinch of pepper
- 1 tbsp. starch
- ½ tbsp. vegetable cooking oil
- 2 tsp. light soy sauce
Instructions
- Cut beef into thin slices (as thin as possible). If you are not skilled at cutting, frozen the beef for around 10 or 15 minutes before cutting.
- Transfer beef into a large bowl and then add salt, dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, light soy sauce, cooking wine, and pepper. Mix competely and set aisde for 15 minutes. Then add starch to mix well. Coat with vegetable cooking oil.
- Prepare all the side ingredients, cut peppers, celery, garlic and ginger.
- Heat the wok first and then also heat up cooking oil in a wok until warm and then spread the beef slices for around 30 seconds. Transfer out.
- Return the extra oil to the wok, and fry garlic, ginger, and all the peppers until aroma.
- Returan the beef in; add celery, oyster sauce and sugar too. Give a quick fry. Transfer and serve with steamed rice immediately.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Yonina
You need to work on the English on this site. It is very peculiar.
Elaine Luo
Thanks for the suggestion Yonina. I will try my best.
Joy
I understood everything described in your story & instructions! *** Real food comes from a place close to its source *** I appreciate your recipes and stories! You are doing GREAT!!
Elaine Luo
Hi Joy,
Thank you!! You are so sweet.
andrea
Your recipes are great and very clear! Thanks so much
Elaine Luo
Thanks Andrea!
Bill
Elaine, Your English is fine. :>)) And thank you for all the recipes.
Chengdu forever !!
Shalisha
Thank you for this amazing recipe. Don't worry sbout your Enblish. We understood you perfectly!
Elaine
Thanks Shalisha for your kindness! Happy cooking.
Marcb
You need to work on your manners and attitude. what a disgraceful comment on your part.
Pete
Peculiar is a peculiar word to use there 😀
Datchanee Strange
Your English is fine. I've been following your blog for a while. Thank you so so much for bringing out lots of authentic mainland Chinese dishes recipes to share. I lived in China a couple years and love Sichuan and Yunnan food. Could you share some Yunnan noodle soup recipes too?
Elaine Luo
Hi Datchanee,
Thanks so much for your kind words. I love Yunnan food too. I visited Yunnan province in last year and met lots of yummy and delicious dishes I mentioned them here https://www.chinasichuanfood.com/yunnan-trip-yunnan-food/. Yunnan noodle soup is one of my favorite. I will definitely try to provide the recipe, as you suggested. Thanks again.
Ne lyv
Your English is fine! I understand all your instructions! Thank you very much for sharing these wonderful recipes! I see these dishes when we dine out in a Chinese restaurants. Now, I can cook them myself! Kudos to you.... Hope to see more authentic recipes!
Elaine Luo
Thanks Ne for your sweetness. This is a must order dish in China for people who loves spicy food. I promise more authentic recipes will be on the blog. Thanks for visiting and leaving me such a kind comment.
Martin
I tried finding the pickled Yellow Peppers here in L.A. at a Chinese Market and I could not find them..?? Do they sell them?
Elaine Luo
Pickled baby yellow pepper might be very hard to find outside China. Can you find fresh baby yellow pepper? If yes, I can post a tutorial about how to pickle them at home.
martynn
Just found your blog and I love it. Beautiful pictures.
Elaine Luo
Thank you! Martynn.
Alice
Great post, Elaine! I would love the recipe for how to pickle the yellow peppers!!
Elaine
Great Alice,
I will start as long as I get the fresh peppers.
Christine Aben
Great website! Greetings from Canada
Elaine
Thanks Christine
John Thorne
Are Chinese yellow peppers the same as the Thai ones? I grow those in my garden and would love to try them in this recipe.
Elaine
Similar and interchangeable.
Ed
I am going to try this one today. It sounds great.
Adrian
This recipe is like visiting changsha again , love it !
Elaine
Andrian,
Thanks. This is my favorite Hunan dish and I love to cook it at home.