Vegan Broccoli Beef
The CLASSIC Chinese-American take out, but VEGAN and BETTER! Packed with way more flavor than Panda Express, it’s Vegan Broccoli Beef.
When I worked at a video game company, we would often work late (or CRUNCH as they called it) and in order to keep us there, they’d buy dinner. A lot of times it was Panda Express. Honestly, I don’t remember liking it very much, it was greasy AND bland, an awful combo.
So I’m happy to report that I’ve recreated one of their most popular dishes, but not only VEGAN, but way more flavorful and less greasy too!
INGREDIENTS for vegan broccoli beef
For the Broccoli Beef, we’re gonna use Soy Curls! Obviously, use whatever vegan beef you like, but I find that soy curls are the best option for myself. They are super easy to work with and are relatively inexpensive.
We’re gonna just rehydrate them and make a beefy marinade, then cook and reduce them down in that marinade.
Then we’ll coat them in a soy ginger garlic sauce. We can make this with ingredients like Vegan Oyster Sauce, Chinese Black Vinegar and Shaoxing Wine. Or you can sub those ingredients for something more common like Hoisin Sauce and Rice Vinegar.
For the Broccoli, you can either saute fresh broccoli, or microwave or steam some, up to you!
storage
This is best eaten fresh, but you can store leftovers in the fridge for 2 days. Reheat on the stovetop of microwave.
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Vegan Broccoli Beef
Ingredients
BROCCOLI BEEF
- 4 oz. Dried Soy Curls
- 9 oz. broccoli florets
Marinade
- 2 cups Beefless Broth
- 1 Tbsp mushroom seasoning or 1 tsp miso paste
- 2 tsp Vegan Worcestershire
- 1 Tbsp Kitchen Bouquet or Gravy Master optional for color
Soy Ginger Sauce
- 3-4 garlic cloves chopped
- 1 tsp ginger chopped
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1 – 2 Tbsp brown sugar or agave, date syrup etc
- 2 Tbsp Soy Sauce
- 1 Tbsp Shaoxing wine or use rice vinegar
- 1 Tbsp vegan oyster sauce or Hoisin sauce
- 1 Tbsp black vinegar optional but recommended
- 1 tsp sriracha optional for some heat
Instructions
Broccoli Beef
- Rehydrate the soy curls by covering them in some water for about 10 minutes.
- While soy curls are hydrating, prepare the marinade and soy ginger sauce by combining the ingredients in separate bowls respectively.
- Strain your soy curls. Using your bare hands, squeeze out the excess water. You want them to be as dry as possible. I typically do this in a colander that's got another bowl underneath it (or you could do it over the sink too).
- Get a large skillet heated up over medium heat, add your soy curls and the marinade. Now all we need to do is reduce down, which should take about 30 minutes.
- Reduce liquid completely, if desired, let the soy curls cook for a bit longer to brown a bit.
- Now would be a good time to microwave or steam broccoli. You can also remove the soy curls from the pan and pan-fry the broccoli to your desired doneness as well. If you do that, simply add the soy curl beef back in after doing so.
- Add the soy ginger sauce to the pan, (if you steamed or microwaved your broccoli, add them in now as well) stir to combine. Stir again, and now you're done!
- ENJOY!
Hi, I’m sorry, not sure what you mean, after you add the cooked broccoli you essentially just need to toss everything to combine and you are done with it. So I’m not sure I understand, thanks!
What kind of miso paste do you recommend?
I use light yellow miso, but any should work fine!
Hi! The written part of the chow mein recipe seems to have disappeared (I swear I saw it here the other day) – any idea where I can find it? Thank you!
Hey Erin, I was in the process of separating the two recipes into their own posts and got too busy to finish the chow mein one, I was about to copy and paste the chow mein recipe for you here, but I see I’m a ding dong and accidentally saved over the original recipe card, so for now the recipe only lives in the video, I’ll get to that ASAP, but if you watch the video I should give the ingredient amounts, sorry about that!
The chow mien recipe needs adjustment. I love your recipes but the chow mien the video failed horribly. It was more acidic than savory and way to much pepper. I might try doubling the sesame oil, cutting the vinegar in half and maybe an 1/8 or a quarter tsp of pepper at the end of cooking. And forgo the starch slurry.
Hey sorry about that! I plan on revisiting that recipe so I’ll take that into consideration. It’s very possible I got the amounts wrong in the video too! It’s an old video!
Do you have a link for the chow mein noodles you get if online?
Hi, no I don’t, I just buy whatever I can find at my local H-Mart or 99 Ranch!
This is now my go to Beef and Broccoli recipe. This is my number 1 comfort food and now I have a vegan recipe, even better than my omni recipe too, that works 😀 Thanks so much! I am going to try adding potato starch for a thicker sauce.
Awesome, glad you like it better even! You could also make a cornstarch slurry, I’m surprised I didn’t do that!
This was delicious, and very easy too.
Awesome, one of my faves, glad you liked it!
Love this recipe! It makes more “meat” than I typically use so wondering if I can take out half after reducing the liquid and freeze it.
I think that should be fine, I wouldn’t freeze more than a month or so. I haven’t tested it, so I would say maybe test an overnight freeze with a small portion so you don’t ruin the whole batch if it doesn’t work! Thank you for the feedback, glad you like it!
Do you have a link to the chow mein ? I made this once before and loved it but don’t see instructions for the rest anymore. Thanks
Hey sorry, I was going to separate them out as different recipes and got tied up and never got around to the chow mein, so unfortunately for now it’s just in the video, I will repost it as soon as possible!
I look forward to it. I’ve been craving broccoli beef for a while, except that I’d prefer to even or switch the broccoli to beef ratio.
I also love certain chow meins, but I have to watch my carbs so I plan to use glass (sweet potato) noodles.
We love your vegan broccoli beef. It’s tasty and easy to make. Thank you so much for being creative and sharing your recipes.
Thank you, happy to hear that!
Yummy! I really enjoyed this, more than I ever enjoyed Panda Express. I didn’t give it 5-stars because it is a bit salty for my tastes.
Amazing recipe, love it so much! This is in my biweekly meal rotation. I use vegan beef bouillon cubes instead of the beefless broth recipe, no kitchen bouquet or gravy master, rice vinegar instead of Shaoxing wine, no black vinegar or sriracha. I also add in a chopped red bell pepper
Oh nice, glad it works out with the subs, I’m trying to redevelop recipes so they don’t use as many hard to find ingredients, thank you!
I never comment on recipes, but felt compelled to stop by to say how good this was! I’d made your “base recipe” soy curl chicken before, and made the beef version last night (planning to freeze to use as desired). Honestly, the base beef recipe alone was fine and is still great to have but wouldn’t fully do it for me as is without extra stuff added. But I saw this linked from that page and already had some rice in the cooker so thought I’d use some of it for this and it was so flavorful and incredible. Made some subs too and was still great. Didn’t have black vinegar, used balsamic instead at an online suggestion and it worked well, used rice vinegar instead of whatever else it was, accidentally splashed way too much of it too. But definitely gave that addictive takeout vibe but honestly better. The dark sauce made my beef curls look so much beefier too (I didn’t have the browning sauce in that recipe). Thank you so much, this will definitely go in the regular rotation, love how simple it is especially if I already have the beef curls frozen.
Oh so glad to hear this! And yeah, the original soy curl recipe is meant to be a blank canvas so you can add it to dishes like this, glad it worked out!!