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Beef and Vegetable Stir Fry with Flank Steak, Broccoli, Peppers and Onions
🥩 Flank Steak Is the MVP of Beef Stir Fry
Not all beef is created equal, and for stir fry, flank steak is the undisputed champion. It’s lean, beefy in flavor, and when sliced thin against the grain, it becomes irresistibly tender. Pair that with a proper marinade — soy sauce, Shaoxing wine, mirin, corn starch, ginger, garlic, and beef bouillon — and you’ve got beef that’s seasoned deep down to its soul. The corn starch in the marinade acts as a meat tenderizer, locking in moisture and giving each piece a soft, tender bite.
🧄 The Marinade That Does All The Heavy Lifting
The secret weapon here is the marinade, and it’s doing a lot. The Shaoxing wine (Chinese cooking wine) adds that unmistakable depth and authenticity. Mirin brings a gentle sweetness. Soy sauce brings the salt and umami. Corn starch tenderizes. Garlic and ginger show up and show off. Give your beef at least 20–30 minutes to soak it all in.
🥦 The Vegetables: Clean Out Your Fridge
Here’s one of the best things about this beef and vegetable stir fry — the vegetables are gloriously flexible. Broccoli, red pepper, yellow pepper, and onion are the dream team here, but you can honestly use whatever is living in your crisper drawer. Just remember: not all vegetables are created equal in cooking time. Dense vegetables like broccoli and carrots need a little more time. Tender ones like snap peas or spinach? A quick toss and they’re done. Add them in waves accordingly, and no one will ever know you were just cleaning out the fridge.
🥄 The Slurry: The Glossy Finishing Touch That Changes Everything
Here’s where this stir fry goes from “really good” to “someone call a food critic.” The slurry — a blend of water, corn starch, low-sodium soy sauce, dark soy sauce, and vegetarian oyster sauce — is what creates that glossy, clingy, restaurant-quality sauce that coats every single piece of beef and vegetable. Dark soy sauce deepens the color beautifully. Vegetarian oyster sauce adds a rich, savory sweetness. Together? Pure magic in a bowl.
🍳 The Technique: Why the Order of Operations Matters
This is where home cooks level up. The key to a perfect stir fry is working in stages. Stir fry your vegetables first, then remove them from the wok. Add your marinated beef to the screaming-hot wok and let it sear — don’t crowd it, don’t stir it to death, just let it cook. Then, once the beef is perfectly browned, add the vegetables back in, pour over the slurry, and toss everything together. This method keeps your vegetables perfectly crisp-tender and your beef perfectly seared — not steamed, not sad.
What’s in this stir-fry
- flank steak
- broccoli
- peppers
- onion
- garlic
- ginger
- soy sauce
- Chinese cooking wine
- mirin
- beef bouilllon
- vegetarian oyster sauce
- corn starch
Beef and Vegetable Stir Fry
Tender slices of flank steak and a myriad of vegetables makes this Chinese dish as satisfying as it is versatile. Combining the usual suspects of sauces and spices to highlight the traditional flavors that we come to expect from a delicious Asian stir fry.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 13 minutes
- Total Time: 23 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Sautéing
- Cuisine: Chinese
Ingredients
- 1 flank steak, about 2 pounds, sliced into thin bite sized pieces
- 1 medium onion, sliced into bite sized pieces
- 1 red pepper, cut into medium cubes
- 1 yellow pepper, cut into medium cubes
- 3 bunches broccoli crowns, cut into bite sized pieces
Marinade for beef
- 3 tablespoon low sodium soy sauce
- 2 teaspoons corn starch
- 1 tablespoon Chinese cooking wine
- 1 tablespoon mirin (or any sugar)
- 2 teaspoons beef bouillon
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 30 grams of ginger, sliced
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 4 tablespoons of cooking oil, split
Slurry
- 1 cup water
- 2 tablespoons corn starch
- 1/4 cup low sodium soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons vegetarian oyster sauce
Instructions
- Add all the marinade ingredients to the beef and mix well. Cover and let it marinade in the fridge for 1 to 3 hours. Overnight is fine too.
- Remove the ginger slices from the beef marinade and set aside. Make the slurry and set aside. Heat your wok or large sauté pan over high heat. Add 2 tablespoons of cooking oil. This can be vegetable oil, avocado oil, sunflower oil, peanut oil or beef tallow.
- Once your wok is smoking and oil sizzling, add onions and ginger and stir for about 1 minute. Add broccoli and stir fry it together with the onion mixture for an additional 2 minutes. Add the peppers, garlic and a pinch of salt. Stir fry for 3 minutes or until the vegetables just start to look tender. The pan should be smoking and the vegetables start to have a nice sear around them. Remove from wok into a large bowl.
- With the wok still on high heat, you should continue to see the heat and smoke from the wok. Add the remaining 2 T of oil and spread it across the wok. Add the beef and distribute all the beef in a thin layer across the surface of the wok. Do not touch the beef for 1 minute to allow the beef to sear in the high heat. After 1 minute, stir the beef and re-arrange it again in a thin layer across the wok and let that sear again for 1 minute. Stir dry the beef for another minute before adding all your vegetables back into the wok.
- Stir your slurry to re-mix the contents. The corn starch quickly settles to the bottom and you need to mix again right before you use it. Pour the slurry on to the beef and vegetables and stir to combine well. Allow the slurry to cook and after a minute, you will start to see it bubbling. It will look thin at first but will start to thicken as you keep cooking. Keep stirring every minute for about 3 to 4 minutes. The beef and vegetables will continue to cook together in the sauce.
- Serve over rice.
❓ FAQ’s for Beef and Vegetable Stir Fry
Flank steak is the gold standard—it’s lean, flavorful, and gets beautifully tender when sliced thin against the grain. Sirloin or skirt steak work well too.
Cooking them separately means the beef gets a proper sear (not a sad steam bath), and the veggies stay crisp-tender. Crowding the wok drops the temperature and turns everything soggy—reunite them at the end for the best of both worlds.
Almost anything! Onion, red and yellow peppers, and broccoli are classics, but this recipe is basically a fridge-cleanout in disguise. Just be mindful of cook times—hardy veggies like broccoli and carrots need longer, while peppers and snap peas cook quickly.
Shaoxing (Chinese cooking wine) adds a deep, savory note to the marinade. If you can’t find it, dry sherry is the closest swap. In a pinch, a splash of extra mirin, a little chicken broth will do or skip it all together.
Two usual suspects: you sliced it with the grain (always cut against it!) or you overcooked it. Flank steak cooks fast—a quick sear over high heat keeps it tender. The corn starch in the marinade does a great job in tenderizing the beef. Don’t skip that!
The slurry thickens your sauce into that glossy, clingy coating that makes stir fry so satisfying. It’s the difference between “sauce that sticks to the beef” and “sauce puddling sadly at the bottom of your plate.”
You can marinate the beef and chop your veggies a day ahead—prep hero status unlocked. The actual stir frying, though, is best done fresh and fast right before serving.
SHOP FOR THIS RECIPE
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