12 Best Chinese Beef Recipes to Whet Your Appetite

Compared with western countries, Chinese eat much less beef. This is because China is an agricultural country and cattle helped people a lot in farming work in ancient times, so cattle would not be slaughtered easily. In some dynasties, people slaughtered healthy cattle would be sentenced to death, and even the emperors could not eat beef as he wished. However, that does not mean that Chinese do not eat beef. In fact, the written records of Chinese eating beef can be traced back to the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (770 - 256 BC). Because beef was rare, people would cook it more carefully. After more than 2,200 years of development and because of modern people’s increasing care towards nutritional balance, Chinese beef dishes have become more and more plentiful, and the cooking methods and flavors are also diverse. Here are the top 12 Chinese beef recipes for you, which are all delicious to make you fall in love with.
 

Chinese Name: 兰州牛肉拉面 lán zhōu niú ròu lā miàn
Flavor: salty, aromatic
Ingredients: beef breast, beef marrow bone, noodles, radishes, ginger, coriander…
Cooking Methods: stew, boil

Lanzhou Beef Lo Mein is one of the best Chinese beef dishes, and the restaurants serving the noodles can be seen everywhere nationwide. Here is the beef lo mein recipe. Stew the beef soup with clear beef marrow bone and soaked beef breast. It needs 3 hours or so. Then, pick out the beef and cut them into dices. Add water into beef soup to boil. After, add radish slices and salt. The soup is entirely ready. Boil the hand-pulled noodles in clear water, and fill it in a bowl. Pour the soup in the bowl and top chopped coriander and beef dices, then Lanzhou Beef Lo Mein can be served. You can also sauté it with chili oil. Also, the noodles can be pulled into various thickness per dinners’ requests, from about 1-cm wide to as thin as hairs.

 

Sauced Beef

Chinese Name: 酱牛肉 jiàng niú ròu
Flavor: salty and aromatic, sauce flavor
Ingredients: beef flank or beef shank, cooking wine, soy sauce, ginger…
Cooking Methods: marinate, stew

Sauced Beef is a specialty originated from Hohhot, Inner Mongolia. Cut the beef into 10-cm large loafs and soak them in cold water. Change the water for several times to make sure the blood draining away. Then, marinate the beef loafs in the sauce made of cooking wine, soy sauce, sliced ginger and other seasonings for an hour. Next, put them into water and boil over high fire with bay leaves, ginger, star anises, cassia barks, soy sauce and cooking wine, etc, turn down the heating and stew them over low heat for 6-7 hours until the beef is entirely tender. While eating, slice them and seasoned with sauce made of red chili oil, vinegar, salt, and sesame oil, etc.
 

Chinese Name: 胡萝卜牛肉饺子 hú luó bo niú ròu jiǎo zi
Flavor: salty
Ingredients: beef fillet, carrots, shallots, ginger, wheat flour…
Cooking Methods: wrap, boil

Carrots and Beef Dumplings is a popular dumplings and Chinese beef dish. The filling of it is mainly made of minced beef brisket, chopped carrots, chopped shallots and ginger. Salt, pepper powder, cooking wine, soy sauce and a little sesame oil would be also added into the filling. The filling should be mixed well. When the filling is prepared, you can wrap it into flat round dumpling wrappers made of wheat flour. At last, boil wrapped dumplings, then you can eat them.
 

Chinese Name: 土豆烧牛肉 tǔ dòu shāo niú ròu
Flavor: salty
Ingredients: beef brisket, potatoes, cooking wine, soy sauce…
Cooking Methods: deep-fry, braise

Beef Stew with Potatoes & Carrots is one of the best Chinese beef dishes to make at home. Firstly, deep fry the beef dices and potato dices to medium well. Then, heat some oil and add in minced shallots, ginger and garlic, stir well and add water, soy sauce, cooking wine, salt, white sugar, pepper powder and deep-fried beef. After, braise them for about 1 hour over medium fire. Then, add in potatoes and keep braising for about 0.5 hour. Next, turn to high fire and braise till the sauce is reduced.

Read more: Recipe - How to Make Beef Stew with Potatoes & Carrots
 

Chinese Name: 水煮牛肉 shuǐ zhǔ niú ròu
Flavor: spicy and numb
Ingredients: beef fillet, sprouts, duck blood, lettuces, vermicelli…
Cooking Methods: fry, boil

Sliced Beef in Hot Chili Oil is one of famous beef dishes in China, which belongs to Sichuan cuisine. To cook this dish, the first thing is to marinate sliced beef brisket with soy sauce, rice wine, starch and salt for 15 minutes. Next, heat some oil and fry dry chili and thick broad-bean sauce with pepper, shallot pieces and sliced lettuces. Add water and heat it to boil. Then add treated beef. When the sliced beef stretch out to be flat rather than the rolls, it can be taken out. At last, top some chili powder and pour in some hot oil.  

