Crockpot Mongolian Beef
My family loves Asian-inspired food. We don’t have many takeout places close to where we live, so when I find an easy recipe (especially when it is made in the crock pot), I jump on it. I knew this recipe would be a hit even before I made it. It doesn’t require any cooking on preparation day, just throw a few ingredients in a bag, and that’s it! It smells sooooo good while it’s cooking, and looks like you spent all day slaving over the stove! By the time the steak was finished cooking, it was fall-apart tender. This Mongolian Beef has a sweet/salty taste, and both of my kids loved it! I served this over rice and cut up a couple of extra green onions to sprinkle on top.
Crockpot Mongolian Beef
Author/Source:
Heather @ Onceamonthmom.com; adapted from Let’s Get Crockin
Ingredients:
- 1.5 pounds beef flank steak, cut into stir fry sized strips
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 0.5 teaspoons minced ginger
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 0.75 cup soy sauce
- 0.75 cup water
- 0.75 cup brown sugar
- 0.25 cup cornstarch
- 0.5 cup shredded carrots
- 3 medium green onions, chopped
Directions:
Coat flank steak pieces in cornstarch. Add remainder of ingredients to crockpot and stir well to combine. Place flank steak into the crockpot and cook on high for 2-3 hours or on low for 4-5 hours. Serve over rice or noodles, if desired.
Freezing Directions:
Coat flank steak in cornstarch. Combine remaining ingredients and place in freezer bag. Add steak to bag. Label and freeze, To serve: Thaw. Cook in crockpot on high for 2-3 hours or low for 4-5 hours.
Servings: 4
**conversion chart image provided by Erik Spiekermann
This Post will be linked at:
- Friday Favorites at Simply Sweet Home’s
-
Foodie Friday at Designs by Gollum
-
Friday Potluck at EKat’s Kitchen
-
Grocery Cart Challenge at Grocery Cart Challenge
- I’m Lovin’ It at Tidy Mom
What would you suggest as the cooking time FROM frozen? I like this recipe, but it seems a little impractical to have the pot cook for only 5 hours max. Any thoughts?
We don’t recommend cooking from frozen but I would imagine it would be around 8 hours.
This recipe is awesome!!
In the crock pot, it only took about 2 hours on high for 1 1/2 lbs of flank steak.
I actually made another recipe using the sauce recipe (only half of the amount) to make stir fried chicken in my wok. I sliced and dredged the chicken just like you would the beef, I mixed the ingredients to make the sauce in my wok on med-high and then I put the chicken in and cooked on high for about 5 minutes. I mixed in some fresh broccoli, carrots and pea pods that I had pre-steamed in the microwave. Serve over rice, or in lettuce wraps. My family loved it. I don’t care for ginger, so I left that out of both recipes.
This looks delicious! Just to clarify, you coat the raw meat and then just place it on top of the rest of the (stirred up) ingredients, but don’t stir it all together right?
Caren, I stirred it up in the crock pot just to evenly distribute everything.
Making this tonight- on batch to eat, one batch to freeze :-)
Hi, would it hurt this to cook it longer?
My crockpot as set settings (Low – 8 and 10 hours) and High (4 and 6 hours) then moves to warm.
If I wasn’t home, I’d have to cook it on high 4 hours and it warm a big chunk of the day or cook 8 hours on low.
Would either work for this and which would be better?
Thanks!
No, April, I don’t think it would hurt at all to cook it longer. I’d probably cook it on low for the longer amount of time.
Can dried ginger be substituted for fresh without it taking too much away from the dish? I dont use fresh ginger and for such a small amount it seems like a waste of $ to go buy it…
Yes, it can, I have done that on many an occasion.
Molly – I frequently use prepared ginger in a tube from the grocery store. It’s a ginger paste and, in my store, you can find it in the refrigerated part of the produce section. Hope that helps!
I’ve heard that fresh ginger freezes well. Just use what you need, and freeze the rest for next time.
Fresh ginger freezes WONDERFULLY! I simply peel the ginger and wrap it in plastic wrap. I then put the wrapped hunks (as it inevitably breaks during peeling) into a plastic bag in the freezer. When you need to use it there’s no need to thaw. Simply grate the ginger with a fine grater and use just like you would fresh. The flavor is amazing and it’s easy to keep “fresh” ginger on hand all the time. (Besides, fresh ginger is so cheap for the flavor bang you get.)
[...] 1 pack of Mongolian Beef [...]
Does the green onion go into the crock pot or just sprinkled on top when serving? The photo does not look like onions cooked in a slow cooker for 4 hours. Thanks.
The green onions are cooked in the crock pot, and I cut up a couple of extra to sprinkle on top for added color and flavor.
Made this today, it was good, but a little sweet to me. I might try and add some spice and Chinese peppers next time :)
Can you make this without a crock pot? You have some great meals here but I don’t have a crock pot and I don’t want to shell out for one
Hi Rachel, yes, I think you could make this without a crock pot. I think I’d brown the meat in a Dutch oven, prepare the rest as directed, maybe decreasing the liquid a bit. I’d bring it to a boil and cook it the rest of the way in the oven. It will need to cook a while so that the meat becomes tender.
