This Chinese Broccoli Recipe with Oyster Sauce 蠔油芥藍 is so easy to make and makes a delicious veggie side dish!

What is Chinese Broccoli

Chinese Broccoli is also known as Chinese Kale! In Chinese, there’s also several dialects or spellings – so it’s also known as Gai-Lan, Jie-Lan, and Kai-Lan too.

Whatever it is called, it’s a very delicious leafy green veggie and pretty common in Chinese food.

Fun fact! Broccolini is actually a hybrid between broccoli and gai lan.

Oyster Sauce

Oyster sauce is actually literally made by cooking oysters! It's usually made from oyster extracts, sugar, salt and cornstarch. If you think that's gross because you hate the taste of seafood, for some reason, the fishy seafood taste isn't actually... noticeable. I legit grew up not realizing that oyster sauce even had seafood in it. The flavor of oyster sauce is sweet and savory.

I used to get Oyster sauce and Hoisin sauce mixed up all the time, but basically Hoisin sauce is mainly made with soybeans and Oyster sauce is actually made of oysters. In flavor, Hoisin is sweeter, and though oyster is a little sweet it is not as sweet as hoisin sauce.

Some of my fave dishes to make with Oyster sauce is this Beef and Onion Stir Fry, and Shiitake Mushrooms Stir Fry with peppers!

By the way, if you can't find yourself any oyster sauce, you can sub it by mixing soy sauce and hoisin sauce at a 1:1 ratio.

Plant Based Oyster Sauce

If you eat a plant based diet, you're in luck, there are plant based oyster sauces! They are made with mushrooms instead of Oyster sauce. And this sauce is actually very tasty. I normally don't prefer the plant based version of things that aren't normally plant based, but this is the exception! I actually prefer the mushroom oyster sauce to the normal one!

On Amazon:

L.k.k Panda Brand Oyster Sauce

Lee Kum Kee Premium Oyster Flavored Sauce

Kikkoman Oyster Flavored Sauce

Vegetarian Mushroom Oyster Sauce (Vegan/Vegetarian)

Chinese Broccoli with Oyster Sauce Customization

This recipe is very customizable. One variation that is the most popular is to serve Chinese broccoli with Sesame Soy sauce. We often do a sesame soy sauce with lots of crushed garlic.

How to cook Chinese Broccoli in Oyster Sauce 蠔油芥藍

First gather your ingredients:

• 1 lb Chinese broccoli (gai lan)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoon olive oil, separated
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoon oyster sauce
• 2 tablespoon soy sauce

In a wok or large pot, add water and bring to a boil. Be sure not to put too much water as we will be adding the Chinese broccoli later. Add 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 tablespoon olive oil in the water and mix well.

Once the water is boiling, add Chinese broccoli in to the boiling water, making sure to submerge all of it. We will want to cook it until tender and bright green which can take about 2-3 minutes, and then remove vegetable from heat and place in mixing bowl and rinse with cold water, drain, and place on serving plate.

In a small pan heat up 1 tablespoon of olive oil, and add minced garlic. Allow it to cook for about 1 minute or until fragrant and then remove from heat.

In a large mixing bowl, add garlic, oyster sauce, and soy sauce together.

Drizzle with oyster sauce mixture over Chinese broccoli and serve!

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