We may earn a commission when you click on the affiliate links in this post.
Our copycat P.F. Chang’s Mongolian Beef is pan fried and coated in a delicious sweet and savory sauce. It tastes just like the Mongolian beef entrée at the restaurant, but at a fraction of the cost!
Mongolian beef is one of my favorite dishes in the world! And with this easy Mongolian beef recipe, you can make five times the amount for the same price as ONE order from P.F. Chang’s (and every bit as delicious)! I love the restaurant, but it can be a little pricey for what you actually get.
Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE dining out at fun restaurants or getting Chinese takeout from my favorite places. It’s nice to have someone else do the cooking every once in a while. But this dish is so easy to make from home, and it’s one that the whole family enjoys! Most people who have tried it say they actually like it MORE than P.F. Chang’s. It really does taste just like P.F. Chang’s Mongolian Beef, if not better!
Ingredients in Mongolian Beef
You start with simple, grocery store ingredients, and end up with a tasty, restaurant-quality meal! Here’s what you need for this recipe:
- Vegetable oil – four teaspoons. You will use more for frying down below.
- Ginger – Fresh ginger lasts forever in the freezer! Mince or grate the ginger and save the rest for another recipe.
- Garlic – about two tablespoons of freshly minced garlic.
- Soy sauce – Feel free to use regular or low sodium soy sauce, whatever you have on hand.
- One cup of water
- Brown sugar – one cup packed brown sugar. Use light or dark brown.
- Vegetable oil for frying – this is what you’ll use to sear the sliced beef.
- 2 pounds flank steak – You can use strip sirloin steak, flank steak, skirt steak, etc.
- Cornstarch – for thickening
- 3 large green onions – sliced
Best Meat to use for Mongolian Beef
Flank steak is the best type of meat to use for this recipe because it’s thin, cooks up quickly, and it stays tender in the sauce. However, you can use thinly sliced skirt steak or sirloin steak if that’s what you have on hand. The marinated beef is thin sliced and pan fried over medium-high heat in batches, so the outside is crisp and the inside is nice and tender. So delicious!
Cut Some Calories with these Tricks
P.F. Chang’s Mongolian beef is thin sliced and pan fried, as is the beef in this copycat recipe. But for a lighter version, I like to marinate the beef in the sauce and skip the cornstarch coating. Then I just cook the beef in the sauce in a pan over the stove. It still tastes wonderful, but won’t have that crisp fried coating on the outside. Skipping the frying process is also a time saver.
Add Veggies to the Dish
Add some veggies to the pan for added color and taste (and nutrition). After the beef is cooked, I will remove the beef from the pan, wipe the pan clean, and then sauté up some broccoli, pea pods, red bell pepper, shredded carrots, onions or baby corn. Once the veggies are sautéed, I throw the beef back in and stir the sauce in with the beef and veggies. This is a great way to get some added vitamins and increase your vegetable intake for the day.
Frequently Asked Questions
You can serve this dish how P.F. Chang’s does by draining the excess sauce and serving it just coated in the sauce. Or you can reserve the excess sauce and spoon it over some rice.
Mongolian Beef freezes beautifully! I like to freeze it in the sauce, then thaw completely in the refrigerator before heating. Just heat it in a pan on the stove until hot, but not simmering, as you don’t want to risk the meat getting tough.
Yes. The marinade consists of sugar, soy sauce (if using gluten-free soy sauce) and other ingredients that do not contain gluten, so this and other typical Mongolian beef recipes are gluten-free.
READ MORE: 10+ Date Night In Dinner Recipe
What to Serve with Mongolian Beef
Serve Mongolian beef alone with our Restaurant-Style Fried Rice or Panda Express Chow Mein or pair it with one or more of our favorite Asian style recipes for a huge Asian feast:
Orange Chicken
PF Chang’s Lettuce Wraps
Sesame Chicken
Air Fryer Frozen Egg Rolls
Crockpot Cashew Chicken
How to Make P.F. Chang’s Mongolian Beef
P.F. Chang’s Mongolian Beef Copycat
Equipment
- Stove Top
- Fry Pan/Skillet
Ingredients
- 4 teaspoons vegetable oil
- 2 teaspoons ginger minced
- 2 tablespoons garlic minced
- 1 cup soy sauce
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup brown sugar packed
- 1 cup vegetable oil for frying *see notes above
- 2 pounds flank steaks
- ½ cup cornstarch
- 3 large green onions
Instructions
- Make the sauce by heating 4 teaspoons of vegetable oil in a medium saucepan over medium/low heat. Don’t get the oil too hot. Add ginger and garlic to the pan.