Read more: Recipe - How to Make Sliced Beef in Hot Chili Oil
 

Chinese Name: 黑椒牛柳 hēi jiāo niú liǔ
Flavor: salty
Ingredients: beef fillet, black pepper, chili, onion…
Cooking Methods: starch, stir-fry

This is also a frequently made Chinese beef dish at home. Firstly, cut the clear beef fillet into slices and marinate them with cooking wine, soy sauce, starch, black pepper sauce or black pepper powder for 10 minutes. Then stir-fry the treated beef slices until they turn to be white. After that, clear the pot and stir-fry chili dices and onion dices for 30 seconds, add the fried beef, salt and black pepper and stir well.

Read more: Recipe - How to Make Black Pepper Beef
 

Chinese Name: 西红柿炖牛腩 xī hóng shì dùn niú nǎn
Flavor: salty
Ingredients: beef brisket, tomatoes, shallots, ginger…
Cooking Methods: stew

After marinating beef dices with cooking wine and pepper, stew them with aniseed or anise for about 1.5 hours over medium heat. If there are foams floating, scoop them out. If the soup is decreased, you can add some water. After, add sliced tomatoes and go on stewing for about 30 minutes. At last, add salt and turn to high heat, and continue to stew to thicken the soup.
 

Chinese Name: 萝卜炖牛腩 luó bo dùn niú nǎn
Flavor: salty
Ingredients: beef brisket, radishes, ginger…
Cooking Methods: stew or braise

Braised Beef Brisket with Radishes is one of the best Chinese beef dishes. Quick-boil the beef dices at first to remove the blood completely. Then, stew the beef dices. When the beef dices are stewed to medium well, add radish dices, salt, pepper powder and other condiments to continue stewing until both the beef and radishes are tender. You can also add sliced ginger, dry chili, white sugar, soy sauce and cooking wine while braising. With dried tangerine or orange peel, the beef will be easier to be tender.
 

Chinese Name: 小炒黄牛肉 xiǎo chǎo huáng niú ròu
Flavor: salty and tender
Ingredients: beef fillet, green chili, red chili…
Cooking Methods: fry, stir-fry

Marinate the sliced beef brisket with a little starch, baking soda, cooking wine, salt and a spoon of oil for 15 minutes. Then, stir-fry the beef till the color is changed and take them out to drain the oil off. Next, stir-fry chopped garlic, green chili and red chili in another wok. And add treated beef, soy sauce, oyster sauce, and salt; stir well and this Chinese beef dish is done.
   

Chinese Name: 干炒牛河 gān chǎo niú hé
Flavor: salty
Ingredients: beef fillet, flat rice noodles, green sprouts, shallots, onion…
Cooking Methods: stir-fry

Stir-fried Rice Noodles with Beef is a representative dish in Cantonese cuisine. At first, marinate sliced beef brisket for half an hour with soy sauce, white sugar and a little peanut oil. Then, stir-fry the beef until the color is changed. Take them out and drain the oil off. Next, stir-fry green sprouts, shredded onion and flat rice noodles to be tender. After that, add treated beef, hotbed chives and shredded shallots and fry them with salt and soy sauce. Don’t pour much oil to stir-fry them.
 

West Lake Beef Soup

Chinese Name: 西湖牛肉羹 xī hú niú ròu gēng
Flavor: salty
Ingredients: beef fillet, tofu, eggs, mushroom, coriander…
Cooking Methods: boil

This is a famous Chinese beef dish in Zhejiang cuisine. Marinate minced beef brisket with soda water, salt and cooking wine for 10 minutes at first and then quick-boil it. After that, boil some water with prepared beef soup in another wok, add the treated beef, tofu dices, chopped mushrooms and egg liquid, then salt, pepper powder and sesame oil. When it boils again, scoop it into a bowl and sprinkle chopped coriander on the surface.

Read more: Recipe - How to Make West Lake Beef Soup
 

Chinese Name: 红酒烩牛肉 hóng jiǔ huì niú ròu
Flavor: salty, sweet
Ingredients: beef tendon, red wine, carrots, potatoes…
Cooking Methods: deep-fry, braise

Braised Beef with Red Wine is a creative Chinese beef dish. Firstly, marinate beef tendon dices in red wine with salt and pepper powder for an hour. Next, deep-fry carrot dices, onion dices and potato dices to be golden. Then, heat some oil, add in marinated beef dices and bay leaves and stir well. After that, add red wine, prepared beef soup, and strew over low heat for about 2 hours. Next, add in deep-fried carrots, potatoes, onions, salt and pepper powder and stew over high heat till the sauce becomes thick.