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Taiwanese beef noodle soup is made with Red Braised Beef! You make the beef and you can eat it with rice and veggies. Then for the second meal, cook some noodles and add veggies in the soup which makes Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup – 台灣紅燒牛肉麵!

Breakdown of Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup

Just breaking it down by what I mean – we’re going to make it in two parts! The first part is the Beef – and the beef by itself is called Red Braised beef. It’s known as “Red Braised” because it is technically called hong shao niu rou, which means “Red Cooked”.

Then you make the noodles and other veggies such as Bok Choy, and my preference is also a poached egg, in order to make it Beef Noodle Soup!

By the way you can also make Beef noodle soup with another type of broth (not red braised) – this Clear broth braised beef is cooked with ginger, green onions, dried red peppers, Sichuan peppercorn, and star anise. The flavor is delicious!

What to add in Beef Noodle Soup

If you’re looking for ideas on what to add to your beef noodle soup, here are some things I’ve done/eaten before:

Vegetables:

• Bok Choy
• Yu Choy
• Lettuce
• Cabbage
• Tomatoes
• Watercress
• Yu Choy
• Gai lan

BTW if you’re looking to learn more about Chinese vegetables check out my post on Different Types of Chinese Vegetables here!

Others:

• Eggs
• Suan cai (pickled mustard greens)
• Zha cai (pickled mustard greens tuber)
• Hot chili oil
• Scallions/green onions
• Chinese meatballs (beef, pork, squid)
• Daikon radish

If you like to add anything specific I haven’t listed, let me know in the comment section!!

Type of Noodles

There are actually many different types of Asian noodles. For this recipe we use wheat noodles. This is your most basic noodles made with wheat, and it’s the most common of Asian noodles. Wheat noodles can also have different shapes and sizes.

I usually already have DragonMall Wu-Mu – Dry Noodle at my house because I also use it for noodle soups, so this is what I’m cooking with today.

You could also use egg noodles if you’d like, as it is similar. However, if you use glass noodles or rice noodles then it will be quite different from the traditional Taiwanese beef noodle soup.

If you’d like to learn more about other types of noodles, check out my post here:

How to make Taiwanese beef noodle soup?

First gather your ingredients:

Red Braised Beef

• 1 lb beef , cut into 2-inch chunks
• 4 cloves of garlic, smashed
• 1/2 inch of ginger, thinly sliced
• 2 scallions, cut in to 2 inch length
• 2 tbsp chili bean paste (aka doubanjiang)
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1/2 tbsp brown sugar
• Salt, as desired
• 1 large tomato, cut in to wedges, or a cup of cherry tomatoes
• 3 tbsp rice wine
• 5 star anise

Noodle Soup (serves 4)

• 12 oz of noodle of choice
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups Greens of choice (I recommend Bok Choy)
• Beef or bone broth, as needed to dilute soup
• Optional Garnish:
  • Scallion, chopped
  • Cilantro, chopped
  • Red chili oil or sauce, as desired
  • Pickled green mustard (酸菜)

Directions

First thing we’re going to do is blanch the beef chunks. Heat up a pot of water, and once the water is boiling, add the beef to the water. As soon as it is pretty much mostly looking brown on the outside, remove from the water. Remove from heat.

Now heat a wok or cooking pan to medium high heat, ginger, and add scallions and garlic to the pan for about a minute.

Then add the chili bean paste. Heat for another minute.

Add the chunks of blanched beef in to the wok/pan. Stir fry for about 5 minutes, and then add tomatoes. Add 1/4 cup of soy sauce, brown sugar, and rice wine. Cook another 2 minutes.

Transfer to a medium sized pot.

Add enough water to cover the beef in the pot. Bring to a boil, and then add star anise and salt as desired. Add remaining 1/4 cup of soy sauce.

Lower the heat and cover and let simmer for about 2 hours to 2.5 hours, or until desired tenderness.

Remove from heat and set aside and we will move on to the noodles.

Cook noodles according to the package instructions. This usually consists of boiling a pot of water and adding the noodles, and then adding water to cook it completely. However, each type of noodle cooks differently so follow the instructions!

When the noodles are cooked, remove the noodles from the water.

Here, you can customize what you like in your beef noodle soup. As an example, to add bok choy and egg, you’d add the bok choy to the boiling water and an egg to cook for 3 minutes, then remove from heat.

In a bowl, add noodles, bok choy, poached egg, and red braised beef (including beef, broth and tomatoes). You can also add extra chicken broth to dilute the braised beef sauce/broth if it is too thick. Also, add scallions, cilantro, pickled green mustard, and red chili oil/sauce as desired and serve!

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