Vegetable Moo Shu is healthy and vegan, but it’s also just plain delicious. This is coming from four diehard carnivores, so you can rest assured that we’re pretty confident that anyone will enjoy this dish––not just vegans and vegetarians.
But it is one of those dishes that makes us wonder, “why not eat less meat?” When I serve a dish to my carnivorous friends and they say things like that, I always know I’ve got a winner, and this Easy Vegetable Moo Shu falls into that category!
The Complete Moo Shu Experience
For those of you who have never tried moo shu, you might call this, “the moo shu experience,” complete with mandarin pancakes. The combination of the chewy texture of the pancakes and the fresh, light taste of the vegetable moo shu has become one of our new favorites.
A great mandarin pancake is key to a good moo shu experience, which we perfected with our Moo Shu Chicken recipe and our Easy Peking Duck recipe. For the best results, remember to reheat the pancakes in a steamer right before serving!
We intentionally made this vegetable moo shu recipe quick and easy, with more accessible ingredients. That said, feel free to use special ingredients such as reconstituted dried shiitake mushrooms, dried wood ear mushrooms, and dried lily flowers, which are more traditional ingredients for a good Moo Shu.
We used these Chinese ingredients in our Moo Shu Chicken, and in Judy’s more authentic mainland China version of Chinese Moo Shu Pork. As you can see, Moo Shu is most often served with meat, but we’ve substituted five-spice tofu for the meat to keep things vegan!
Why Cook the Ingredients Separately
This vegan moo shu comes together quickly once you have separately stir-fried the celery, peppers, five-spiced tofu, mushrooms, and carrots.
Stir frying each ingredient separately gives an extra richness to the dish, and keeps the dish from getting too wet from cooking all of the different vegetables at once.
This method also helps maintain high heat for cooking with a wok on most average home stovetops.
Vegetable Moo Shu: Recipe Instructions
Stir together the light soy sauce, sesame oil, hoisin sauce, fresh ground white pepper, and salt, and set aside.
Heat your wok over high heat with ½ tablespoon oil, and stir-fry the julienned carrots for 90 seconds, remove and set aside.
Using the same method, with ½ tablespoon oil each. Cook the five-spice tofu, celery, red bell pepper, and fresh Shiitake mushrooms separately, and set those aside.
Be careful not to overcook the vegetables. 90 seconds is really all you need, or you’ll have a mushy moo shu filling!
Next, heat the wok over high heat with the remaining tablespoon of oil, and add the minced garlic and leeks.
Stir fry the vegetables until the leeks are just wilted (about 2 minutes), and add the carrots, five-spiced tofu, celery, bell pepper, and mushrooms back to the wok.
Spread the Shaoxing wine around the perimeter of the wok, and add in the sauce mixture we prepared earlier. Stir fry everything together for another minute.
Serve immediately with steamed Mandarin pancakes and hoisin sauce on the side!
Vegetable Moo Shu
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
- ½ teaspoon sesame oil
- 1 tablespoon hoisin sauce (plus extra for serving)
- ¼ teaspoon ground white pepper
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 3 ½ tablespoons oil (divided)
- 2 carrots (julienned, about 1½ cups)
- 2 pieces spiced tofu (4 ounces/113g, julienned)
- 1½ cups celery (julienned)
- 1 red bell pepper (thinly sliced)
- 6 fresh Shiitake mushrooms (thinly sliced)
- 2 cloves garlic (minced)
- 1 leek (julienned, about 3 cups)
- 1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine
- Mandarin pancakes (recipe can be found here)
Instructions
- Stir together the light soy sauce, sesame oil, hoisin sauce, white pepper, and salt, and set aside.
- Heat your wok over high heat with ½ tablespoon oil, and stir-fry the julienned carrots for 90 seconds, remove and set aside. Using the same method, with ½ tablespoon oil each--cook the five-spiced tofu, celery, red bell pepper, and shiitake mushrooms separately, and set those aside. Be careful not to overcook the vegetables. 90 seconds is really all you need––or you’ll have a mushy moo shu filling!
- Next, heat the wok over high heat with the remaining tablespoon of oil, and add the minced garlic and leeks.
- Stir fry the vegetables until the leeks are just wilted (about 2 minutes), and add the carrots, five-spiced tofu, celery, bell pepper, and mushrooms back to the wok.
- Spread the Shaoxing wine around the perimeter of the wok, and add in the sauce mixture we prepared earlier. Stir fry everything together for another minute.
- Serve immediately with steamed Mandarin pancakes and hoisin sauce on the side!
Tips & Notes:
nutrition facts
OH MY GOD I DO NOT EVEN HAVE THE WORDS TO DESCRIBE HOW INCREDIBLE THIS WAS! Seriously though, these were phenomenal. I was unable to find the spiced tofu at my local Asian market but I doubled up on the mushrooms and it was still amazing. Your family is such an incredible asset to the food blogging world— I have learned so much about Chinese cooking from you and I truly appreciate these recipes that teach me something new every time! This might be my favorite Woks of Life recipe yet!
Wonderful recipe—it was so filling and flavorful, and I enjoyed making the Mandarin pancakes! (I grew up making tortillas with my grandma.) My family enjoyed having this for dinner this evening, therefore, it will be added to my compendium of recipes. Thank you for sharing this with us!
You’re welcome Aimee!