Chao He Cai, a stir-fry of clear noodles, eggs, chives, carrots and bean sprouts, is Chinese home-cooked comfort food. Just like our tomato egg stir fry, it’s a modest dish.
While it’s not shouting from the rooftops like some showier recipes, it’s what one would whip up at home on the regular—not simply because it’s easy and wallet-friendly, but also because it’s incredibly tasty and satisfying.
The name hé cài translates to harmony stir-fry. Indeed, all the elements of this dish come together to create the perfect harmony.
A Springtime Dish
Garlic Chives are some of the first greens to turn up in our garden. This time of year, the chives are still tender, but growing fast enough that you can start to cut them back every few weeks for stir-fries or pork and chive dumplings!
During our three-year stint living in Beijing, we always ordered Chao He Cai while eating out at our favorite local restaurant, 太熟悉 (tài shúxī, which translates to “Too Familiar” in English).
The restaurant specializes in homestyle comfort food, and he cai was one of the most popular on their menu.
A Vegetarian All-in-One Recipe
With eggs, noodles, and veggies, this can be a complete meal all by itself. You could also serve it as a side dish, along with a green vegetable stir-fry and a cucumber salad to make a varied, light meal.
We would actually eat our he cai with rice, which may seem unusual, considering there are noodles in the dish. You can choose to serve it with or without rice!
If you like this dish, be sure to check out our cabbage version: Cabbage and Glass Noodle Stir Fry (i.e., the fall/winter version of this recipe).
Tip: Mix & Match Vegetables!
Aside from bean sprouts, carrots, and chives, you can add other vegetables like spinach, celery, peppers, onions, zucchini, mushrooms, etc. This is a great dish for using up those leftover vegetables that you have in the refrigerator—before they go bad!
Recipe Instructions
Cook the sweet potato noodles according to the package instructions. I cooked my noodles in boiling water for 7 minutes.
Lift the noodles out of the water (you will need this water again if using soybean sprouts), and transfer them to a medium bowl. Add the dark soy sauce, sesame oil, and water. Mix and set aside.
If you are using soybean sprouts like I did, bring the cooked noodle water back up to a boil, and blanch the soybean sprouts for 1 minute. Drain and set aside. (Skip this step if you are using mung bean sprouts, as they cook much faster.)
In a bowl, beat the eggs along with the Shaoxing wine and salt.
Preheat your wok over medium-high heat until it starts to smoke lightly. Add 2 tablespoons (half) of the oil to coat the bottom of the wok, and reduce the heat to medium low. Add the eggs and cook until they’re lightly scrambled but still a little runny. Remove the eggs from the wok and set aside.
Add the remaining oil to the wok over medium heat, and cook the ginger and carrot for about 1 minute.
Then add half of the minced garlic along with the bean sprouts. Turn up the heat to medium-high and stir to mix everything well.
Reduce the heat to low while you add the oyster sauce, light soy sauce, sugar, black vinegar, and Sichuan peppercorn powder (or white pepper). Increase the heat to high and stir-fry until the ingredients are evenly mixed in.
Add the chives, cooked noodles, and cooked eggs, and stir-fry until the ingredients are evenly incorporated.
At this point, if the contents of the wok look dry, add a couple tablespoons of water to loosen the noodles and to prevent them from sticking.
Add the rest of the minced garlic and salt to taste.
Stir-fry until the chives are wilted. The dish should have a nice saucy sheen, without any standing sauce. Serve and enjoy this harmony stir-fry!
Chao He Cai – 炒合菜 (Harmony Stir-fry)
Ingredients
For the noodles:
- 3 ounces dried sweet potato noodles
- 1 teaspoon dark soy sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
- 2 tablespoons water
For the rest of the dish:
- 6 ounces bean sprouts (mung bean or soybean sprouts)
- 3 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon Shaoxing wine
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 4 tablespoons oil (any neutral oil)
- 1 teaspoon ginger (minced)
- 1 cup carrots (julienned)
- 4 cloves garlic (minced; divided)
- 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
- 1/2 tablespoon light soy sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon Chinese black vinegar
- 1/4 teaspoon Sichuan peppercorn powder (or white pepper)
- 4 ounces garlic chives (cut into 2-inch/5cm pieces)
- 2 tablespoons water (optional; if needed)
- salt (to taste)
Instructions
- Cook the sweet potato noodles according to the package instructions. I cooked my noodles in boiling water for 7 minutes. Lift the noodles out of the water (you will need this water again if using soybean sprouts), and transfer them to a medium bowl. Add the dark soy sauce, sesame oil, and water. Mix and set aside.
- If you are using soybean sprouts like I did, bring the cooked noodle water back up to a boil, and blanch the soybean sprouts for 1 minute. Drain and set aside. (Skip this step if you are using mung bean sprouts, as they cook much faster.)
- In a bowl, beat the eggs along with the Shaoxing wine and salt.
