Bok Choy With Chives, Black Bean Sauce, and Chow Fun Recipe (2024)

  • Chinese
  • Vegan Mains
  • Vegetarian Mains
  • Stir-Fry Noodles
  • Vegetable Stir-Fry

Vegetables and sauce take the spotlight, while noodles add a bit of textural and flavor contrast.

By

J. Kenji López-Alt

Bok Choy With Chives, Black Bean Sauce, and Chow Fun Recipe (1)

J. Kenji López-Alt

Culinary Consultant

Kenji is the former culinary director for Serious Eats and a current culinary consultant for the site. He is also a New York Times food columnist and the author of The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science.

Learn about Serious Eats'Editorial Process

Updated January 23, 2024

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Bok Choy With Chives, Black Bean Sauce, and Chow Fun Recipe (2)

Why It Works

  • Cutting back on the noodles and adding more vegetables makes for a more nutritionally balanced vegan dish.
  • The noodles are great for a bit of textural and flavor contrast.

Back in 2007,Mark Bittmanwrote what I thought was one of the more brilliant columns of The Minimalist inThe New York Times. Every good Italian cook knows that a bowl of pasta is mainly about the pasta; the sauce is merely there to accent it. His simple idea?Who cares what Italian tradition says: reverse the ratios and make your dishfocus on the sauce and vegetables, using pasta as a tasty, textural accent, not the centerpiece of the recipe.

It's a really good idea for anyone—even omnivores—but as a vegan, I've found it to be a total life-saver when planning meals. Could thatpasta with braised broccoli and tomatoI made be better as braised broccoli and tomatoeswithpasta? Indeed it is.

The other day, I stir-fried some chow fun noodles in the office and served them with a bit of scallion and a black bean sauce. As I was eating, I thought to myself: Why not apply Bittman's trick to other cuisines?

Once I'd broken that psychological barrier, I found myself experimenting. A mapo tofu-inspired dish of simmered soft tofu with chiles and flowering chives should have been served daintily scooped along with a big bowl of white rice to dilute its intense flavor. Instead, I decided to tone down the flavor a bit, add some extra tofu and vegetables, and serve it with just a tiny bit of rice on the side.

Dry-fried chow fun is one of my favorite foods in the world (exhibit a) but at its core, it's essentially a huge pile of refined carbs. As a meat eater, that's fine. I've got meat as a concentrated source of protein, and perhaps a pile of steamed dark green vegetables on the side. As a vegan, Ineedto pack more fresh vegetables into my meals if I want to make sure to stay balanced.

The solution?Cut way back on the noodles and add a whole slew of vegetables.That's exactly what I did here. Instead of noodles, the base of the dish is stir-fried bok choy (cooked in a super-heated cast iron wok to get some nice, smokywok heiinto it) along with flowering chives, Chinese chives, and leeks in a savory fermented black bean and soy-based sauce. The noodles are still great—perfect for adding a bit of textural and flavor contrast—but now their ratio is more akin to the marshmallows in the Rice Krispies.

I know that I'm going to be playing around with this method a lot more in days to come, and I'd encourage anyone who cooks a carb-with-sauce-based meal to try it out. You may find it to be surprisingly delicious.

January 2012

Recipe Details

Bok Choy With Chives, Black Bean Sauce, and Chow Fun Recipe

Prep5 mins

Cook10 mins

Active15 mins

Total15 mins

Serves4 servings

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup Shaoxing wine or dry sherry

  • 3 tablespoons dark soy sauce

  • 2 tablespoons fermented black bean sauce (or 3 tablespoons whole fermented black beans, mashed with the back of a fork)

  • 1/2 pound fresh chow fun noodles

  • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil

  • 1 1/2 pounds bok choy(about 1 medium head), cut into rough 2-inch lengths (about 4 quarts packed pieces)

  • 1/4 pound Chinese chives or scallions, cut into 2-inch lengths

  • 1 large leek, quartered lengthwise and cut into 1-inch lengths

  • 2 cups mung bean sprouts

Directions

  1. Combine Shaoxing wine, soy sauce, and black beans in a small bowl and stir. Set aside. If noodles are cold, transfer to a microwave-safe bowl and microwave under high power for 1 minute.

  2. Heat 1 tablespoon oil over high heat in a large wok until smoking heavily. Add bok choy and toss to coat in oil. Cook, stirring and tossing occasionally, until bok choy is charred in spots, bright green, and tender-crisp, about 2 minutes total. Transfer cooked bok choy to a bowl and wipe out wok with a paper towel.

  3. Add remaining tablespoon oil to wok and heat over high heat until heavily smoking. Add chives and leeks and cook, stirring and tossing occasionally, until charred in spots, about 1 minute. Add bean sprouts, noodles, bok choy, and sauce. Cook, carefully flipping and turning until noodles and vegetables are evenly coated in sauce. Transfer to a large serving platter and serve immediately.

Special Equipment

Wok

Notes

You need a supply of fresh steamed rice noodles for this recipe. Check your local Chinatown or a good Asian grocery. Steamed rice noodles need to be used the day they are made. Do not refrigerate them or they will become brittle/stale very rapidly. If you can't find chow fun noodles, any cooked vegan Chinese noodle will work.

