A few days ago I shared a very easy braised beef shank recipe, showing you how to make super tender and juicy beef in a master sauce. Once you’ve made the braised beef, there are so many ways to use it to create fast and easy daily meals. For example, this comforting beef noodle soup that you can put together in under 20 minutes. Today, I want to show you how to use it to make a super quick Chinese beef salad.
How to serve Chinese beef salad – three ways
The beauty of this salad is, you can serve it many different ways. Traditionally, Chinese beef salad is served as a cold appetizer during a multi-course meal. It pairs very well with a can of cold beer and some spicy peanuts. However, I’ve found that it works very well on a bed of freshly steamed rice, as a one bowl meal. In this case, I usually add a soft-boiled egg on my rice bowl, with an extra spoonful of braising liquid from the braised beef shank. If you’ve already made my braised beef shank, definitely use the broth to marinate some boiled eggs. After two days or so, the eggs will become deeply flavorful, so that you can use them as a topping for rice and noodle bowls, or as a super-umami snack. The other way to use Chinese beef salad is to make a sandwich from it. Whether you prefer the Taiwanese Gua Bao or Northern Chinese Rou Jia Mo, the braised beef shank can be used to replace the pork filling in both of these recipes! If you’re making Gua Bao, try to add some mayonnaise and sriracha and it will work wonders. For Rou Jia Mo, fresh homemade flatbread is the gold standard. But you can totally use pita bread instead.
Ingredients
Once you’ve made the braised beef shank, all you need are a few pantry ingredients to put this salad together. Note, homemade chili oil or a great quality bottled chili oil (like this one or this one) is a must and cannot be skipped! I hope you enjoy this one!
Other easy appetizer recipes
Chinese Sliced Tofu Salad (凉拌豆腐丝)Szechuan Spicy Peanuts (黄飞鸿花生, Huang Fei Hong Spicy Peanuts)Baked Sichuan Chicken WingsChinese Pickled Cucumber (A Quick Pickle Recipe)3-Ingredient Fried Shrimp
Lilja Walter was a part of the Omnivore’s Cookbook team and worked closely with Maggie to develop and test this recipe.
