Beef Chow Fun (Stir-Fried Wide Rice Noodles)

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One of our ultimate favorite takeout Chinese dishes is beef chow fun. It's a staple Cantonese stir-fry dish at yum cha restaurants, but yet it's actually very easy to make at home.

Bowl of beef chow fun with a side of bean sprouts. — Beef chow fun is a simple dish that packs a punch of flavor.

What we love about beef chow fun is that, like many Chinese dish, it's very versatile and can easily be modified to accommodate any food restriction or preference.

What is Beef Chow Fun (干炒牛河)

Beef chow fun mainly consists of 3 main ingredients: tender beef, chewy rice noodles and crunchy bean sprouts. In Chinese, 干炒牛河 literally translates to dry fried beef and ho fun, meaning there is no sauce left, this is not a saucy dish! Wok hei (镬气) is also a very important element of the dish, and refers to the "burnt" and smokey flavor created by using a wok over high heat. This can sometimes be hard to re-create at home if you don't have a gas stove, but we found a way to make it work!

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How to Perfect Tender Beef

Chopsticks lifting a piece of sliced tender beef. — Cornstarch is the secret ingredient to make your beef tender.

One of our biggest pet peeves from takeout Beef Chow Fun Noodles is that the meat tends to be dry and the texture is just not quite right. The secret to a perfectly tender beef in Chinese cuisine lies in the one and only: cornstarch. Seriously though, we’ve tried cooking it with and without cornstarch, and just this one ingredient makes all the difference! We also added a little bit of baking soda as it helps with the tenderizing effect. But if you don’t happen to have any baking soda in your pantry, then cornstarch alone is more than enough to get you that perfect, tender beef slices.

We also recommend either using either flank or skirt steak, and thin slicely. Both of these cuts are very flavorful and handle the high heat well. For slicing, It's easier to make thin slices if you freeze the meat before. Any meat that you would eat as a steak would also do, it's just more expensive.

Choosing the Right Rice Noodles

The star of the dish is definitely the ho fun noodles, these are wide flat rice noodles. They're chewy, bouncy, and so addictive to eat! The best kind to buy is the fresh ones, but they aren't always easy to find. The usually can be found in the refrigerated area with all the fresh noodles, and sometimes next to the tofu section. You will be able to recognize them as they are identified as "Sa-Ho Noodles". Before cooking the fresh noodles, don't forget to separate them and put a little bit of oil, to avoid sticking together. If you're feeling courageous, you can attempt to make your own Sa-Ho noodles using this recipe from Woks of Life.

If you can't find the fresh kind, the dry one will definitely do the trick, and simply follow the packaged instructions to cook them. These are similar to pad thai or pho noodles, just chose the wide type. We opted for the dry one for this recipe, but we sometimes use fresh. It just depends on what we have on hand!

Chopsticks lifting wide rice noodles, also known as sa-ho noodles. — To make this beef chow fun, you will need fresh Sa-Ho noodles or dry wide rice noodles.

Creating Restaurant-Style Flavors

If you want to make these homemade Beef Chow Fun noodles as good as your favorite takeout place, then you have to make a very flavorful sauce!

First things first: don’t skip on the dark soy sauce. This is what’s going to give your dish that strong flavor and beautiful dark brown colour. We love using light soy sauce whenever we cook, but in this case, the flavors of light sauce are too tame for what we want to achieve.
Two other ingredients that might not be in your pantry but are worth getting for stir fried dishes: shaoxing wine and oyster sauce. Shaoxing wine is made of fermented rice and is widely used in many Chinese stir fried dishes. It’s often substituted with dry sherry due to their similarity in flavors, and is an excellent flavor enhancer. Oyster sauce, on the other hand, is a viscous, dark colored sauce that adds some salty, savory flavors and that extra oomph to your dish.
The one flavor that you get from a takeout stir fried dish that you cannot seem to get at home is the charred wok flavor. It really does make all the difference. Although we can’t get exactly that without a high burning stovetop and a proper wok, we can kinda recreate that by letting the noodles and veggies fry on the wok without stirring until the bottom part develop a char. It adds so much flavor to your dish!
You can replace the bean sprouts and baby bok choy by any vegetables of your choice, but we recommend using crunchy ones to add texture to your dish.

Overview of a bowl of beef chow fun. — The secret is in the sauce.

FAQ's

Do I need a wok?

It is certainly better if you can cook with a wok, as it handles high heat very well and has a bigger cooking surface. However, as we don't own a gas range, we find it pointless to use a wok over our induction stove, so we chose to cook our beef chow fun over a large heavy skillet that can handle high heat. Also, have a pair of tongs ready to toss your noodles!

Overview of a bowl of beef chow fun, a plate of beef chow fun and a side of bean sprouts. — Ready in less than 35 minutes, yet so satisfying and comforting.

Instructions

Marinate your beef. In a mixing bowl, combine the sliced beef, dark soy sauce, and light soy sauce. Add the cornstarch and mix well until every slice is coated. The mixture should be sticky. Separate the beef slices that stick to each other and let marinade for at least 10 minutes.

Prep the stir-fry sauce. To prepare the sauce, combine dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, shaoxing wine, oyster sauce, sesame oil, and sugar in a bowl. Mix well until the sugar is fully dissolved. Set aside.

Prep your noodles. Cook the dried wide rice stick noodles according to packaging’s instructions (Our wide rice stick noodles needed to be boiled for about 4 and a half minutes). Drain off excess water and pour cold water over the noodles. Add about 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil to the noodles. Mix well to avoid them from sticking to each other.

Cook beef. In a large pan or wok, heat about 1 and a half tablespoon of vegetable oil on medium high heat. Add the beef into the pan and cook for about 1 minute each side or until cooked thoroughly. Remove from heat and set aside.

Cook your stir-fry ingredients. In a large pan or wok, heat about 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil over medium high heat. Add the garlic, ginger, and scallions and stir fry until fragrant and tender. Add the onions and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the baby bok choys and stir fry until they are fully cooked and the onions are tender, about 3 to 5 minutes.

Combine noodles and cook all together. Place the cooked ingredients on one side of the pan to make place for the noodles. Put heat on high and and add another tablespoon of vegetable oil and add the cooked noodles. Toss the noodles in the pan gently using tongs for about 30 seconds until they are well combined. Pour the sauce mixture over the noodles and mix well with tongs until all the noodles are uniform in color. Add the bean sprouts and and toss gently. Add in the cooked slices of beef and mix well. For a bit of char, let the ingredients sit for about 30 seconds to 1 minute on the pan without stirring. Remove from heat and serve.