Meat Dishes
Beef and Broccoli
The Chinese takeaway favourite made properly at home: thin strips of tenderised beef seared in a very hot wok, crisp-tender broccoli and a glossy oyster-sauce gravy, ready in 10 minutes once the beef has marinated. Variations, including the Cantonese original with Chinese broccoli, below.
- Serves 4
- Prep 15 min plus 30 min marinating
- Cook about 10 min
- Chinese-American
Variations: With Chinese broccoli, Chicken and broccoli, Tofu and broccoli, Spicy ↓
Method
Put the steak in the freezer for 20 minutes to firm it up, then trim off any fat and gristle and slice it across the grain into thin strips, about 5 mm (¼ in) thick and 5 cm (2 in) long.
Tenderise and marinate the beef: put it in a bowl with the bicarbonate of soda (if using) and the 3 tablespoons of water and massage with your hands until the water is absorbed. Mix in the 1½ teaspoons of cornflour, 2 teaspoons of oil and 1 teaspoon of oyster sauce, and leave for 30 minutes (cook the rice meanwhile).
Mix the hot stock, both soy sauces, the oyster sauce, sugar, sesame oil and white pepper in a jug. Mix the tablespoon of cornflour with 2 tablespoons of cold water in a cup.
Bring a pan of water to the boil and blanch the broccoli for 1 minute (2 for softer broccoli), then drain well.
Heat a wok or your largest frying pan over a high heat until it is smoking. Add 2 tablespoons of the oil, then spread the beef out in the pan in a single layer (in two batches if your pan is small). Leave it for 1 minute to brown, then turn and cook for 30–60 seconds more, until browned but still a little pink inside. Lift out onto a plate.
Turn the heat to medium. Add the last tablespoon of oil, the garlic and ginger, and stir for 10 seconds, until fragrant but not brown. Pour the rice wine around the edge of the pan, then add the sauce mixture and bring to the boil, scraping up the browned bits.
Stir the cornflour mixture again and pour it in gradually, stirring, until the sauce is thick and glossy (you may not need it all). Let it bubble for 20–30 seconds.
Return the beef and its juices to the pan with the broccoli and toss for 30–60 seconds over a high heat until everything is hot and coated with sauce. Scatter with spring onions and serve straight away with the rice.
Tip: tap a step to tick it off as you cook.
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Variations
Four ways to change the main recipe. Each serves 4 and uses the same method unless it says otherwise.
With Chinese broccoli (gai lan)
The way it is usually cooked in China. Use 450 g (1 lb) Chinese broccoli, cut into 7 cm (3 in) lengths, instead of broccoli, and do not blanch it: stir-fry it in the wok with the ginger and garlic for 1 minute, until bright green, before adding the sauce. Add 3 thin slices of ginger. Tenderstem broccoli, a cross between broccoli and Chinese broccoli, works the same way.
Chicken and broccoli
Use 400 g (14 oz) boneless chicken thighs or breasts, thinly sliced, marinated the same way but without the bicarbonate of soda. Cook the chicken for 2–3 minutes until cooked through with no pink.
Tofu and broccoli (vegetarian)
Use 400 g (14 oz) firm tofu, pressed, cut into cubes and tossed in 1 tablespoon cornflour, then fried in 3 tablespoons oil until golden. Use vegetable stock and a vegetarian (mushroom) "oyster" sauce.
Spicy
Add 4–6 dried red chillies with the garlic and ginger, or stir 1 tablespoon chilli bean sauce (doubanjiang) into the sauce mixture.
Useful kit
- Carbon-steel wok: heats fast and gets hot enough to sear; a large heavy frying pan also works. Amazon UK · Amazon US
- Wok spatula: a thin metal spatula for tossing and scraping. Amazon UK · Amazon US
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See also
Chef’s notes
- The cut: flank or skirt is what Chinese restaurants in America use; in the UK, rump or sirloin is easier to find and very tender. Whatever you use, slice it thinly across the grain (look for the lines of muscle fibre and cut at right angles to them).
