This Vietnamese beef and Watercress is a quick, easy and delicious stir fry, served with fresh watercress and lime wedges. Try the optional seasoned lime juice dipping sauce, too!.
Why you’ll love this Beef and Watercress
This beef stir fry is one of my favourites. The beef itself cooks up really quickly and is a wonderful combination of flavours. The hot beef is served on top of peppery fresh watercress, that wilts a bit from the hot meat. Together with the sauce, it’s a lovely combination. To top it off, a drizzle of fresh lime juice really makes the flavours pop.
Ingredients and Substiutions
Beef – I usually just pick up the beef stir fry strips, but any beef steak or small roast will work just fine. Simply cut into strips at home. The beef does need a 2 hour marinating time, so be sure to plan ahead for that.
Watercress – watercress is one of my favourite greens. Not only is it delicious, it is a nutritional powerhouse of a green. I highly recommend seeking it out. In place of watercress, baby spinach would work here.
Cook’s Notes
This dish is sometimes called “Shaking Beef”, which refers to the shaking motion in the pan.
This dish tends to the salty side, with both salty soy sauce and added salt. If you have low-sodium soy sauce, I would recommend it. You can also adjust the amount of added salt to taste.
Don’t skip the lime! Either serve with lime wedges or the lime dipping sauce, but definitely use limes. It really elevates this dish.
How to Serve this Vietnamese Beef with Watercress
I love to serve this dish with rice. Alongside, serve either lime wedges, that you would drizzle over the beef, or serve with the optional lime dipping sauce, which is fresh lime juice mixed with a little salt and pepper.
Get the Recipe: Beef with Watercress
Ingredients
- 1 lb beef strips
Marinade:
- 2 Tablespoon chopped garlic
- 1 teaspoon white sugar
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 2 Tablespoons vegetable, canola or other neutral cooking oil
Sauce:
- 1/4 cup rice vinegar
- 2 Tablespoons white sugar
- 1/4 cup water
- 5 Tablespoons soy sauce, low sodium highly recommended
- 1 Tablespoon fish sauce
Stir Fry:
- 2 Tablespoons cooking oil
- 2 stalks green onion, cut into 1-inch pieces (green part only)
- 1/2 small small onion, thinly sliced (red or yellow onion)
- 1 Tablespoon cornstarch
- 1 Tablespoon cold water
For Serving:
- Lime wedges
- 1 bunch fresh watercress, roughly chopped
Optional Dipping Sauce:
- Juice of 1 lime
- 1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt (or 1/4 tsp. fine salt)
- 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
Instructions
- Combine beef with marinade ingredients and stir to coat well. Cover and refrigerate 2 hours.
- Make sauce by stirring together all the sauce ingredients. Set aside. If serving with rice, start the rice cooking about 15 minutes before you start cooking the beef. Cut green onion and onion and set aside.
- Heat 1 Tbsp. of the oil in a wok over medium-high heat until very hot. Add 1/2 of the beef, 1/2 of the green onion and 1/2 of the red onion to the pan in one layer and allow to cook, undisturbed for 2 minutes. Flip over and cook the other side of the meat for 1 minute. Remove to a plate and repeat process with other half of the beef, green onion and red onion.
- Add sauce to pan, shaking to loosen the meat. Add beef from plate back in to the pan. Cook, until sauce simmers, then add cornstarch mixture. Cook until sauce is hot and thickened.
- To serve, place some fresh watercress on a plate. Top with hot beef. Serve with some rice and additional lime wedges and/or lime dipping sauce.
Hi! I’m Jennifer, a home cook schooled by trial and error and almost 40 years of getting dinner on the table! I love to share my favourite recipes, both old and new, together with lots of tips and tricks to hopefully help make your home cooking enjoyable, stress free, rewarding and of course, delicious!
I made this last night and the only thing I changed, was to add some veggies, carrots, celery, red bell pepper and more onions. I know, not that authentic but……
This was absolutely fantastic! I thought I had made enough so we could have leftovers for dinner again, but it was so good, we ate most of it.
Thanks for a terrific recipe!
Hi John and thanks! Sounds delicious (and I have been known to sneak veggies in to this one, too) So glad you enjoyed it :)
What a nice and simple looking dish, but packed with flavor!
Another great stir-fry dish to try.
Thanks Jennifer!
Thanks so much, Dalila :)
Thanks to you, I have quite the list of easy stir fry meals to try. This looks like another winner! :)
Thanks Laura, yes, I do love my stir fries :)
For some reason, I never tire of Asian! Love all the delicious flavors going on here and the fact that it’s hearty but pretty healthy too! The watercress adds such a nice fresh touch.
Thanks Chris and yes, it really is a fairly lean dish (rice is optional ;) My husband always enjoys the feed of beef, as I don’t cook a lot of beef really.
I agree with Sue Jennifer. That sauce looks so delicious! Love it with the watercress and lime.
Thanks so much, Mary Ann :)
The sauce on the meat is glorious Jennifer, I’m loving all your Asian creations lately! Sharing all over the place!
Thanks Sue and yes, the sauce is perfect. Love the Asian flavours :)
I was wondering about the name – simple, descriptive and perfect! I bet this is tasty – the sauce looks so deeply colored and rich. We have a hard time finding watercress but not lime! Thanks for the suggestion of spinach. This is lovely – sharing and pinning :)
Thanks so much, Tricia. And yes, I don’t understand why watercress is so hard to find. It’s one of my favourite greens and it’s an awesome “super green”. I have one store locally that I can always count on to have it, so I’m lucky I guess.