- Quickly add the soy sauce and water before the garlic scorches. Dissolve the brown sugar in the sauce, then raise the heat to medium and boil the sauce 2-3 minutes or until sauce thickens a little bit. Remove sauce from heat.
- Slice the flank steak against the grain into ¼ inch slices. Tilt the blade of your knife at about a 45 degree angle to the top of the steak so you get wider cuts.
- Dip the steak pieces into cornstarch to apply a very thin dusting to both sides of each piece of beef.
- Let the beef sit about 10 minutes so the cornstarch sticks.
- As the beef sits, heat up 1 cup oil in a wok (or skillet). Heat the oil over medium heat until it's hot, but not smoking. Add the beef to the oil and saute for just 2 minutes, or until beef just begins to darken on the edges. Stir the meat around a little bit so that it cooks evenly.
- After a few minutes, use a large slotted spoon to take the meat out and onto paper towels, then pour most of the oil out of the skillet.
- Put the pan back over the heat, add the meat back into it and stir-fry for 1 more minute. Add the sauce to the pan and stir the meat around in the sauce until it is fully coated.
- Remove the beef from the sauce with a slotted spoon or tongs onto a plate for serving and sprinkle on some sliced green onions. You can discard the sauce (this is what P.F. Chang's does) or save the extra sauce and serve it over rice with the beef.
Video
Notes
- Recipe adapted from Top Secret Recipes
- Mongolian Beef freezes beautifully! I like to freeze it in the sauce, then thaw completely in the refrigerator before heating. Just heat it in a pan on the stove until hot, but not simmering, as you don’t want to risk your meat getting tough.
- For an extra kick of heat, add a pinch of red pepper flakes to the sauce.
Nutrition Information
Recipe adapted from Top Secret Recipes.
Love the recipe and tips given. I will definitely be trying this as Mongolian Beef is one of our restaurant favorites. However as with all your wonderful recipes I am concerned with the nutritional values being a Diabetic 2 individual. Even the barest of nutritional information such as calories and sodium or carb content would be tremendous. Thanks for your Great recipes!!
We would love to provide that information for all of our recipes but with almost 1,000 that would take an incredible amount of time. With just the 3 of us, we simply are unable to do it. You can definitely put our recipes in a recipe calculator like fitbit or livestrong and find that information though!
I loved the recipe but made a couple changes. I added 2 tbsp cornstarch to 3/4 c. Water to add to the sauce as it never thickened. I used my wok for the meat and did it in batches as the whole point is to use less oil.
It was delicious.
Thank you for sharing your tips!
can you please give me the recipe for the dynamite prawn starter that is served at P.F. CHANGS.
We’ll have to work on that – we haven’t done a copycat recipe for that yet. Thanks for asking!
Just reading through the mongolian beef recipe. What is green onions. We have white onions, spring onions or shallots?
In this recipe, you can substitute spring onions for the green onions. Spring onions have a larger bulb and a slightly stronger flavor, but they are similar in flavor, texture, and appearance to green onions. Green onions are also referred to as scallions, if that helps.
I tried this tonight, modified slightly because I have a soy allergy. I used a combo of Coconut Aminos and South River Miso Chickpea Tamari in place of the soy sauce. I also added broccoli because my kids love veggies.
The recipe came out well, although if I make it again I will likely cut the brown sugar in half. Using a full cup made the end result a bit too sweet for me, but the girls loved it.
Mongolian beef!!! I’ve tried it once and fell in love with it!!! Finally there’s a recipe here! But I usually cook tasty meat in a multi cooker (mine is Redmond m90), so I think mongolian beef will taste also awesome, won’t it?
