Chinese 5-Spice Stewed Beef
This Paleo Chinese 5-Spice Beef is made with fall apart tender beef smothered in Asian flavours including ginger, onion, coconut aminos and Chinese 5-Spice to create a thick and flavourful sauce that completely coats the chunks of beef. This beef freezes well and is delicious served on cauliflower rice. It’s Whole30, Paleo, Dairy Free, Gluten Free, Grain Free, and Specific Carbohydrate Diet Legal.
I am completely addicted to stewed Paleo Chinese 5-Spice Beef at the moment. There is just something about the ease at which it can be prepared, the melt in your mouth meat and rich flavours that keeps me on the hunt for new and creative ways to prepare it. This is an incredibly easy dish to prepare so hands on prep is under 10 minutes, then you just put everything in a pot or slow cooker and forget about it for 2 hours. I like doubling the recipe so there are enough leftovers to last a few days, the meat becomes even more tender and tastes richer a day or two after cooking, so you can store it in the freezer for a few months without having to worry about losing flavour.
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Chinese 5-Spice Stewed Beef
Ingredients
- 1/2 tbsp oil
- 2 pounds cubed beef (chuck roast works well)
- 2 cloves garlic crushed
- 3 tbsp fresh grated ginger
- 1 onion finely diced
- 1 tsp Chinese 5-Spice
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1 tbsp honey (sub for 1 medjool date for Whole30)*
- 2 tbsp coconut aminos (or tamari/soy sauce)
- 2 1/2 cups beef stock
- 2 tbsp chopped scallions
- 1/2 tbsp sesame seeds
Instructions
- Heat the oil in a pot on medium heat. Add in the cubed beef and sear on all sides. Once the beef is evenly browned, transfer it to a plate. Add in the garlic, ginger and diced onion and sauté for 4-5 minutes until the onions soften and become translucent.
- Add in the Chinese 5-Spice, black pepper, honey, coconut aminos and beef stock and stir before returning the cubed beef to the pot. Lower the heat to low, place a lid on the pot and allow to cook and a gentle simmer for 1 1/2 hours.
- After an hour and a half remove the lid and turn the heat up to medium high. Leave to cook, stirring frequently until the sauce has reduce to a thick consistency. Serve the beef topped with chopped scallions and sesame seeds.
Notes
Nutrition
Just tried this receipt yesterday and it was very good. The only change I made to the receipe is not reducing the sauce to a very thick consistency. I preferred it to have a thinner sauce.
So onoliscious. I pressure cooked for 30 minutes in the instant pot after searing the meat & cooking the onions, garlic & ginger. Served over rice. YUM!
I love your recipes!!! This roast is exactly the same as my mother used to make and sooo good. The only thing I leave out is the tomato paste (personal taste) She made stew very similarly and added celery and carrots and additional tomato paste.
Made this last night and it was absolutely delicious! Will be saving this to add into my rotation! Thank you so much!
The sauce never thickened up (I double-checked all ingredients and quantities). During cooking, I thought, “let’s have back-up plan” as the 5-spice aroma was just not appealing to me with the beef and I thought I’d end up scrapping the whole thing. We did end up eating it (I added a little thickener so that the sauce wasn’t purely liquid) and it wasn’t bad. Can’t say I’ll make it again, but it wasn’t bad.
Do you drain the pan after the meat is removed prior to cooking the onion, garlic and ginger?
No i recommend leaving it in to cook the other ingredients
This recipe looks great. I can’t wait to try it. Do you think this could be made in an instapot?
Hi, which beef stock or any stock do you use? I’m SCD/Paleo based in Ireland and I have searched high and low for legal stock and have yet to come across one. Thanks for the great recipes!
What kind of beef do you use for this?
I find that chuck roast works best but any kind of stewing beef works well for this recipe.
This recipe is delicious! The sauce is unusual, rich, sweet and tangy, and even better the next day. I could not help taking a few bites of cold left over straight out of the fridge a day later! It’s a nice alternative to my usual boeuf bourguignon. Thank you!
I agree! The beef seems to get more tender and the sauce more flavourful the next day. I’m so happy to hear you enjoyed this!
Just made this recipe. I found that to thicken it up, that i cooked it with the lid on for 1 hour and 20 minutes and then 40 minutes with the lid off on Medium low. Aside from that. Super tasty. Hubby finished it all. As in no leftovers. That’s my review right there.
Thanks for the info Rimma! I have updated the cooking instructions and included information about thickening the sauce by removing the lid which will hopefully help others. No leftovers is always disappointing but a very good sign! 🙂
I love your recipes! I made this recipe tonight, and it tastes amazing. However, I don’t know what I did wrong because the sauce did not thicken up. I’ve read the instructions probably 10 times to see if I missed something, and I can’t figure it out haha. Any ideas? Also, what kind of beef did you use? I used sirloin steak cubed. Again, it tasted wonderful, but it didn’t look at all like yours and the sauce was not thick at all. I added cornstarch to it to thicken it up as much as I could. Thank you for all these great recipes!
I am so sorry to hear that, I wonder what happened!?! I am going to remake the recipe this weekend to ensure its all written out ok. My guess is that maybe there is too much beef stock? Ill let you know what happens! For the beef I just used pre diced stewing beef.
I love chinese food (but not MSG!), have used this as a healthy saturday night ‘takeaway’ dinner a few times – really really tasty. and just a bit saucy as well!