- The bicarbonate of soda is a restaurant trick: it raises the pH of the meat surface so it holds more water and stays tender. Use no more than ¼ teaspoon for 400 g, or the beef tastes soapy, and leave it out if you are using fillet or a very tender cut.
- Heat is everything in a stir-fry: a very hot pan and small batches give a seared, smoky flavour. If the pan is crowded the beef stews and turns grey.
- Soy sauce and oyster sauce usually contain wheat: use tamari and a gluten-free oyster sauce for a gluten-free version. For a vegetarian version, see the variations.
A little history: a Cantonese idea, an American favourite
Beef and broccoli is one of the most popular dishes on Chinese restaurant menus in the United States, and one of the most popular of the Chinese-American, Cantonese-derived dishes that J. Kenji López-Alt of Serious Eats remembers from the Chinatowns of New York and Boston, where he grew up.
In China the same stir-fry is usually made with Chinese broccoli, gai lan in Cantonese (jie lan in Mandarin), a leafier plant than the big-headed broccoli of Western shops; outside China the dish took on Western broccoli. Both are forms of the same cabbage species, Brassica oleracea, and Tenderstem broccoli is a cross between the two.
Its sauce has a precise birth date. Lee Kum Kee, the Hong Kong sauce maker, says that in 1888 Lee Kum Sheung, who ran a small eatery in Nanshui, Guangdong, left a pot of oyster soup cooking too long and found it had reduced to a thick, brown, savoury sauce. He began selling it, and founded the company to make it.
The restaurant method, in which the beef is tenderised and coated, seared separately, and only combined with the blanched broccoli and the sauce at the end, is the one Bill Leung of The Woks of Life used when his family ran a Chinese takeaway restaurant in the United States.
Sources for these notes
For the history above and the advice in the notes.
- Serious Eats (J. Kenji López-Alt): Chinese-American Beef and Broccoli With Oyster Sauce
- The Woks of Life: Beef with Chinese Broccoli (in China people prefer gai lan / jie lan)
- The Woks of Life: Beef and Broccoli (one of the most popular dishes on Chinese restaurant menus; the family’s takeout restaurant)
- Lee Kum Kee Corporate: Birth of Lee Kum Kee, 1888
- Wikipedia: Broccoli (kai-lan is the Alboglabra group of Brassica oleracea; Tenderstem is a cross with broccoli)
How this recipe was developed
Beef and broccoli is the best-known broccoli main course on the web. We based this on the restaurant method that the top-rated versions share and wrote it for 4 with rice, using steak cuts and stock that are easy to buy in the UK.
- Velveting. Bicarbonate of soda and water, then cornflour, oil and oyster sauce, 30 minutes: The Woks of Life (from their family’s takeout restaurant).
- Cook separately, combine last. Blanched broccoli, beef seared in batches, sauce thickened with a cornflour slurry: The Woks of Life; very high heat and no crowding: J. Kenji López-Alt (Serious Eats).
- Cut. Flank, skirt, hanger or flap (Serious Eats; The Woks of Life uses flank); rump or sirloin suggested for UK shops.
- Sauce. Stock, light and dark soy, oyster sauce, sugar, sesame oil and white pepper, after The Woks of Life; Shaoxing wine or dry sherry around the hot pan edge.
- Quantities. 400 g beef and a large head of broccoli for 4 with rice; The Woks of Life uses 450 g beef for 6.
Sources we compared (ratings as shown on each site on 1 November 2026):
- The Woks of Life (Bill Leung): Beef and Broccoli
- Serious Eats (J. Kenji López-Alt): Chinese-American Beef and Broccoli With Oyster Sauce (4.8/5 from 9 ratings)
- The Woks of Life (Bill Leung): Beef with Chinese Broccoli
- Allrecipes (Allrecipes community): Restaurant-Style Beef and Broccoli (1,231 ratings)
This is an original Cookeryonline recipe written in our own words. Ingredient choices and techniques are credited above; no source text has been copied.