Read More

  • The Best Vegan Mapo Tofu
  • Vegan Dan Dan Noodles
Nutrition Facts (per serving)
285Calories
10g Fat
35g Carbs
12g Protein

×

Nutrition Facts
Servings: 4
Amount per serving
Calories285
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 10g13%
Saturated Fat 1g5%
Cholesterol 6mg2%
Sodium 1379mg60%
Total Carbohydrate 35g13%
Dietary Fiber 6g20%
Total Sugars 5g
Protein 12g
Vitamin C 59mg296%
Calcium 219mg17%
Iron 4mg24%
Potassium 1029mg22%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.

(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)

Bok Choy With Chives, Black Bean Sauce, and Chow Fun Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Do you have to blanch bok choy before frying? ›

The main difference is that that recipe relied on tender greens that were briefly stir-fried. When dealing with heartier greens like bok choy or broccoli, you have to blanch them before stir-frying them so that they have a chance to tenderize properly. Other than that, the process is nearly identical.

What is vegetable chow fun made of? ›

Vegetable Chow Fun, A Vegetarian's Delight. This vegetable chow fun uses eggplant, lightly fried to give the dish a richer texture and shiitake mushrooms rounding out the umami flavors. Use vegetarian oyster sauce yet in this vegetable chow fun and it is a vegan and vegetarian dish!

What is the difference between baby bok choy and bok choy tips? ›

Bok Choy VS.

They are older and taste a bit tougher but crisp enough to enjoy with a crunch. The stalk to leaf ratio is higher than the bok choy tip. Bok choy tip is the baby and younger form of bok choy. The milky white stalks are thin and are more tender than the bok choy, attached to small, green oval leaves.

Are choy sum and bok choy the same? ›

Baby bok choy: The most common Chinese green, it is light green and usually sold in bunches of three. Choy sum: Produces small yellow flowers, which gives it its other name of Chinese flowering cabbage. Its long, pale stalks and fragile leaves are suited to stir-frying and steaming.

How long does bok choy need to be cooked for? ›

Bring a pot of water to the boil and drop the bok chop into the water. Cook for 1-2 minutes or until just tender. Avoid overcooking as this will reduce the nutritional value and alter the texture.

Are you supposed to eat the stems of bok choy? ›

Traditional bok choy has dark, crinkly leaves and crisp, white stems; Shanghai bok choy has spoon-shaped leaves and jade green stems. The cool thing is that both the leaves and the stalks can be eaten, and this wonderful little plant is an excellent go-to for fiber, as well as for beta-carotene and vitamins C, K and A.

What is healthier chow mein or chow fun? ›

A: No, chow mein is considered less healthy than chow fun because it is typically higher in calories and sodium. Both dishes can be made healthier by reducing oil and high-sodium sauce ingredients and by using lots of fresh vegetables and lean protein for added nutrition.

What is chow chow relish made of? ›

Some chow chow recipes consist primarily of chopped green tomatoes, cabbage, onion, and peppers while others can contain carrots, beans, cauliflower, or peas. Regardless of which ones you choose, the ingredients are all pickled in a canning jar and served cold as a condiment.

What kind of noodle is used for chow fun? ›

Beef chow fun is a Cantonese dish made from stir-frying beef, wide rice noodles (he fen or huo fun), scallions, ginger, bean sprouts and dark soy sauce. Known as gon chow ngau huo in Cantonese, you can find it in dim sum restaurants or sometimes Cantonese roast meat places.

What part of bok choy do you not eat? ›

You can also rip the stalks off, if you don't feel like cutting them. But you will eventually have to cut them when you reach the mini bulb inside. All of Bok Choy is edible, so once you get to that point, you can chop up the stem and the bulb.

What does bok choy do for your body? ›

Like other dark, leafy greens, bok choy is an excellent source of the flavonoid quercetin. Quercetin can help to reduce inflammation in the body, which may help to reduce your risk of developing a variety of chronic health issues such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.

Is bok choy healthier than spinach? ›

In equivalent raw weight, bok choy contains more vitamin C, vitamin A, and some other nutrients than spinach and around the same amount of calcium. Spinach, however, contains higher amounts of some other nutrients, including vitamin K, than bok choy.

Why do Chinese eat bok choy? ›

Bok choy also is a good source of folate (folic acid) and potassium. And with its deep green leaves, bok choy has more beta-carotene than other cabbages, and it also supplies considerably more calcium. It's basically fat-free and low in calories.

What do Chinese call bok choy? ›

In Mandarin Chinese, the common name is 青菜 qing cai ("green vegetable") or 小白菜 xiao bai cai ("small white vegetable"). Although it is simply called 白菜 baak choi ("white vegetable") in Cantonese, the same characters pronounced bai cai by Mandarin speakers are preferably used as the name for Napa cabbage.

Should I blanch vegetables before frying? ›

To prepare vegetables for stir-frying, blanching is the perfect way to jump-start the cooking process, especially for dense vegetables like broccoli or cauliflower (which usually take a while to stir-fry and often get soggy).

How long should you blanch bok choy? ›

Once the water is boiling, add sesame oil to the pot. Stir the water to ensure the oil is evenly dispersed. Add bok choy and blanch for 2 minutes.

Do you need to blanch vegetables for stir-fry? ›

This process keeps the vegetables from cooking further. Shocking vegetables are ideal for when you want to use the vegetables for cooking at a later time. Note that if you are stir-frying a dish you can skip this step and use the blanched vegetables immediately.

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