Healthier Beef Pad See Ew

Why go for take-out when you can make your own, much healthier Beef Pad See Ew in the comfort of your own home, and probably faster than the delivery guy could ever get it to you? 

Beef Pad See Ew is one of those takeout dishes that I’ll very often get a craving for, but where I get mine, even though it tastes absolutely fantastic, I find that it tends to be extremely oily and to me that is a huge turnoff. I never was a fan of that “slippery” feeling that oily food leaves on my lips.

Plus, I love to be in control of what goes into my food… so I eventually decided to try my hand at making my own. And while I was at it, I decided to try and keep things paleo friendly, too.

Honestly, I think that I did a not too bad job, not too bad at all… while this isn’t your true, authentic Beef Pad See Ew, far from there, it’s still super tasty and will take care or my cravings just fine.

I hope it’ll satisfy yours, too!

Cook the rice noodles according to the instructions on the package but make sure you undercook the noodles slightly, since you will be cooking them again in the wok later. Once cooked to your liking, drain and rinse the noodles under cold running water until they are completely cooled. This will stop the cooking process and ensure that you don’t end up with a lump of overcooked, mushy noodles later.

While the noodles are cooking, we’ll be taking care of prepping the rest of the ingredients. First, the beef. Use flap or flank steak and be sure to slice it as thinly as you possibly can. To make the slicing easier, place the meat in the freezer prior to slicing it, until it’s nice and firm but not frozen solid; about 20 to 30 minutes should do the trick.

Once the meat has been sliced, place it in a bowl along with the coconut aminos (or soy sauce), avocado oil, tapioca starch, salt and chili pepper flakes and mix with your fingers until the beef is completely coated; set that aside while you work on the rest of the ingredients.

True authentic Pad See Ew calls for Chinese broccoli, but unfortunately, in my part of the world, it’s extremely hard, if not impossible, to come across, unless you pay a visit an ethnic market, a 45 minute drive in my case. So I like to use the next best thing, its close cousin, broccolini. If you can get your hands on the Chinese broccoli, though, by all means, go ahead and use that if you prefer.

At this point you want to chop the broccolini and green onions into manageable bite size pieces, beat your eggs and prepare the sauce by whisking together some minced garlic, coconut aminos (or soy sauce), date paste, rice vinegar, fish sauce, honey, sambal oelek, salt and ground white pepper.

Oh, and if you like A LOT of sauce in your Pad See Ew, feel free to double the amount… 

Now that all the prep has been done, time to get cooking!

Heat a tablespoon of avocado oil (or use your favorite healthy cooking oil) in a wok set over high heat. Add the beef to the wok and sear until it’s cooked about 80% of the way, then transfer it back to the bowl it marinated in.

Return the wok to the heat source, add another tablespoon or so of oil to it and then add the broccolini and green onions; stirfry that for about 20 seconds…

Push the veggies to the side of the wok and add the beaten eggs.

Scramble the eggs until cooked then push them too to the side of the wok…

Add a little bit more oil if necessary and then add the rice noodles to the wok. Let the noodles cook for about a minute without moving them so they have a chance to caramelize slightly. This will impart so much flavor to them!

Next, add the sauce and stir well…

Finally, return the beef to the wok, give the dish a final stir and continue cooking until the noodles are heated all the way through.

Kill the heat, sprinkle with the chopped cashews and serve without delay.