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!
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!
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.
Here’s what you’ll need:
- 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
- ½ teaspoon sesame oil
- 1 tablespoon hoisin sauce, plus extra for serving
- ¼ teaspoon fresh ground white pepper
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 3 ½ tablespoons oil, divided
- 2 carrots, julienned (about 1½ cups)
- 2 pieces (4 ounces) of five-spice tofu, julienned
- 1½ cups of julienned celery
- 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
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!
- 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
- ½ teaspoon sesame oil
- 1 tablespoon hoisin sauce, plus extra for serving
- ¼ teaspoon fresh ground white pepper
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 3 ½ tablespoons oil, divided
- 2 carrots, julienned (about 1½ cups)
- 2 pieces (4 ounces) of five-spice tofu, julienned
- 1½ cups of julienned celery
- 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)
- 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!
Stuart says
Totally worth the effort. Great vego dinner. Pancakes are very satisfying to make. Sauce on the vegetables at the end of cooking has a lovely balance. Will become a regular for us. Thanks!
Bill says
Hi Stuart, I also enjoy making and eating these pancakes ;-)
Christine says
We made this recipe when we were trying to be vegetarian about a month ago. It is a little time consuming for me to make since I am not quite skilled at cutting veggies super thin. Also I have to admit I was a little bit lazy with the DIY and used a flour tortilla instead of mandarin pancakes. Still, Vegetarian Moo Shu is a pretty awesome Chinese vegetarian dish and using a tortilla in my opinion didn’t make it any less tasty! My sister is vegan and I have recommended your website from some lovely vegan Chinese recipes! Thanks for sharing your recipe!
Bill says
Hi Christine, cooking is definitely a labor of love!
Elise says
Been eying this recipe for awhile and finally had a chance to make it!! I’m not huge on celery so subbed for baby bok choy and that seemed to work fine. Also used reconstituted mushrooms rather than fresh. Overall, a really good recipe that’s really filling. I wasn’t sure how it was going to be, since I’m not always a big veggie fan, but the variety of vegetables worked really well together, making the dish texturally satisfying and thoroughly tasty.
I had some issues with the mandarin pancakes– they stuck together so I couldn’t peel them apart after cooking. I suspect that I needed to oil them better before rolling them out. They were still really yummy, and surprisingly easy.
This makes a huge amount, so I’ll be eating the leftovers for a couple of days! (And probably will need to try my hand at the pancakes again since I ended up getting only 6 instead of a dozen)
Bill says
Hi Elise, the pancakes do take some practice, and using enough oil is important. Sometimes they stick together if the dough is too moist, so pay attention to that as well. Happy cooking!
Scott says
The flavor of these veggies in the sauce was great! I avoided making mandarin pancakes due to fear of taking too long and never doing it before. I definitely need to try it sometime though. I substituted in the “crispy sichuan potato cakes” – you can’t go wrong there, those potatoes are amazing.
Bill says
Hi Scott, your are so right about the crispy Sichuan potato cakes, but you definitely have to make the mandarin pancakes. They take multiple steps to make the dough, roll them out, and then cook them in the frying pan/wok, but it’s totally worth it!
Andrew Garland says
What is the weight of the 5-spice tofu to be used?
Bill says
Hi Andrew, Good question! It is about 4 ounces and thanks to your question, I updated the recipe. Happy cooking!
Roxanne says
This sounds great. Quick question – Would these pancakes work for chao bing?
Bill says
Hi Roxanne, these pancakes are a little thin for Chao bing but they should work. I have chao bing on my to-cook list as well. ;-) For those of you reading this comment, chao bing is like a stir fried noodle, except you cut the pancakes into thin strips and serve them as noodles!
Savvy Sue says
Hi,
I’d love to try this – but have a few Q’s for U. To prepare your vegetables, what method/tool do you use to slice/julienne them? If one does not own (and can not purchase a wok) what other kitchen pot (and material) would you recommend? Where do you obtain the rice wine recommended? And finally, how do we prepare 5-spice tofu. I love five-spice powder. do we just allow the tofu to sit in a paste of the spice? Thanks.
Just an observation – it’s refreshing to find a recipe that does not use very much Hoisin sauce. Often times I find the Moo Shu veggies to be too salty. This recipe seems to get it right – tho’ have not prepared it myself!
Bill says
Hi Savvy Sue, I used a chef’s knife to prepare the vegetables but you can use a mandolin if you have one. If you don’t have a wok, a sauté pan will do just fine. For all of the Chinese ingredients including the Shaoxing wine and the five spice tofu, follow the links in the recipe to get more details on each ingredient and where to buy them. Making the five spiced tofu is quite involved, so I would recommend that you purchase it from an Asian grocery store. Happy cooking!