Taiwanese beef noodle soup (Niu Rou Mien)

Taiwanese beef noodle soup – Comforting beef noodle soup packed with umami flavor and incredibly tender beef pieces will conquer any freezing weather coming your way. Recipe for Instant Pot and stove-top included.

The part that I love about picking up my daughter from school is when I see her walking towards the car with her ear-to-ear grin. I know something (good) is going on. Two days ago, she wore that sweetest smile on her face. I opened up the car door and told me “Mama, I can’t wait to show you what I make for you for Christmas” Aww…!!! My heart melted!! She couldn’t wait to get home and to have me open the handmade gift. I asked her if we should wait until Christmas and she said “I won’t be able to sleep at night thinking about it!” LOL. Okay…I don’t need a sleepless child!

We got home and she sat me down and handed me a bag stuffed with colorful tissue paper. I carefully unwrapped the gift that is also wrapped in white tissue paper. She was squealing with joy when I was about to unravel the gift! (oh…priceless expression). It was a handmade coaster! With the photo of her cute face on it!!
“Do you like it mama? Do you?”
I said “I don’t like it. I LOVE IT!”
“I’m sooooo happy you like it mama”

She later told me “Mom, it feels so good to give something to somebody. It makes me happy”. I couldn’t be happier to hear her say that. I have to agree with her that it does feel so good to be able to make someone happy! I’ve told my kids before that Christmas is not just about getting gifts, but it’s even better if we can give and help out others in need! Perhaps they were still too young to understand that. Well, my 4 year old still doesn’t understand that concept, but I’m glad my 7 year old experienced the joy of giving!

Anyway, sorry to bore you with a little Christmas story of mine. I just thought it’s precious! Now..onto the food. This Taiwanese beef noodle soup is one of my most favorite food since college time. I remember this one small Taiwanese eatery near campus that served REALLY good Taiwanese food. My sister and I often went there for lunch or dinner.
The Taiwanese takes great pride in their beef noodle soup, and they should. I’ve been tinkering with the recipes and trying to come up with the one that is not too complicated to make but yet still have that authentic taste to it. I think I’ve found a keeper. So, you would ask what so special about this beef noodle soup ? The beef noodle soup is flavored with great aromas from star anise, bay leaves, ginger and seasonings that are commonly used in Chinese cooking such as dou ban jiang or known as broad bean paste and the Taiwanese BBQ sauce. These last two seasonings to me really make the soup base! Without these two, I’d say don’t even bother to make it. I’m serious ! Another special thing about this noodle is, it is usually eaten with pickled Asian mustard greens.

So, there you have it…savory, somewhat spicy, slightly tangy with a hint of sweetness. I usually just bought a canned pickled mustard greens. I would definitely not eat this noodle without the pickled mustard greens. All in all, give your taste buds some chance. If you don’t like it spicy, you can always adjust the seasonings. I like it the way it is but we all have a different preference and there’s nothing carved in stone when it comes to cooking. Experiment with it and you might find yourself crazy about this Taiwanese beef noodle soup! who knows! 😉

I’ve tried cooking on stove-top and pressure-cooked in Instant pot and I like the pressure-cooked beef so much better. So tender but still very flavorful. I can tell the difference with when I cooked it on stove-top!

Taiwanese beef noodle soup (Niu Rou Mien)

Marvellina

5 from 3 reviews

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Prep 20 minutes mins

Cook 1 hour hr

Total 1 hour hr 20 minutes mins

Servings: 6 servings

Ingredients Method Nutrition Notes

Ingredients

  

1x2x3x?

Soup base:

• 3 lbs beef shank/shin cut into large chunks, don’t cut too small or they will break into small pieces
• Cooking oil
• 3 tsp brown sugar
• 1 large onion peeled and halved
• 8 stalks of green onions remove roots and halved
• 3- inch knob of ginger
• 2 star anise
• 4 fresh bay leaves or 6 dried bay leaves
• 4 cups water
• 1 cup store-bought low-sodium beef broth
• 2 Tbsp rice vinegar
• 1 lb of Asian noodles of your choice flat rice noodles, thick wheat noodles, or linguine/fettucine is a good choice too

Seasonings:

• 3 Tbsp dou ban jiang Chinese broad bean paste
• 2 Tbsp Taiwan BBQ Sauce Sha Cha jiang
• 2 Tbsp tomato paste
• 1 cup of Chinese rice wine

Garnishes:

• 2 stalks of green onion finely chopped
• 2 cups Pickled Asian mustard greens roughly chopped

Method

 

1. *Recipe is written for 6-quart Instant Pot. Cooking time should remain the same for 8-quart size but will take longer to pressurize. For mini duo (3-quart), I suggest to half the recipe and use the same amount of time to cook*

Preparing base stock and the noodle soup for both Instant pot and stove-top method:

1. For Instant Pot user, you can use the saute mode and brown the beef in the pot, but I prefer to brown the meat with cast iron skillet. Preheat dutch oven or any heavy-bottom pot. Separate the beef into three batches. Add in 1 Tbsp of oil and put in first batch of the beef and let it brown on all sides. Do not overcrowd the pot or the beef will not brown nicely. Repeat until you are done browning all the beef. Place the beef in a large platter and set aside for now
2. Place the onion (cut-side down) on the open fire on stove-top. If your stove is electric, you can char the onion in the oven. Add another 1 Tbsp of cooking oil into the pot you use to brown the beef earlier. Add in the charred onions, green onion stalks, ginger, star anise, fresh bay leaves and stir fry until you smell nice aromas, about 5 minutes. Add in the seasoning ingredients and stir fry for another 2 minutes

Continuing cooking on stove-top:

1. Add the browned beef into the pot and stir to mix everything. Pour in water, beef broth, and rice vinegar. Bring back to boil and once it boils, lower the heat, cover the pot and let it cook for the next 1 1/2 – 2 hours or until the short ribs are tender and you can easily pull it apart with fork. I actually need almost 3 hours to get to this point. So, observe yours
2. Once the beef is ready, carefully pick the beef out from the pot and place them back on the platter. Strain the soup base into another clean pot and discard the rest of the solid. Adjust taste by adding more salt if needed

Pressure cook with Instant Pot:

1. Transfer all the thing you have just sauteed into the pot followed by the browned beef pieces. Pour in water, beef broth, rice vinegar. Close the lid and press pressure cook, high pressure and set timer to 30 minutes (tender) or up to 40 minutes for really tender beef. Wait 10 minutes and then release pressure
2. Once the beef is ready, carefully pick the beef out from the pot and place them back on the platter. Strain the soup base into another clean pot and discard the rest of the solid. Adjust taste by adding more salt if needed

Serving:

1. When ready to serve, cook the noodles of your choice to al dente. Rinse the noodle with water, portion it out into serving bowl. Add pieces of beef, pickled mustard greens and ladle the broth over the noodles generously. Topped with some green onions and tuck in !

*Nutrition facts are just estimates and calculated using online tools*

Serving: 1serving | Calories: 586kcal | Carbohydrates: 79g | Protein: 35g | Fat: 8g | Saturated Fat: 2g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 4g | Trans Fat: 0.01g | Cholesterol: 53mg | Sodium: 768mg | Potassium: 924mg | Fiber: 4g | Sugar: 7g | Vitamin A: 312IU | Vitamin C: 15mg | Calcium: 91mg | Iron: 5mg

Notes

1. You may try to use brisket cut into large chunks instead of beef shank too. We prefer shank.
2. Both dou ban jiang and Taiwanese BBQ sauce can be easily found at most Asian grocery store.

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