Thai beef stir fry is long on big south east Asian flavours but short on cooking time. It’s perfect for a weeknight meal when ho hum just isn’t going to cut it.
It’s pretty easy. Make the sauce. Stir fry the beef. Toss the beef with the sauce and serve. On rice noodles. On rice. With greens. Whatever you want. Make it your own.
The sauce makes this Thai beef stir fry
The sauce is the thing here. It’s Thai nam jim. Fresh chilies. Lime. Cilantro. Sugar. Shallots. Fish sauce. It’s all the big Thai flavours in one dish. Nam jim is super versatile too.
Use it in Thai beef stir fry. Or with roast chicken. As a dipping sauce. With grilled meats or chicken. On wings. Crazy good stuff. Crazy versatile too.
thai beef stir fry with rice noodles
Ingredients
Thai beef stir fry
- 1 1/2 lb top sirloin thinly sliced against the grain
- 10-12 tbsp nam jim sauce - this is really to taste
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- 12 oz rice noodles
thai nam jim sauce
- 1/4 cup fish sauce
- 1/4 cup lime juice - freshly squeezed
- 2 green finger hot chilies - minced, about 2-3 tsp
- 1 red chili - minced, about 1 tsp
- 1/4 cup shallots - finely diced
- 1/4 cup cilantro - finely chopped
- 1 clove garlic - chopped as finely as you can
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup water
Instructions
Thai beef stir fry with rice noodles
- If serving with the noodles, bring a large pot of water to boil.
- Boil the rice noodles for 3-4 minutes until just tender. Drain and run cold water over the noodles until cool. Toss with your hands to make sure they don’t stick together. A big clump of rice noodles isn’t so good.
- Heat the oil in a wok or large non-stick frying pan over high heat. Season the beef liberally with salt and pepper. Stir fry 1/4 of the beef until evenly brown. Remove. Add more oil as needed and and repeat until all the beef is browned. Return the beef - but not the accumulated juices - to the pan. Stir fry briefly until the beef is warm. This is one time you don’t want to add the accumulated juices back into the dish.
- Toss the beef with nam jim and serve over rice noodles (or whatever you decide to serve it with). Garnish with peanuts or sesame seeds, thinly sliced red chilies, and cilantro. Or you can add mint, basil, baby greens, julienned carrots and thinly sliced cucumber. That turns this into a Thai beef noodle salad.
Thai nam jim sauce
- Combine all the ingredients and stir to dissolve the sugar.
- Let stand for about an hour to let the flavours combine. If you don’t have time to let it stand, don’t worry. Just go for it.
Notes
Nutrition
I love bun cha. Vietnamese grilled pork and rice noodle salad. The moist and flavourful pork. The cool rice noodle and fresh herb salad.
And the nuoc cham. That magic balance of spicy, sweet, sour and salty. It’s just perfect for dinner on a warm summer night.
Bun cha makes a great dinner any time
It’s actually really good for dinner any night of the year. OK – maybe not if there’s a blizzard raging. So then most nights. You get the picture.
I have a thing for Vietnamese food. It’s just so good. And bun cha is a fine example of why I love it. Explosive flavours. Satisfying but not heavy. Summer food. Happy food.
Nuoc cham is what brings bun cha together. If you don’t know about nuoc cham it’s a dipping sauce all over Southeast Asia. You know that clear, salty sweet sauce you get with spring rolls? That’s nuoc cham.
And anything with nuoc cham and rice noodles works. It’s the power couple of Southeast Asian cuisine. Just good. It’s super easy to make. Combine the ingredients. Stir. That’s it. Doesn’t get much easier than that.
