Crisp and fresh green beans stir-fried with some flavourful minced pork and a delectable savory sauce.

This quick and easy stir-fried Chinese green beans with pork recipe is going to have your whole family asking for seconds!

What is Chinese Green Beans With Minced Pork?

Growing up as a teenager, I can vividly remember going to the basement of a Chinese mall in Chinatown towards the food court, where a handful of Chinese fast-food restaurants sold very reasonably priced meals that consisted of already prepared trays of food like rice, fried rice and noodles, and an assortment of delicious Chinese dishes including Chinese pork mince with beans. I would often get a large box stuffed to the brim with soy sauce chow mein noodles along with 2-3 items like Chinese green beans and pork all for around $4-5. What a deal!!! 🤩

In addition, I was often served Chinese ground pork and green beans during dinner time at home. My parents loved to make this dish due to its simplicity and how quickly it could be cooked up. Who wants to spend 2-3 hours in the kitchen after coming home from work?

Chinese green beans with minced pork otherwise known as 乾煸四季豆 in Chinese is a very popular and wholesome Chinese dish, that gets its inspiration from its spicier cousin, Szechuan pork and green bean stir-fry. This recipe omits the spiciness of its cousin and is suitable for most people, especially those of us who don’t like very spicy food.

Fresh green beans or string beans (depending on where you come from) are fried in hot oil to develop a dehydrated slightly crunchy texture. The green beans are then stir-fried with some marinated minced pork and a flavourful sauce to produce this Chinese beans and pork mince dish.

How to Make Chinese Green Beans With Minced Pork Stir-Fry

A lot of recipes nowadays prefer to make this dish “healthier” by either blanching the green beans first and then stir-frying it or just straight up stir-frying it on their wok, trying to produce a slight char on the green beans.

I on the other hand consider myself a traditionalist, and that means sticking to frying the beans first which gives a completely different texture and appearance to the green beans compared to the other two methods mentioned above. You will see a noticeable wrinkling of the green beans after they have been fried first which produces a slight crunch to it.

This interesting texture is what makes this dish unique.

In addition to the beans, we’re going to marinate the ground pork to add an extra bit of flavour to the dish rather than just straight up tossing the ground pork to the wok and stir-frying it, which produces bland-tasting ground pork.

All of this is then coated with our savoury sauce that consists of typical Chinese ingredients like soy sauce, oyster sauce, and sugar, which you’ll find in a lot of Chinese dishes.

Here are all of the ingredients that you’ll need to make this dish:

Ingredients

Green beans 1lb
Minced garlic 3-4 cloves
Minced ginger 1.5 tsp
Lean ground pork 190g

Sauce:

Light soy sauce 1/2 Tbsp
Oyster sauce 1 Tbsp
Dark soy sauce 1/2 tsp
Whit granulated sugar 1/2 Tbsp
1/2 Tbsp of water

Ground pork marinade:

Soy sauce 1 tsp
Sugar 1 tsp
Black pepper ½ tsp
Cooking wine 1 tsp
Cornstarch 1 tsp
Cooking oil 1 tsp

Garnish:

Sesame oil

Ingredient notes

Green beans: Use fresh green beans and not frozen ones to get the best taste. Also make sure to take note of the colour of the green beans when you’re buying them. You want nice green-coloured green beans and not ones that have dark brown spots on them as this indicates they will expire soon. Also look for ones that aren’t overly thick and long as they will be tough when biting into them.
Ground pork: I used lean ground pork for this dish as I did not want it to be too fatty as we already fried the green beans. You can also ground the pork yourself as well using semi-lean cuts of meat like pork shoulder/butt.

Substitutions

Green beans: You can substitute green beans with long beans or even snow peas if you can’t find any green beans in your neighbourhood. Of course the preparation will be different so be aware of that.
Ground pork: You can substitute it with ground chicken or maybe even beef.
Chinese cooking wine: You can substitute it with dry sherry if you don’t have any Chinese cooking wine around.
Cornstarch: You can substitute it with tapioca starch

Directions

Preparing the Ingredients

Start by preparing your green beans. Wash and rinse your green beans in cold water thoroughly and then snap the ends off with your fingers. We do this to ensure that there aren’t any long fibrous strings running along the green beans. That thick fibrous string that runs from one end to the other is tough to chew and is unpleasant. Likewise, you can opt to just use a knife and cut off the ends of the green beans if you’re in a crunch for time, but just make sure that the green beans that you use don’t possess that long fibrous string that runs along the stem to the other end.
In addition, by snapping off the ends of the green beans, you can remove the stems which aren’t very pleasant to eat and are often left uneaten on plates. After snapping off the ends of the green beans, you’ll want to snap the green beans in half as well if they are very long.

