Recipe
🍽️ DINNER
Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup
Chewy wheat noodles in a dark, star-anise beef broth with melting shank and pickled mustard greens.
Taiwanese · medium · serves 4
prep 25 min · cook 150 min
~1248 cal · 95g protein · 134g carbs · 38g fat · 34g fiber · 17g sugars · 14g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Taiwanese beef noodle soup is regarded as a national dish of Taiwan, chewy wheat noodles in a dark, deeply spiced broth of beef shank and tendon, scented with star anise, and often built on broad-bean chili paste (doubanjiang). The 'hong shao' (red-cooked) style traces to mainland immigrants, especially military families, who reinvented it in postwar Taiwan.
The broth is the heart, beef bones and aromatics simmered for hours into something rich, savory, and warming, the meat falling apart into gelatinous tenderness. Taipei celebrates it with an annual beef noodle festival, and shops compete fiercely over their secret broths.
Topped with pickled mustard greens and , it is eaten year-round, from night markets to dedicated noodle shops across Taipei.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally dairy-, nut-, egg- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 4
2 lbs beef shank, thick slices
1 lb wheat noodles, thick and chewy
2 tbsp doubanjiang (chili bean paste)
Hard to find? red miso or Korean doenjang with a spoonful of chilli oil - doubanjiang is fermented broad beans with chilli, so a fermented bean paste plus chilli separately gets most of the way; use about one part paste to one part chilli oil and add a pinch of salt if the miso tastes sweet
1/2 cup soy sauce
1.5 tbsp rock sugar
1/2 cup Shaoxing or Taiwanese rice wine
Hard to find? dry (fino) sherry - nutty, amber and faintly sweet in the same way; use it measure for measure. Rice vinegar is not a substitute, whatever the name suggests
3 tomatoes, roughly chopped
2 onions, quartered
1 head garlic cloves, crushed
3 star anise
1 stick cinnamon
1 tsp each Sichuan peppercorns and fennel seeds
3 bay leaves
2 dried chilies
to taste salt
8 oz pickled mustard greens (suan cai), chopped
6 heads baby bok choy or other leafy greens
a small handful ginger
a small handful
a small handful garlic
2 tomatoes, quartered
4 baby bok choy
1/2 cup pickled mustard greens, chopped
Instructions
1
Blanch the beef chunks in boiling water for 2 minutes, then rinse and set aside.
✎ Chef’s note
This quick blanch draws out the scum that would otherwise cloud the broth, so it stays clear and clean-tasting.
2
Fry the onion, ginger, garlic, scallions, and whole spices in oil until the onion browns at the edges, then add the doubanjiang and fry until the oil turns brick-red and fragrant.
3
Splash in the rice wine, then add the soy sauce, rock sugar, salt, and tomatoes and stir to combine.
4
Add the beef and 10 cups water, bring to a simmer, and cook partly covered for 2 to 2.5 hours, until the shank is meltingly tender.
5
Near serving time, cook the noodles and blanch the bok choy in a separate pot of water.
6
Build each bowl with noodles, hot broth, beef, and bok choy.
7
Top with a spoonful of the pickled mustard greens, fried first in a little oil with garlic until dry and fragrant, which is the sharp note that finishes the dish.
✎ Chef’s note
Most Taiwanese cooks treat the suan cai as essential rather than a garnish, and frying it with garlic (and a pinch of sugar) takes the muddy edge off the pickle and balances its salt.
Taipei noodle-shop tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Taipei. Taiwanese cooking carries a Japanese layer from fifty years of colonial rule, visible in the boxed lunch, in the taro and sweet potato sweets and in the shaved ice eaten through the summer. The Chinese regional cooking arrived separately and later, after 1949, with well over a million people from across the mainland.
🗺️
Taiwan. Fifty years of Japanese rule, from 1895 to 1945, left marks that outlasted it. The staple rice was switched from long-grain indica to Japanese short-grain japonica, which is still what Taiwan grows; miso, Japanese soy sauce and MSG entered the pantry; and the word for a cuisine, liaoli, is itself a Japanese borrowing.
🌍
Asia. Fermentation is the thread that runs the whole way across: soy sauce and miso, Korean doenjang and kimchi, Southeast Asian fish sauces, the soured batter behind an idli. Chilli is the newcomer among them, arriving only after 1500 with Portuguese and Spanish traders, which makes the heat in Sichuan, Thai and Korean cooking far younger than the fermenting underneath it.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
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Good to know
You’ll need: Pot or saucepan.
Storing it: Soup keeps 3 to 4 days refrigerated and freezes well. Reheat gently and loosen with a little water or stock if needed.
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Frequently asked questions
What is Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup?
Chewy wheat noodles in a dark, star-anise beef broth with melting shank and pickled mustard greens.
Where does Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup come from?
Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup is a Taiwanese dish from Taipei, Taiwan.
Can Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup take to make?
About 175 minutes total (25 minutes prep, 150 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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