Sichuan Dry Fried Green Beans are a very popular dish both in China and here in the US, as Sichuan cuisine becomes more prevalent. This dish is also known as Szechuan dry-fried green beans of Chinese stir-fried green beans but if the restaurant is any good, they are prepared using the same method and quite tasty.
I’m always a little reluctant to order this dish in restaurants, however, because the green beans are deep-fried. (If you didn’t already know this distressing fact, sorry for being the whistle blower!)
Deep-frying makes a healthy ingredient very unhealthy, so I’ve been contemplating how to modify the recipe to make it healthy and simple to follow. It’s funny, because when you think about the name of the dish in Chinese, 干煸四季豆(ganbian sijidou), it literally means “dry seared.” So rather than deep-frying the green beans (a method used in restaurants because it’s a faster process), I did just that—seared them in a dry wok without oil. The outcome was brilliant.
Also, just as a shout out to any vegetarians and vegans, you can easily omit the ground pork (you can just omit it all together or replace it with more of the pickled suimi yacai). It will still be super tasty.
Sichuan Dry Fried Green Beans: Recipe Instructions
Heat your wok over high heat until just starting to smoke, and add the green beans and salt. Immediately lower the heat to medium low, and sear the green beans for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
You want to see small scorch marks on the green beans.
During this process, gather the rest of the ingredients and have them ready. This is always very important to Chinese cooking—the actual time on the stove is usually very short, so having everything prepared and ready to go is essential!
Once the beans are somewhat tender, take them out of the wok and set aside.
Heat the oil in your wok over medium high heat and brown the pork. It should only take a couple minutes.
Add the garlic and dried red chili peppers, and stir for 30 seconds.
Add the sui mi ya cai (碎米芽菜), and stir everything together. Cook for another minute.
Toss in the seared green beans, shaoxing wine, soy sauce, sugar, and sesame oil. Crank the heat back up to high and stir-fry for a final minute.
And you’re done! Wasn’t that fast? Serve these healthy Sichuan Dry Fried Green Beans immediately.
Sichuan Dry Fried Green Beans
Ingredients
- 1 pound green beans (450g)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons oil
- 1/4 cup ground pork
- 2 garlic (smashed and coarsely diced)
- 2 dried red hot peppers (de-seeded and diced)
- 2 tablespoon sui mi ya cai (碎米芽菜, store bought)
- 1 teaspoon shaoxing wine
- 1 1/2 teaspoons soy sauce
- 1/8 teaspoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
Instructions
- Heat your wok over high heat until just starting to smoke, and add the green beans and salt. Immediately lower the heat to medium low, and sear the green beans for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. You want to see small scorch marks on the green beans. During this process, gather the rest of the ingredients and have them ready. Once the beans are somewhat tender, take them out of the wok and set aside.
- Heat the oil in your wok over medium high heat and brown the pork. Add the garlic and chili, and stir for 30 seconds. Add the sui mi ya cai, and stir everything together. Cook for another minute.
- Toss in the seared green beans, cooking wine, soy sauce, sugar, and sesame oil. Crank the heat back up to high and stir-fry for a final minute. Serve immediately.
Did this vegetarian, with crumbled Impossible burgers. So good, and easy to do!
Nicely done!
Excellent. Didn’t have the sui but used chili garlic paste with the pork and a black garlic umami soy sauce, and it was absolutely delicious. Also, just so you know, I use your site as my bible for cooking with my wok. It is an endless resource for recipes and information about ingredients. Then I shared your site with my brother when he got his wok, and now we bond over recipes.
Love it even more :-) Happy wokking (with your brother) :-)
Excellent. Didn’t have the sui but used chili garlic paste with the pork and a black garlic umami soy sauce, and it was absolutely delicious.
Why not, I love your idea of improvising.
I liked this a lot. Glad to learn about sui mi ya cai but I think I’ll reduce the other umami ingredients a bit next time and increase the spice.
Sounds good, Cole, adjust it to your own taste.
This is a delicious and easy recipe and makes a great summer supper with a bowl of jasmine rice. I love both the dry fried green bean recipes on the site, but this one is my favourite when I have ya cai on hand.
I have to confess, I like it with ya cai better, more flavorful :-)
I must have done something wrong because although the flavor was excellent the beans fresh from my own garden were tough. Next time I think I’ll steam the beans for a couple of minutes before I proceed with the recipe as written.
Hi Liz, for tough beans, you can cut them into smaller pieces like I did in this recipe.
I am eating this now, it’s very good and easy. I took about ten minutes off cooking time by waving the green beans for two min. Then followed instructions, served with shortcut scallion pancakes. All good !
Thank you for sharing, Ivan.
I had fresh green beans, followed your recipe and it was fantastic. Thank you!
So glad you enjoyed it, Amy.
Excellent. I doubled the amount of pork, and added a wiri wiri pepper for some kick. Phenomenal dish, I can’t wait to make it again!!!
Sounds lovely, Jazz, so glad you enjoyed it.