I am not a cook… The recipe does look intimidating but actually is so easy to make… Tastes great… Loved it…
My kids ask for this Mongolian beef all the time – they just asked for this recipe for Christmas Eve. I’m so glad you liked it!
Made it and ate it! So good! My two young boys loved it and my husband, who doesn’t like Asian food, said I could make it anytime. I will use .5c low sodium soy sauce and .5c of regular soy sauce next time though. We don’t eat a whole lot of salt so we could really taste (and feel) it in this one. If we were to put it over rice it may have mellowed it out though. Super good and super easy!
Could you do another meat instead of beef?? (Chicken or lamb)
Wow. This is my favorite dish @ PF Chang’s. My hubby and picky teen daughter loved it.
I used coconut oil, but only about 1/2 of the amount called for. I used leeks instead of green onions, & cooked them down with the garlic & ginger.
This is a KEEPER!
My meat was tough. What happened? Flavor was delicious.
I’m not sure! It may have been overcooked?
You may have cut the pieces too thin or had the oil too hot. That couple minutes frying in the oil is too much for anything thinner that suggested. The oil is supposed to be hot but “hot” is relative. Try lowering your burner by just a smidgen next time.
this was great! i had been trying all kinds of recipes that i found on pinterest and wasn’t too satisfied with them until i came across yours. thanks so much for sharing! i’ll definitely be making it again!
I LOVE Mongolian Beef
how many does this recipe serve? Does it freeze well? I would be making it for one person.
Thanks
It probably serves 3-4. It actually does freeze well!
This is now one of our family staples! A friend of mine recommended it, and we absolutely love it. Thank you! Six thumbs up, from me, my husband, and our toddler!
I made this today for my boyfriend’s birthday. This was Wonderful! Will definitely make this again, I will cut down on the sugar next time a little sweet for me, but the flavor is incredible! I might even add some red pepper flakes to spice it up a little bit. Thanks for sharing this recipe. I love your site!!
Yummy!!!
My family and I will try it at home. We haven’t eaten that before but sure it will be sweet. Thank you for a great work done
Tasted great!!!! Although a bit time consuming but worth it 🙂
Plan on making this tonight…little confused though, I see where you use the 4tablespoons of oil and then 1 cup of oil to fry the beef but where is the 2nd cup of oil used?
Whoops! That is a total typo! Great catch! I will fix it. It should just be 1 cup.. Not 2
Thank you for posting this…I cooked it for dinner but oh my goodness it was too too too salty!! I followed the recipe exactly….I think that 1 cup of soya sauce was just too much. I’m surprised noone else mentioned this. Anyone else have this problem?
I noticed the same thing just now while reading the recipe because though this recipe looks great I’ve never seen so much oil used … Even a cup seems a lot too me… Is this how Mongolian beef is done? It’s almost like deep frying the meat? It looks like everyone liked it:-)
This recipe is delish! I’ve made it several times for my husband and myself. The only change I made was to cut back on the brown sugar, it was a little too sweet for me. I also have not used as much oil as called for in the recipe. I am using a non-stick pan and have only used a couple of tablespoons of oil, compared to the 1 cup called for.
This is really, really easy to prepare and well worth the effort!!!
Thanks for sharing!!
This recipe has become a favorite of my family’s.
I do make one adjustment: I cook it all in one pot. Starting w the sauce, then I add the meat straight to it omitting the 2nd calling of oil.
Thank you!
I made this and when I cooked the beef in the oil all the cornstarch breading stuck to the pan, all of it! I don’t know what I can do for it to come out right, I let the beef sit in the cornstarch for the suggested 10 min. and used enough oil, so I’m not sure what went wrong? Cooked on med. to med. high heat. any suggestions
What kind of pan were you using? I don’t know what to say… That has never happened to me before! It just needs to be very lightly coated
Made this tonight….cornstarch stuck to my pan too then kinda of just made my sauce lumpy and oily…I used a large skillet and cooked my beef in two batches….wasn’t horrible but didn’t taste like my Chinese restaurant either…..