Mongolian Ground Beef

Mongolian Ground Beef features cooked ground beef, green onions, and a quick stir-fry sauce for a delicious dinner in under 20 minutes. Enjoy this American Chinese restaurant favorite at home with ease!

This simple Mongolian Ground Beef is part of our Back-To-School Lifesavers — a series of recipes that are intended to have little (or no) veggie chopping, minimal prep time, around 10 ingredients or less (not including pantry staples), and use kid-friendly ingredients. Click here to see all the recipes in the series!

Mongolian Ground Beef

Typically, Mongolian beef is made with thinly sliced steak, offering a mild and addictive sweetness. Today, the concept is simplified using ground beef instead of steak. The sauce is also streamlined, making it a perfect “back-to-school” lifesaver.

Despite the simplicity, flavor isn’t compromised. This Mongolian Ground Beef is packed with a sweet taste and a mild crunch from green onions. It’s kid-friendly and sweet rather than spicy, but can be easily adjusted for more heat if desired.

Mongolian Ground Beef Ingredients

• Lean Ground Beef: A 93/7 blend is preferred, but any ground beef will work; just drain excess grease if using a higher fat percentage. This recipe also works well with 93/7 ground turkey.
• Sesame Oil: For authentic flavor, use sesame oil, preferably toasted sesame oil. It’s usually found in the Asian ingredients section, not with other oils. Sauté the ground beef in this oil before adding the rest.
• Green Onions: Pre-chopped green onions are available at most grocery stores, eliminating the need to chop them yourself. If using pre-chopped onions, add them all when sautéing the garlic and ginger.
• Quick Garlic and Ginger: Dorot’s® frozen cubes of garlic and ginger are convenient for quick use and can be found with frozen veggies. Alternatively, use refrigerated garlic paste or minced garlic to save chopping time.

And those are the main ingredients for Mongolian Ground Beef — easy enough right? Beyond the main ingredients, we have the quick stir-fry sauce which we’ll break down below.

• Cornstarch: This thickens everything nicely, adding a rich, glossy finish to the Mongolian Ground Beef.
• Soy sauce: We like using Kikkoman’s® regular soy sauce (not lite/low-sodium or dark) in this sauce. Lite soy sauce doesn’t offer enough seasoning (saltiness) and dark soy sauce will be too intense of a flavor.
• Brown sugar: Mongolian Beef is typically on the sweeter side, so we add brown sugar to deliver that sweetness. Keep in mind that the mirin is quite sweet as well. Since you can always add more, but can’t take it away, add brown sugar slowly and to taste preference.
• Mirin. Mirin is a type of rice wine that is a very common ingredient in Mongolian Beef. It has a high sugar content and is quite sweet. Mirin is typically found in the oil and vinegar aisle or in the condiment aisle. It’s usually near soy sauce, rice vinegar, hoisin sauce, oyster sauce, etc. You can use rice wine vinegar (also called rice vinegar) in a pinch, but you may need a touch more sugar.
• Chicken stock. This makes up the bulk of the sauce (if we use all soy sauce, sugar, and mirin, it will be too overwhelming!). We love Swanson’s® chicken stock — it has a great robust flavor and is seasoned nicely so we don’t find the need to add any additional salt/pepper to our Mongolian Ground Beef.

Mongolian Ground Beef Tips

• To avoid steaming (we want to brown the meat for more flavor!), use a cast-iron pan, and wait for it to be HOT before you add in the meat.
• In order to brown (and become more flavorful), the beef has to maintain contact with the pan for a little while. Remember that as you break the meat into smaller pieces; the moisture evaporates, which can cause the meat to steam instead of brown. Avoid this by giving the meat a few minutes to cook and develop a brown color before breaking it up with a wooden spoon.
• Lower the heat a bit before adding in the onions, garlic, and ginger; stir constantly so they don’t burn upon contact with the hot pan.
• Have everything ready to go! This dish moves quickly; if you’ve got everything set out ahead of time, the cooking will fly by seamlessly!

Optional Additions

Below are some of the optional additions we like in this Mongolian Ground Beef:

• Toasted sesame seeds: These add a nice finishing touch and flavor to the meat.
• Red pepper flakes: Add this (optional) ingredient for a more savory (as opposed to sweet) flavor. The red pepper flakes will balance the sweetness from the brown sugar and add in some heat. This ingredient is completely optional and it’s easy to add to individual plates for those that do like the heat.
• Boiled rice. If you haven’t boiled rice before, you are going to be thrilled with the ease and speed. All you’ll need to do is toss some rice in boiling water, boil it for 5-7 minutes, and voila — perfect rice!

More Ground Beef Recipes

• Ground Beef Ramen with saucy ramen noodles
• Ground Beef Stroganoff with onions and mushrooms
• Beef Larb with fresh herbs
• Ground Beef Naan Tacos with a cucumber raita
• Beef Lettuce Wraps with quick “pickled” shallots