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:
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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”);
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Honey and black pepper – the two dominant flavours in the sauce!
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Oyster sauce – loaded with complex flavours, a secret weapon in Chinese/Asian cooking. Sub with Hoisin;
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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);
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Soy sauce – everyday, ordinary all purpose soy sauce. Or light soy. Don’t use dark soy – too strong!
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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!
Such a great recipe – so quick and easy to save you on a weeknight. You have saved the day again Nagi, thank you!
I made this tonight doubled up on sauce instead of 2 tsps of pepper i put in 2 tbls…lets just say it was peppery…but still delicious….
This was delicious! I did use the substitutes (hoisin for oyster sauce and chicken broth for wine) because I don’t like seafood or wine. I just poured the sauce over the beef and cooked another minute or two, since I had coated the beef in corn starch to tenderize, and the cornstarch thickened the sauce up perfectly well without needing to reduce. The whole family enjoyed it. Definitely my favourite Chinese beef recipe that I’ve found.
Usually love your recipes Nagi but this one didn’t work at all. Lacked in flavour and sauce was very watery.. I followed it to the tee but sadly not going to make this one again.
Hi Shaz, sorry you had issues here, sounds like the sauce hasn’t reduced enough – it should definitely be anything but bland!! N x
Just made this last night… Yummo! And importantly I got full marks from the wife too.
I’ve gone from a pretty good cook to a very good cook in her eyes lately, and while not intentional, I find almost invariably I end up using your recipes nowadays.
Funny thing is, we hardly ever bother treating ourselves to takeaway because now I can do it just as good… if not sometimes a little better. 😉
Thanks for this inspirational little corner of the internet Nagi.
Hi Nagi- You must get sick of hearing from me. I made this the other night and my husband said it was the best steak he has ever had.. I said “Really? Better than Miller & Cater”. LOL He said it melted in his mouth. I used sirloin.. Just want to thank you again for sharing your wonderful recipes. You are absolutely, hands down, my go to recipe site. I do not even like using other sites as I often know they will not be anywhere near as good as yours.
I never get sick of hearing from ANYONE!!! I love this – thank you so much for the great feedback Whitney! N x
I cooked your Adobo chicken last night.. The husband said “ you have stepped up your cooking game lately” cheeky git. I told him that I take absolutely no credit it is all down to this Aussie chick who has a great dog.. :o)
Oh my goodness! We had this last night. It tasted just like a Chinese takeway but in a really, really, really good way. Made with eye fillet beef that I still marinated in cornflour, Shao Shing wine and soy (just because I could). It was melt in the mouth and so flavoursome. Sauce was not at all sweet and had a lovely peppery bite. I stir fried some sliced beans, baby pak choy and some sliced red capsicum with the onion and garlic because I had them handy. My husband had three helpings and I couldn’t stop slurping the sauce. Yum!
Cooked this tonight for family of 3 and we loved it.
Thank you so much – will certainly put this in my favourite recipes.
Hi Nagi,
I absolutely adore you and love all your recipes!
I followed this recipe to the T, and yet the sauce never really becomes “syrupy”. It reduced by quite a lot but it just wasn’t sticky at all. What could be the problem? Thanks!
Hi Peggy, did you find the beef watery at all – that’s the only reason I can think of why it wouldn’t thicken if you followed the recipe and brought it to a simmer. N x
I agreed with everything you have said 100% Peggy! I made this tonight. Tastes great, but likewise the sauce never goes syrupy. And this is even before the addition of the beef… and no I didn’t find my beef watery at all 🤔
The whole family enjoyed this one. I also added a bit of chilli. Sauce was scrumptious
Very simple ingredients, lots of flavour. We loved it. A note for self is to ensure the sauce has thickened enough before adding the meat back. I also added a little bit of sliced chillies as I like it hot and I loved it. Thank you for yet another great reciepe
Absolutely delicious! I used green peppercorns though as I had some to use up