Enjoy PF Chang’s Pepper Steak at home with this tasty copycat recipe. Featuring flank steak and bell peppers in an irresistible pepper garlic sauce. Serve with white or brown rice for a quick and delicious weeknight dinner.
It’s always a treat to go to PF Chang’s, but a night out with the family can be expensive and time consuming, especially when you just want a quick and tasty weeknight dinner. That’s why I recreated this simple version of PF Chang’s Pepper Steak recipe to make at home, and it’s now a family favorite. It takes 30 minutes to prepare and is made all in one pot. Less dishes equals less cleanup and I’m all about that!
Cooking With Flank Steak
I use flank steak for this recipe. It’s a fairly lean cut of meat that can be a bit tough. Marinating helps to tenderize the meat, although it’s not necessary. Recipes with flank steak typically call for cutting the steak into thin strips cut against the grain (which I talk about below). Flank steak is cooked quickly at high heat. It’s delicious when grilled, seared or in stir fries. You can substitute top round or sirloin steak for the flank steak in this recipe.
How to cut against the grain
The grain of meat refers to the direction in which the muscle fibers run through the meat. In a flank steak, you’ll be cutting across the width of the steak as opposed to down the length. The idea is to cut through the fibers to shorten them, making the meat less chewy. You are slicing against the grain (perpendicular) instead of parallel to it.
What oil should I use for stir fry?
You need to choose an oil with a high smoke point since stir fries call for high heat. The oil will literally start to smoke and taste bitter if you use an oil with a low smoke point. I use peanut oil, which has a smoke point of 450°F. It’s often used in Asian cuisine and has a subtle nutty flavor. If you want to use another oil, palm oil has a smoke point just below 450°F and corn oil has a smoke point of 450°F. Sunflower oil is a neutral oil with a smoke point of 440°F, and vegetable oil, including canola oil, has a neutral flavor and a smoke point of 400°F.
What goes in the stir fry
It’s a really simple stir fry with flank steak, green bell pepper strips, green onions, yellow onions chopped parsley and the stir fry sauce. Sauce ingredients include sesame oil, soy sauce, beef broth and oyster sauce. Make sure to use fresh garlic and ginger in this recipe for the best flavor.
Stir Fry Steps
Start by getting your skillet or wok very hot. Add 1 Tablespoon of peanut oil. When the oil is hot and shimmering, add flank steak strips. Let them cook for a few minutes, until the pink disappears. Transfer to a plate and add the remaining oil to the skillet.
Turn the skillet to medium heat and add the sliced yellow onion, green pepper strips, sesame oil and soy sauce. Stir-fry until tender, about 3-4 minutes. Add in garlic, ginger, oyster sauce and beef broth, stirring often. Once sauce thickens, add cooked beef strips back in and toss to coat.
Remove from heat and garnish with sliced green onions and sesame seeds. Serve with rice or noodles.
What goes well with Beef and Pepper Stir Fry?
You can serve Pepper Steak over white rice, brown rice, fried rice, cauliflower rice or Asian noodles.
Tips For Stir Frying
- Have all your ingredients chopped and prepped before you start to cook.
- Use a good quality skillet or a wok for stir frying. I like a cast iron skillet or heavy-duty wok for this recipe.
- A few vegetable additions for more variety: water chestnuts, carrots, broccoli, pea pods. You can sub in red or orange peppers if you don’t have green bell peppers on hand.
- If you’re sensitive to salt, use light soy sauce in place of the regular version
Give this quick and easy restaurant quality pepper steak recipe a try and tell me what you think!
P.F.Changs Pepper Steak Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp peanut oil divided
- 1 pinch Salt
- 1/2 tsp Black pepper
- 1 pound skirt steak sliced thin
- 1 medium yellow onion sliced thin
- 1 green bell pepper diced
- 1/2 tsp sesame oil
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 2 tsp minced garlic
- 3 tbsp oyster sauce
- 1 tsp mined ginger
- 1/2 cup beef broth
Instructions
- In a wok or large saute pan, heat the oil and season the sliced steak. Add to the warm pan and cook over a high heat.
- Transfer the cooked meat to a plate.
- Add the remaining peanut oil to the pan over a medium heat.
- Add the onions, green pepper, sesame oil and soy sauce. cook for 3-4 minutes.
- Add the garlic, ginger, oyster sauce and broth to the onion mixture and mix well.
- Once the sauce has thickened slightly and is simmering, add the beef back into the pan and toss to coat the beef well.
- Serve over rice and garnish with red pepper flakes off desired.
Nutrition
thank you for breaking this down, much appreciated, I can’t remember the last time I’ve been to PFC’s (I just remembered where it is, but basically I’ve forgotten all about it) but do love many of their dishes and pepper steak is one of my favorites
This was pretty tasty! I used top sirloin and marinated it in a tsp of soy sauce and tsp of sesame oil for two hours. I also used 2.5 peppers (one red, 1.5 green) because they were in my fridge and needed to be used. I liked the flavor, and we added some hot sauce when we ate it. Good job!