There was a place in my home town that made the best Mongollian Beef! They served it over cellophane noodles, which was really different at the time(1980s).Every other place I’ve tried, the dish was way too hot & spicy for me to eat & the recipes I’ve seen look the same. This looks really good, simple & something my kids would probably even eat. Thanks!
Oope, I meant beeF – not watching what I’m doing!
Is this one meal? :) (or something like 4 servings?) looks awesome:)!
As the recipe states, it serves 4.
I made this last weekend and it turned out incredible! My boyfriend and I love PF Chang’s Mongolian Beef, but this is better! It was super easy to make. The only thing I changed is that I used the low sodium soy sauce. We’ve got to watch out salt intake! This will definitely be made again and again and again…
Is there a cut of beef besides Flank Steak that would work and taste as well? Where I live Flank steak is hard to find and expensive when you do.
I have made this and I think that sirloin steak would be just fine for this. Maybe a flat iron steak if you can find that but that is rare too. Hope that helps.
I used round steak because it was a cheaper option and it was wonderful.
Oh good idea, Allie! Thanks for letting us know that it worked!
I decided to use chuck steak and chuck roast, as it is less expensive and happened to be on sale when I made this. To get the “poundage” that I needed, I got one small roast and one small steak and just sliced it into small fajita pieces. It was awesome! My husband and kids loved it : )
Can i do this with chicken breasts?
Sure! Just substitute chicken in equal parts for the indicated beef.
I made this last night and it was fantastic! I will definitely be making it again!
I made this for dinner last night and served it with garlic mashed potato. My family really liked it. Husband thought it was too sweet for him so I’ll probably cut back on the sugar next time. Otherwise everyone else enjoyed it including my 22 month old grandaughter.
I have this in the crock pot now and it smells amazing! Just make sure you don’t overcoat the meat in cornstarch though. My hubby was helping me this morning and I asked him to toss the meat in cornstarch while I did the rest of the prep and he went a little overboard. We have a very gelatinous sauce now. Still tasty, but it doesn’t look so good.
Made this for dinner last night. Holy sodium, Batman! Next time I’ll use low sodium soy sauce because that’s all that I could taste & the kids refused to eat anymore after the first bite.
I’m sorry that was your experience, Angie. I don’t remember it being overly salty, but I always buy low-sodium soy sauce as a rule. I hope you try it again and love it!
I plan on giving it another try because, despite the saltiness, I can tell that it will taste great with low sodium soy. Just wanted to give everyone a heads up who, like me, have regular soy.
Sorry…Im a little confused. I want to make this to freeze. so do i cook it in crockpot first then freeze then thaw and cook in crock pot again??? Forgive me…Im a newby.
No, April – you can freeze it before you put it in the crockpot. Just assemble like it says in the freezing directions.
We make this weekly .
made this tonight – big hit! I added some sliced red peppers in addition to the carrots – served over brown rice & broccoli. I might add some siracha or red pepper flakes next time, thought it needed a kick, but delicious as is!
Thanks for posting this, we made it tonight. YUM! But next time i may add some red pepper and less brown sugar, only because we prefer more spice than sweet! Thanks again :)
[...] cred: onceamonthmom.com Monday – Slow Cooker Crock Pot Mongolian Beef Steamed Sugar Snap Peas Brown Rice (make double rice for Thursday’s meal) Tuesday [...]
[...] Crock Pot Mongolian BeefSteamed (or roasted) BroccoliWhite Rice [...]
This was WONDERFUL!! I only had 5 ounces of soy sauce, so I did the same amount of water. I added some thinly-sliced sweet red pepper during the last hour of cooking and it was wonderful. I will be adding this to our rotation!!
This is a staple in my freezer. I make a new patch every couple months and my family never tires of it. Thanks for the share!
[...] Mongolian Beef Meg’s tip: This dish has a lot of potential, the sauce was delicious but I suggest cooking for half the time suggested. We cooked it on low for about ⅔ of the time stated in recipe and it was so overcooked we couldn’t eat the meat. The short cooking time kind of defeats the purpose of preparing for the freezer and slow cooking so we probably won’t repeat this recipe. We served this with rice. [...]
[...] Crockpot Mongolian Beef [...]
Just to clarify, the 1/4 cornstarch is only for tossing the beef? Or is it 1/4 c cornstarch in the sauce (and as required to coat the beef)?
Thanks!
Yes, Lauri, it’s just for tossing with the meat.
[...] {recipe adapted from OAMC} [...]
Delicious and so easy to prepare!! The only change I made was to cut the sugar back from 3/4 cup to 1/4 cup because 3/4 seemed excessive for a recipe that only has four servings. Next time I will probably add more carrots and maybe some sliced red pepper as some previous posters suggested.
[...] from Onceamonthmom.com; adapted from Let’s Get [...]