- Preheat your wok over medium-high heat until it starts to smoke lightly. Add 2 tablespoons (half) of the oil to coat the bottom of the wok, and reduce the heat to medium low. Add the eggs and cook until they’re lightly scrambled but still a little runny. Remove the eggs from the wok and set aside.
- Add the remaining oil to the wok over medium heat, and cook the ginger and carrot for about 1 minute. Then add half of the minced garlic along with the bean sprouts. Turn up the heat to medium-high and stir to mix everything well.
- Reduce the heat to low while you add the oyster sauce, light soy sauce, sugar, black vinegar, and Sichuan peppercorn powder (or white pepper). Increase the heat to high and stir-fry until the ingredients are evenly mixed in.
- Add the chives, cooked noodles, and cooked eggs, and stir-fry until the ingredients are evenly incorporated. At this point, if the contents of the wok look dry, add a couple tablespoons of water to loosen the noodles and to prevent them from sticking.
- Add the rest of the minced garlic and salt to taste. Stir-fry until the chives are wilted. The dish should have a nice saucy sheen, without any standing sauce. Serve.
I didn’t know what I did wrong. I had the wide sweet potato noodles and followed the cooking directions (7min in boiling water))but it came out very chewy, not fully cooked.
Sweet potato noodle is very chewy. The noodle is fully cooked once it’s completely transparent. You should definitely cook it for longer time if you are using thick sweet potato noodles.
This was very tasty and easy to make. Just some prep time.
So glad you enjoyed the recipe, Angela.
Great! Loved the noodles. I had a lots of garlic chivles I bought for your pad thai recipe, so I was glad to see another recipe with them. I added snow peas and mushrooms. Very similar to glass noodle cabbage- I missed the heat a bit- I think I’ll add a chili next time. Thanks for another great recipe!
You are right, Laura, this dish can use some heat, especially for spicy food lovers :-)
Excellent blending of flavors, truly “harmony”! I was able to get fresh garlic chives and mung bean sprouts at the local market, which made the difference.
Thank you so much for trying this recipe, Peter :-)
My garlic chives were not ready for harvesting so I used regular chives which gave the dish a different flavour no doubt! I like sweet potato noodles & beansprouts so it made for a tasty meatless dish, will make again!! Thanks for the recipe
Glad you enjoyed it, Stefanie :-)
At what point do you add the noodles?
Sorry, Gail, we just fixed it. You add the noodles together with the cooked eggs :-)
This looks great and I just need o find sweet potato noodles before I make it. IF I can’t find them I’ll use bean noodles I guess. One question, when do you add the noodles to the wok? It’s probably there but I keep missing it.
I just looked up the noodles on Amazon. They have them. Some are packed 3.5 oz which is basically what Judy calls for. I’m trying to build up my pantry so I’ll have some on hand. This does look so delicious! I am going to order noodles right now. We have very few stores around here that may have them (I’ve actually have never seen them in our oriental food shops). So, for me, they are one click away!
Hi Cynthia, we just fixed it, you add the noodles together with the cooked eggs :-) Also, you can use mung bean noodles (thin vermicelli glass noodles) as well.
Thanks so much. I did find the sweet potato noodles and l am looking forward to trying it onight.
Let us know how you like it :-)
Thank you. I did figure it out by looking at the the cabbage recipe. It was wonderful. I discovered half way through that I didn’t have any oyster sauce.. I think that’s why I found a little lacking on flavor. I added a little soy sauce and sesame oil (I love that stuff) so it was good. I”m anxious to try it again when I get my oyster sauce I’m going to make it again. I also added mushrooms.
Sounds good, Cynthia, try it again with oyster sauce :-)
Judy! I love this!! I also love sweet potato noodles, so this is a nice recipe to have around. I usually make Jap Chae w/the SP Noods, but this? this is a KEEPER!!
How great! So glad you enjoyed it :-)
This reminds me of the Korean dish jap chae, which everyone in Korea told me was actually a Chinese dish. I’ll have to try your recipe. Thanks
I was reminded of it too with the seasoning for the noodles, somewhat similar 👍Woah really I didn’t know Koreans thought japchae is actually Chinese! But there sure is a lot of cultural/cuisine exchange across Asia which I think is really cool. One thing that I know for sure is Chinese (Chinese-Korean cuisine, like how orange chicken is an invention by Chinese living in the US) is jjajangmyeon. And you can’t forget jjamppong. I think they’ve actually done a recipe for jjajangmyeon on here as well iirc. Always learning new things here! My Chinese grandma loves it when my mom (she’s Korean) cooks japchae hehe. Anyways definitely will try this one out! Looks so delicious 😋 I love the cabbage version as well that they mentioned here.
Edit: So I was curious about that because I love learning dishes’ histories, and I asked my family, but they weren’t aware of that. I googled it and here’s what came up: https://foodicles.com/japchae-history/amp/
Curious if you got confused with maybe another noodle dish. But very intriguing; thanks!
Hahaha…do try :-)
This recipe makes me happy! I need to pick up some chives and sprouts soon, everything else is in the pantry!
Hope you will like the dish, Jeff :-)