Taiwanese Pork Sauce Recipe

Yes yes I know I have been a little inactive on this site (OK quite inactive) lately but the truth is I’ve never stopped trying new dishes throughout the summer. I promise I’ll share all the dishes I cooked on this site as long as I am done with what’s keeping my busy elsewhere 🙂

If you like Chinese calligraphy or authentic Chinese food in general, you  might remember the lu wei or braised aromatic goodness I wrote about some time ago. In that post, I broadly introduced you to an important Chinese cooking technical called lu or braised stuff with aromatic spice. As I mentioned that over the course, lu wei has developed into countless regional variations and one of the regional flavor is the famous Taiwanese Minced Pork Sauce over Rice dish.

Taiwanese Minced Pork Sauce over Rice holds an iconic status in Taiwanese cuisine. This stew like meat sauce dish is extremely popular and can be found anywhere in Taiwan from mom’s kitchen to night market street vendors to upscale restaurants. The aromatic meat sauce is normally served on rice or noodles but I also discovered that it goes very well with toasted bread.

Lu Rou Fan (taiwanese Braised Pork Rice Bowl)

This dish is also very easy to make at home. It freezes well so I tend to make a big portion every time so I can save the leftover for extra meals. And yes, feel free to substitute minced pork with other types of meat. I like to use meat with a little fat to create that rich juicy consistency.

The recipe calls for store bought fried shallot which can be found in some Asian supermarkets. If you can’t find it nearby, you can order it online or make your own by frying chopped shallots until crispy. Also, the traditional recipe calls of soy sauce paste (醬油膏) which is a thicker version of soy sauce commonly used in Taiwan. If you have no luck to score it locally you can substitute it regular soy sauce and a little more sugar.

On a heavy skillet, add 1 tbsp of cooking oil and the minced pork over high heat. Stir the pork gently and constantly for about 4 minutes or until the pork turns slightly brown. Make sure your skillet is hot enough so you don’t lose the juice from the meat.

Taiwanese Minced Pork

Add broth/ water and mix in the five spice powder, star anise, bay leaf, soy sauce paste, dark soy sauce, cooking wine, black pepper, and sugar. Bring to boil and simmer over low heat for about 30 minutes. Stir occasionally.

Add fried shallot to the meat sauce after 30 mins of simmering. Add salt if necessary. Continue to simmer for another 20 minutes. Thicken the meat sauce with some corn starch.

Warning: Use of undefined constant rand - assumed 'rand' (this will throw an Error in a future version of PHP) in /home/yirese5/public_html/wp-content/themes//single.php on line 72Cooked in a rich broth to a melt-in-your-mouth texture, Taiwanese Lu Rou Fan is a heavenly scrumptious way to enjoy pork in an all-in-one rice bowl dish.

Taiwanese Braised Pork Belly Recipe (lu Rou Fan 卤肉饭)

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you may have noticed Chinese’s love for pork belly. There’re many classic dishes featuring this flavourful cut of meat: Red-braised Pork (红烧肉), Twice-cooked Pork (回锅肉), Hunan Pork Stir-fry (湖南小炒肉), Chinese Pork Burger (肉夹馍), etc. Today’s recipe Lu Rou Fan/卤肉饭 (Taiwanese pork rice bowl) shows you yet another way to enjoy it (as delicious as the others if not better).

A type of all-in-one rice bowl dish (known as Gai Fan/盖饭 in Chinese), Lu Rou Fan consists of braised fatty pork, hard-boiled eggs (flavoured in the meat broth), steamed rice and blanched veggies. Pork belly, the star component of the dish, is richly seasoned, cooked to an almost gelatinous texture and coated with a layer of sticky broth. Simply irresistible!

🛎 Can I use other cuts of pork? Obviously, this isn’t a healthy diet choice but an indulgent dish. So I don’t recommend you replace pork belly with other cuts or another type of meat.

Taiwanese Minced Pork Sauce Recipe

It takes about one and a half hour to prepare and cook this dish (It may seem long but it’s totally worth the effort!). Before we go into details on each step, here is a summary of the workflow.

Crispy shallots (fried shallots, 油葱酥) are an essential (and magical) ingredient for Lu Rou Fan. They add an oniony taste and aromatic sweetness making the dish different from other types of Chinese style braised pork, such as the classic Hong Shao Rou (Red braised pork belly, 红烧肉). They also help to thicken the consistency of the broth.

