Vegan Mongolian Beef Soy Curls
This vegan mongolian beef uses soy curls to mimic the unctuous crisp and chewy texture of the original dish but has the same sticky sweet and savoury sauce! Perfect for takeout made in your kitchen with a tiny bit of work. So tasty!
Vegan Mongolian Beef with Soy Curls
April 17, 2020 by Lisa Le 55 Comments
This vegan mongolian beef uses soy curls to mimic the unctuous crisp and chewy texture of the original dish but has the same sticky sweet and savoury sauce! Perfect for takeout made in your kitchen with a tiny bit of work. So tasty!
Recently Yamchops sent me some of their premade meals to try (I got some fysh sticks, shepherd’s pie, and mongolian beef) and I got to try something that I hadn’t had in a REALLY long time: mongolian beef! They used soy curls and had this incredible texture that I didn’t understand how they got, because I’ve cooked with soy curls multiple times before but it’s never had that bite to them that resists and also holds onto sauce really well. If I lived closer to Yamchops, I’d probably just get it for takeout or delivery all the time, but since I live out in Hamilton, Yamchops is not quite accessible to me. So for those who have been missing this dish, I did a deep dive into figuring out how to make vegan mongolian beef.
It starts with a protein: traditionally it’s made with beef flank, but obviously we’re not going to do that. There is a type of TVP that is flattened and is kind of a square shape that I think is very similar to the shape of the slices of beef used for this dish, but I don’t really like the texture of that TVP as much as I like soy curls. You could also use tofu, especially double-frozen or single-frozen tofu, tear it up into chunks and squeeze out excess moisture. Or you could use homemade seitan as well, it doesn’t really matter which protein it is, as long as you can dredge it and fry it!
I dredged with a cornstarch base as well as a tapioca starch base, both work exactly the same so use whichever one works best for you.
- Oil for frying 2 inches in a large pot
- 227 grams soy curls a full bag
- 4 cups boiling water or just to cover the soy curls
- 2 ml tbsp mushroom broth powder
- 3/4-1 cup starch or tapioca starch (approx 200-256 g corn)
For the Sauce
- 1/4 cup cup 60 mL soy sauce (I use low-sodium)
- 2 tbsp-30-g brown sugar
- 1/3 cup 60 ml water
- 2 tbsp -16 g cornstarch
- 2 tbsp dark soy sauce
- 2 tsp -10 mL chili flakes (go to 1-2 tbsp if you ( if you like it really spicy))
- 2 tbsp -30 mL vegetable oil
- 1-2 inches 30-g ginger finely minced
- 4-5 cloves garlic finely minced
- 3 3 sprigs green onions greens cut into 1-inch segments (whites not used for this recipe, but you can put them in water to grow them)
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1. To Fry The Soy Curls
2. Preheat your oil in a large wok or pot to 350F (I bring it up toa 6 on my stove) .
3. In a large bowl, rehydrate the soy curls in boiling water +mushroom broth powder (or just veggie broth if you have that). Let rehydratefor 5-10 minutes, then squeeze as much water out of it as you can.
4. Dredge the rehydrated soy curls in cornstarch until coated well,shake off any excess and fry in the oil until crispy. Fry in small batches soyou don’t overcrowd the oil and bring down the temperature too quickly(otherwise you’ll fry for too long and it’ll be really oily). Gently stir thesoy curls in the oil while cooking to turn and cook them evenly, and remove tolet drain on a wire rack or paper towel once golden and crisp. Repeat inbatches until all soy curls are cooked.
5. To make the dish
6. Prepare the sauce by combining soy sauce, brown sugar, dark soysauce, cornstarch, water, and chili flakes in a bowl. Stir well to combine andtry to dissolve most of the sugar. Set aside.
7. Using either the same wok (removing all but 2 tbsp of oil) or inanother pan with oil, and frying ginger for about 2 minutes until fragrant. Addthe garlic and fry for another minute. Add the sauce mixture to the pan andstir constantly to cook through. Let the mixture come to a bubble and thickenfor about a minute.
8. Add the fried soy curls to the sauce and stir well to coat. Itmight not look like the sauce is enough to coat everything, but as the soycurls soften slightly with the sauce, the sauce should be able to coat all thesoy curls. As soon as everything is coated, add the green onions and stir tocook the greens through.
9. Serve and enjoy! I like eating this with some rice and somestir-fried garlicky greens 😀 You can top with toasted sesame seeds for alittle extra nuttiness too!
If you’re opposed to frying, you could bake the soy curls instead until they’re crisp, they just won’t be the same level of crispy. It’ll still be tasty but not quite the same. If you don’t want to fry or bake that crispiness at all, you could omit the cornstarch step altogether and just add the soy curls directly to the sauce, but it will be very soft. Still tasty, but the texture won’t be the same (and the texture is kind of what makes this dish so wildly good).