Quick Chinese BBQ Pork Bowls

Quick Chinese BBQ Pork Bowls

Recipe video above. This is a quick dinner bowl made using the marinade from Chinese BBQ Pork (Char Siu) to fry up pork mince. It is sweet and savoury with a hint of Chinese Five Spice flavour and tastes just like the glaze on Chinese BBQ pork! I even use a little drop of red food colouring, to give it a little authentic Char Sui colour - but this is 100% optional. :)

Serve it over rice and add some crunchy veggies on the side. Or make lettuce wraps!

Course: Mains

Cuisine: Chinese

Keyword: Ground pork recipe, pork bowl, Pork mince recipe

Servings:

Calories: 413cal

Author: Nagi

Ingredients

1 tbsp oil
1/2 onion , chopped
2 garlic cloves , finely minced
500g/ 1 lb pork mince / ground pork (or chicken or turkey)

Sauce:

1 tbsp (tightly packed) brown sugar (or 1 1/2 tbsp honey)
3 tbsp hoisin sauce (avoid orange hoisin eg. Ayam, Note 1)
1 tbsp dark soy sauce (Note 2)
3/4 tsp Chinese five spice powder
Pinch white pepper , or black pepper
1/8 tsp red food colouring , optional (for touch of Chinese BBQ Pork colour!)

Serving:

White rice
Green onion , finely sliced, and/or white sesame seeds
Fresh veggies for the side - cucumber slices , tomato, grated carrot, steamed broccoli

Instructions

ABBREVIATED RECIPE:

Sauté onion and garlic, cook pork, add sauce, cook until caramelised. Serve over rice!

FULL RECIPE:

Sauce - Mix the Sauce ingredients in a small bowl.
Sauté - Heat the oil over high heat in a large non-stick pan. Add the onion and garlic, and cook for 1 1/2 minutes until the onion edge are tinged with gold.
Cook pork - Add the pork and cook, breaking it up as you go, until you no longer see pink. Add the Sauce and cook aggressively on high heat for a good 2 to 3 minutes until the sauce evaporates and the pork mince caramelises. The stronger the heat, the better the caramelisation, the tastier your pork!
Serve over rice with fresh veg of choice, sprinkled with green onion or sesame seeds.

Notes

1. Hoisin sauce - Make sure to use a dark brown coloured hoisin sauce (ie the colour of oyster sauce). Avoid the orange ones (eg. Ayam), the flavour is not proper hoisin flavour, it's weaker and more plum-like.

Substitute with oyster sauce and add an extra 1/4 teaspoon five spice powder (the flavour is fairly similar actually!).

2. Soy Sauce – This recipe calls for DARK soy sauce, which has more soy flavour than light and all purpose soy sauce, and makes the food a deeper brown colour. Can substitute with all purpose soy or sauce, but double the quantity and note that the pork colour won’t be as dark brown as pictured. The pork will have a touch less flavour than it should (as dark soy has more flavour than light soy) so if you could add 1 tablespoon of Mirin or Chinese cooking wine to the Sauce to compensate, you'd make me happy. :)

Leftovers - Cooked meat will keep for 3 to 4 days in the fridge, or freezer for 3 months.

Nutrition per serving, assuming 4 servings, pork only (ie excluding rice and vegetables).

Nutrition