Recipe Friday: Mongolian Beef Slow Cooker

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I grabbed a photo from the Internet for this one, since mine, while tasty, did not shoot well. (Maybe it was the lighting, but it looked dirty brown and unappetizing.)

My husband’s favorite dish, when we visit a Chinese restaurant, is Mongolian Beef. I had never made it at home, but I found an Internet recipe, and, with a few changes, whipped it up. So easy! We used round steak, normally tough, but this was very tender.

Traditional Mongolian Beef calls for soy sauce. I recommend against “soy sauce.” Read your labels, and you’ll see that most soy sauces on the grocery shelves are mostly wheat. Tamari is soy sauce, actually made from soy. I buy the low-sodium style.

For the healthy sweetener, I use palm coconut sugar, but you can try others such as honey, date syrup, molasses, or even brown rice syrup. If you don’t have those, use brown sugar.

And, okay, I probably used a tablespoon or so of the garlic, since we like garlic at our house.

Bamboo shoots would go well in this, as well as the soft pea pods and other common Chinese-style veggies. Like the broccoli, add them at the end so they don’t get mushy.

Mongolian Beef in the Slow Cooker

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 3 – 5 hours

Serves: 3 – 5, depending on serving size and how much rice you’re serving with it

Ingredients:

1 1/2 pounds (or so) of beef (I used round steak)

1/4 cup                cornstarch

2 tablespoons     olive oil

1 medium            onion, diced

1/2 teaspoon      garlic cloves, minced

3/4 cup                tamari sauce, low-sodium

3/4 cup                brewed coffee

1/2 cup                healthy sweetener

1 cup                    carrots, grated

4 cups                  fresh or frozen broccoli florets (if frozen, be sure it is completely thawed)

                              green onions for garnish

                              hot brown rice to go with

Directions:

Cut beef into thin strips. In a zip-close bag add beef pieces and cornstarch. Shake to coat.
Add olive oil, onion, minced garlic, tamari, coffee, sweetener and carrots to slow cooker. Stir ingredients. Add coated beef and stir again until coated in the sauce.
Cook on high 1 hour, then on low for 4- 5 hours (or cook on high for 3 hours) until cooked throughout and tender.
In the last hour or half hour of cooking, stir in the broccoli.

Can serve over rice and garnish with green onions.