An authentic Chinese spicy stir-fry green beans recipe that tastes like takeout! Easy to make, this recipe cooks in five minutes.
A Favorite Recipe for Spicy Stir-Fry Green Beans
This is one of my favorite spicy green bean recipes! I love spicy green beans at Chinese restaurants but wanted to find a recipe to make them myself. I tried a few recipes but couldn’t find one with the right taste because many recipes called for vinegar. And vinegar didn’t seem to be the taste I was getting from my favorite restaurant’s green beans.
No-Vinegar Recipe
The recipe I finally used has white wine and chicken stock but no vinegar. I love the taste!
Translating Chinese Recipes for Spicy Stir-Fry Green Beans
There is a story about how I came to use this recipe. After trying several recipes and not finding one with the taste I wanted, my daughter offered to help.
She reads Mandarin Chinese and loves Chinese food, so she offered to search through Chinese recipes to find the secret ingredients to give our spicy green beans the taste we were looking for. So she searched and searched and translated.
One day she found a recipe with rice wine and chicken broth. Some ingredients were not readily available or easily translatable, so we were inspired to create this recipe. We tested and tweaked it and made it until we were satisfied with it.
Our favorite restaurant’s spicy green beans have zhacai vegetable preserves in them–which are mustard plant stems. Since they are not a readily available ingredient where we live, I added shallots because they have a similar texture to the preserves. Of course, if you aren’t a shallot fan, omit them. However, do not omit any of the other ingredients because that can change the flavor of this dish.
Ginger Paste for Spicy Stir-Fry Green Beans
I used ginger paste from a tube and found it tasted better than grating fresh ginger. The recipe calls for two tablespoons of ginger paste. Sometimes I inadvertently add more when I don’t use a measuring spoon. Fortunately, extra ginger doesn’t hurt this recipe!
This recipe cooks the green beans in sesame oil, which fries them. You use 2 tablespoons of oil, which isn’t enough to actually deep fry, but it quickly cooks the beans so that they turn out both crispy and tender.
We found that we liked both toasted and untoasted sesame oil, although one of the times we made this dish and proclaimed that it was the best ever, we used untoasted sesame oil.
This dish cooks very quickly, so have all ingredients ready and waiting! Enjoy!
Other Chinese-Inspired Dishes You Might Like
Click on each name to link to the recipe.
- Chinese Style Lemon Chicken
- Sweet and Sour Sauce
- Baked Wonton Jalapeno Cheese Cups
- Orange Chicken
- Beef with Garlic Sauce
- Almond Cookies
| Prep Time | 10 minutes |
| Cook Time | 5 minutes |
| Servings |
|
- 250 grams fresh green beans (about 50 beans or 12 ounces)
- 2-3 tablespoons sesame oil (toasted or untoasted)
- Pinch of salt
- 1 shallot, peeled and sliced
- 1/2 teaspoon cornstarch
- 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 1 teaspoon rice wine or white cooking wine
- 1 teaspoon soy sauce
- 3 tablespoons chicken stock (or broth)
- 2 tablespoons ginger paste
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
Ingredients
|
Rate this recipe!
|
- Wash, string if necessary, and cut the ends off the green beans. Dry them. Peel and slice the shallot.
- In a glass measuring cup with a spout, add the cornstarch, red pepper flakes, wine, soy sauce and chicken stock. Stir to dissolve the cornstarch. Set aside.
- Add the sesame oil to a large nonstick skillet and heat on medium to medium-high until hot. Add the dry green beans to the oil. Add a pinch of salt. Stir to coat the beans in the oil.
- Add the shallot. Stir for 3 to 4 minutes until the beans are starting to tenderize and the shallot is cooked.
- Add both the ginger paste and garlic. Stir for 5-10 seconds to mix the ginger and garlic well with the green beans.
- Quickly stir the soy sauce mixture to make sure the cornstarch is well mixed with the liquid ingredients and pour the mixture into the pan. Stir for a few seconds until the sauce thickens and coats the green beans. Remove from the heat and serve immediately.
Be sure to dry the green beans after washing them because any water left on them will cause the hot cooking oil to splatter.