Although shop-bought crispy shallots are available in most Chinese/Asian shops, I highly recommend you make your own if time permits. Believe me! It tastes so much better.

Taiwanese Places To Satisfy Your Braised Pork Rice Cravings

Heat up neutral cooking oil in a wok/pan then put in thinly sliced shallots (or red onion). The quantity of oil should be enough to allow the shallots to float.

Fry over medium heat and remove from heat as soon as the shallots brown (overcooking would result in a bitter taste). Drain through a sieve. Set aside the fried shallots for later use.

🛎 What to do with the leftover oil?It’s not going to be wasted for sure! Use it like the classic Scallion Oil (Cong You/葱油) which can be enjoyed in so many delicious ways (Shanghai Scallion Oil Noodles is a great example).

Taiwanese Braised Pork Over Rice Recipe

🛎 Cook eggs at the same time.It took me about 7 minutes to fry the shallots. If you have another burner available, I suggest you cook some hard-boiled eggs during this time. You’ll need them in the next step.

Put the pork strips into an empty wok/pan over medium-high heat (you don’t need any oil). Stir occasionally to evenly heat the meat. You’ll see it changing colour and some oil appearing. So what you’re doing is actually frying the meat with its own fat.

Once the pork gets golden slightly, add minced garlic and rock sugar (or white sugar). Fry until the garlic becomes fragrant and the sugar is melted.

Authentic Taiwanese Braised Pork Rice (instant Pot & Easy)

Add the rest of the ingredients: light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, Shaoxing rice wine, five-spice powder, white pepper, diced shiitake mushroom, hard-boiled eggs and fried shallots (I like keeping some to use as a topping when assembling the dish).

To add more aroma to the dish, I use the water in which the mushrooms were soaked as the braising liquid. Top up with more water if necessary to fully immerse the meat.

Once it comes to a full boil. Cover with a lid and turn down the heat to low. Leave to simmer for at least 1 hour until the pork becomes very tender and a little gelatinous.

Taiwan Eats: Taiwanese Meat Sauce With Rice (lu Rou Fan)

🛎 Use other cookware. The braising part can be done in a stovetop pressure cooker, an instant pot or a slow cooker. Adjust time accordingly.

🛎 Reduce the broth. If there is still a lot of liquid left when the pork is fully cooked, turn the heat to high and boil uncovered to reduce its volume and thicken. However, do not dry it out as it’s nice to serve a little thick broth over the rice.

While you wait for the pork to cook, prepare another two elements of Lu Rou Fan: steamed rice and blanched green vegetable, such as Bok Choy, Choy Sum, Gai Lan, broccoli, etc.

Taiwanese Pork Chop

Blanching vegetables is easy: bring a pot of water, with a little salt, to a full boil then add the vegetable (already washed and chopped). For leafy greens, it only takes 30 seconds or so to cook. Broccoli needs a little longer time. The goal is to cook it but retain its crunchiness. Overcooked vegetables often taste chewy or mushy which isn’t very pleasurable.

Put cooked rice into serving bowls then top with the vegetable. Use a knife (or a string) to halve the eggs. Add them and the pork over the rice. Sprinkle some leftover crispy shallots. Here you are! An all-in-one, scrumptious meal is ready to be served.

🛎 Make in advance. Since this dish takes some time to cook, I highly recommend you cook a large batch of pork and freeze the leftover for future use. Simply increase the ingredient quantity proportionally and lengthen the cooking time accordingly.

Taiwanese Meat Sauce + A Giveaway — Molly Yeh

2. After draining, leave the oil to cool then keep it in a clean jar. Check out the various ways to use it in my post on Chinese Scallion Oil (葱油).

NUTRITION DISCLOSURE: Nutritional information on this website is provided as a courtesy to readers. It should be considered estimates. Please use your own brand nutritional values or your preferred nutrition calculator to double check against our estimates.Join Our Newsletter And Receive Our Free Top 25 Recipes Book! Subscribe Tap here to receive our FREE top 25 recipe book!

If you love Hong Shao Rou (Red Braised Pork Belly) and Lu Rou Fan (Braised Pork over Rice), you will love Rou Zao Fan (肉燥饭), or Taiwanese Braised Minced Pork Over Rice, even more. It has the same great flavors, but uses ground pork instead of pork belly.

Asian Crispy Pork Belly

Some people think Rou Zao Fan is the same as Lu Rou Fan. Not quite! This Taiwanese Braised Minced Pork