Once this is done, set it aside and let it dry. Then add in all of your marinate ingredients into the ground pork, leaving the cornstarch second last to seal in all of the juices and retain the moisture and add in the cooking oil last to prevent it from drying out.

Now in another bowl, add in your all of your ingredients to make the sauce including your light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, sugar, and water. Mix everything well together and then set the sauce aside.

Frying the Green Beans

In a wok, add in your cooking oil and let it heat up. When you think the oil is hot enough, place a pair of chopsticks or just one into the oil and see if the oil fizzles around the chopsticks. If it does, then that means the oil is hot enough.

Now slowly add in your green beans to the oil, making sure that its completely dry otherwise you’ll be running around the house screaming in pain due to the hot oil splashing onto you.
Let the green beans cook until you start to see them become wrinkled and dry. This should take roughly about 3-3.5 minutes.

Then remove the green beans from the hot oil and let it strain out all of the oil unless your looking at gaining some extra pounds.
Empty and remove all of the cooking oil from the wok.

Putting It All Together

Now heat up the wok again over medium heat, add in about a Tbsp of oil that you used to fry the green beans back into the wok, once the oil is hot enough, add in your marinated ground pork, flatten the ground pork on the wok and let it cook for about 30 seconds or so to develop a nice char on the ground pork, then flip the ground pork over and now add in your minced garlic and ginger to the wok.

Stir-fry everything for an additional 30 seconds to 1 minute, making sure to break up the ground pork into smaller pieces then add back in your green beans to the wok and turn the heat up to medium-high.

Stir-fry for an additional 30 seconds or so and add in your sauce.

Mix everything well together for about 30 seconds and then add in your sesame oil to garnish the dish.

Mix for an additional 10-15 seconds and then remove everything from the wok.

Tips

Make sure that your green beans are all dried up prior to frying in the hot oil otherwise prepare to have hot oil splash onto you when you drop the green beans into the oil
Snap the ends off of the green beans to remove the thick fibrous string that runs along the stems. This will ensure that your green beans aren’t tough to chew
Don’t fry the green beans for too long or they will become overly soft and you will also see the pods start to come out as well. Once you notice that the green beans have started to become wrinkled, remove them from the oil
Make sure that the oil is hot enough prior to frying the green beans otherwise the green beans will soak up all of the oil when frying, and also take longer to fry, This causes the green beans to become oily and soggy

Common Mistakes Beginners Make

Your green beans taste tough and chewy because you didn’t remove the stems from the green beans
You got burned by hot oil because your green beans weren’t fully dry when you fried them
Your green beans are overly soft because you cooked them for too long
Your green beans are oily and soggy because the oil you used to fry them wasn’t hot enough

Storage Tips

The dish can be stored in the fridge for up to 4 days if not eaten right away in an airtight container.

Frequently Asked Questions (F.A.Q.S)

Do I Need to Use a Wok to Make This Dish?

No, however I highly recommend getting one if you intend on making a lot of Asian food, especially stir-fry recipes. You’ll not only have a lot more room to maneuver and cook the food but you can develop a nice char on your dishes as well.

How Do I Make This Dish Vegetarian?

You can omit the ground pork from the dish and cook it as is and top it off with some garlic bits that has been slightly pan-fried in the oil.

In addition, you can add other vegetables like diced mushrooms or fried tofu as a replacement for the ground pork or just make a vegetable stir-fry medley with carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower.

Why Are My Green Beans All Oily and Soggy?

You fried the green beans in oil that wasn’t hot enough. This allowed the green beans to soak up all of the oil, leading to oily and soggy green beans 🤮

Why Are My Green Beans Overly Soft?

You either fried or cooked the green beans for too long. Try to fry the green beans for no longer than 3 to 3.5 minutes. Likewise do not cook the green beans for too long in the wok when stir-frying it with the ground pork.

Why Do My Green Beans Taste So Tough and Chewy?

Did you remove the stems from the ends of the green beans? There is a long fibrous strand that runs from the ends of the green beans and if not removed, will result in a tough and chewy green bean when eating it.

Other Recipes You’ll Love