P.F. Chang’s Mongolian Beef (Copycat)
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Why eat out when you can make this copycat P.F. Chang’s Mongolian Beef recipe: tender and juicy strips of beef cooked in a sweet/salty/tangy/garlicky rich sauce you won’t be able to get enough of!
For more delicious Asian-inspired meals, try my recipes for 30-Minute Shrimp Pad Thai, Sticky Asian Grilled Chicken, and Slow Cooker Broccoli Beef.
I love getting my Asian food fix without touching a single foldable take-out box or trading my slippers for shoes. If you’ve even been to P.F. Chang’s you know that it’s so worth it to give up the slippers, but if you’re not feeling up for a car ride and just need that tender, juicy Mongolian Beef pronto, I’ve got you covered! This recipe was so easy and so crazy delicious! If you haven’t tried P.F. Chang’s Mongolian Beef, give it a go tonight with this simple copycat recipe.
Why This Recipe Works
Easy – It might be no easy feat to get your family in the car and keep them entertained at a nice restaurant just to satisfy your cravings. But it IS easy to make this PF Chang’s copycat recipe! Just marinate the beef overnight and make the sauce and cook it in 35 quick minutes for dinner!
Pantry ingredients – You can make this finger-licking-good sauce with simple pantry ingredients like soy sauce, garlic, ginger, toasted sesame oil, oil, brown sugar, corn starch, and water.
The sauce – I’ve already mentioned how much I love this sauce and eat it on way more than just this Mongolian beef recipe. The ingredient quantities I list make way more than you need. So you’ll actually have too much of a good thing, which is a good thing if you enjoy this sauce as much as I do! Use the leftovers for a salad dressing, for dip, for a sauce over other Asian-inspired recipes, you name it!
Great for leftovers – Not only will you have leftover sauce, but if you have any of that beef left over, it makes great protein for salads, wraps, over noodles, or even Asian-inspired tacos.
Here’s How You Make It
Marinate the Beef
- Put all the marinade ingredients together in a small bowl and then mix them till combined.
- Pour the marinade into a Ziplock bag. Add the beef strips, seal, and put in the fridge overnight. When you’re ready to cook, drain the marinade and set the beef aside.
Make the Sauce
- Combine the sauce ingredients in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir until the brown sugar dissolves.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the cornstarch and water until the cornstarch dissolves and you have created a slurry.
- Bring the sauce to a boil, reduce to medium-high heat, stir in the slurry.
- Let the sauce thicken slightly and take off the heat.
Cooking the Beef and Putting it Together
- Brown the beef strips over medium-high heat till they are cooked through, about 5-8 minutes. Turn them once in a while to get them cooked evenly on all sides. Turn the heat to medium.
- Add the sauce to your own personal taste (saucier or drier – you decide). Stir the sauce with the beef and let it cook 1-2 minutes longer.
- Serve the Mongolian beef and sauce over rice with green onions and sesame seeds as a garnish if you like.
Customizations
- I like to serve this PF Chang’s Mongolian beef recipe over white rice, but you could also use brown rice; soba, udon, or ramen noodles; wide egg noodles; or another pasta you like.
- I love to add steamed broccoli to this Mongolian beef recipe. Steam it on the side and add it to the beef when you add the sauce and stir for a couple minutes. Perfection!
- For a low-carb meal, serve this beef with a veggie of your choice over cauliflower rice, zucchini noodles, or spaghetti squash.
This Mongolian beef could also easily turn into a chicken or pork dish. Use boneless, skinless chicken breasts or pork tenderloin sliced into strips and cook as directed.
Expert Tips
- The sauce makes more than enough for this PF Chang’s copycat recipe. If you want less, halve the recipe, but for more double it. I think you’ll find that making it as directed the first time is perfect (enough for the recipe, plus some to snack on later). And maybe the subsequent times you make this Mongolian beef, you’ll want to double it.
- I purchase flank steak or stir-fry beef strips already cut in the meat department, but you can purchase whole steak and cut it into strips yourself. I recommend about 1-inch strips for uniformity and even cooking.
- Any leftover Mongolian beef will keep in the fridge for up to 4 days. Sauce will keep in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks.
More Asian-Inspired Dishes You’ll Love
- Grilled Tri-Tip with Tiger Sauce
- Mandarin Spinach Salad with Teriyaki Dressing
- Best Teriyaki Sauce (Ever!)
- Chickpea Curry
- Sticky Sesame Chicken
Did you make this copycat P.F. Chang’s Mongolian Beef recipe? YAY! Please rate the recipe below!
P.F. Chang’s Mongolian Beef (Copycat)
Ingredients
- 1-2 pounds beef, cut into strips, (suggestion: flank steak or stir fry beef strips)
- 4 green onions, chopped
Marinade
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1 tablespoon corn starch
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon rice vinegar
- 2 tablespoons oil
Sauce
- 4 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
- 1 ½ teaspoons ground ginger
- 2 tablespoons minced garlic
- 1 cup soy sauce
- 1 cup water
- 1 ⅔ cup brown sugar
- 3 tablespoons cold water
- 1 ½ tablespoons corn starch
- sesame seeds, rice for serving
Instructions
- Combine all marinade ingredients in a small bowl and whisk until combined. Pour into a zip-lock back with beef strips, seal and chill 1 hour or overnight. Drain marinade from zip-lock and set beef aside.
- To make the sauce, in a medium sauce pan whisk together toasted sesame oil, ginger, garlic, soy sauce, water, and brown sugar. Stir and heat over medium high heat until brown sugar has dissolved.
- While sauce is cooking, whisk together corn starch and water in a small bowl until corn starch is dissolved.
- Bring sauce to a boil, then reduce heat to medium low and stir in corn starch-water mixture. Allow sauce to thicken slightly, then remove from heat.
- In a large pan or skillet, cook beef strips over medium high heat until cooked through (5-8 mins) turning strips over throughout to ensure even cooking, reduce heat to medium.
- Add 1/2-1 cup of sauce (depending on how "saucy" you want your beef). Stir and cook 1-2 minutes longer.
- Serve over rice with green onions and sesame seeds if desired. Enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
When boiling how long do you reduce the sauce for or by which amount? About a 1/4
Rather than having a fixed amount of time, you just want to thicken the sauce slightly after adding the slurry, then take it off the heat. For a specific amount of time, however, it’ll probably be 1-2 minutes or so. It’s ready when it lightly coats the back of a spoon. Hope this helps 🙂
Did not appear that I had enough corn starch in my mix. The dish was delish and my family loved it. I’ll do it again, and the boys ate it so fast, they had NO concerns with the sauce being a little thin.
This was fantastic, though I made one minor addition. Was about a 1/2 TBLSP shy of garlic, so I added a TBLSP of Garlic Chili paste for the sauce. YUM!
Hi there! I have made this recipe and we love it! I want to make it for an engagement dinner (50 people) so I’d need to make as much ahead as possible. Is it possible to make this and store overnight and warm it up in the ovens the next day? It’s only one of the four proteins I’m serving so I need to be very organized!!
Yes, that should be just fine! Hope it all turns out well 🙂