Spicy Beef Noodle Soup Recipe (with easy to find ingredients)

Are you looking for a filling soup that has a little bit of spice to it? What I hate about eating soup for dinner is that I’m hungry 2 hours late. Today’s recipe will NOT leave you feeling hungry. Click here to go straight to the recipe card.

This recipe is adapted from this recipe I tried at The Woks of Life. The first time I tried this recipe I used all of the unusual ingredients. The next time I swapped out the hard-to-find ingredients and made a few other changes based on what my family likes. We love spicy food and this soup doesn’t have to cook for a long time.

The original recipe called for three ingredients that I swapped out, spicy bean paste (or spicy bean sauce they are used interchangeably), red Sichuan peppercorns and star of anise. These ingredients are hard to find. Asian supermarkets carry them, but not regular grocery stores. I made these substitutions below and it tasted as good, or better and I didn’t have to make an extra trip to the Asian markets.

The spicy bean paste/chili bean paste I bought had MSG (monosodium glutamate) and soybean oil, two ingredients that I don’t like to use if I can avoid them. The substitution I recommend is hoisin sauce and chili sauce. If you like it spicy, we added sriracha sauce (why is that word so hard to spell) to spice it up even more.

I eliminated the star anise pods because we are not huge fans of anise, which has a licorice flavor. I also eliminated the rice wine, not because it doesn’t work, I just didn’t have any and we didn’t miss it.

I had never used red Sichuan peppercorns before. They are good, but my family didn’t appreciate the crunch. Sichuan peppercorns are really berries of the prickly ash tree. The substitute for these is regular black peppercorns, coriander seeds and lemon zest.

Ingredients (with substitutions for the more authentic hard to find ingredients)

• 1/2 inch sliced ginger
• 3 scallions
• 2 lb cubed chuck roast
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 TB coriander seed and
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest
• 3 TB avocado oil
• 15 cloves of garlic peeled
• 1 yellow onion
• 4 bay leaves
• 1/4 chile paste
• 2 tomatoes (I tried with 2 tablespoons of tomato paste if you don’t have tomatoes)
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 package of wheat or udon noodles

Steps To Cook Soup

1. Add cubed beef chunks, green onions, ginger and 16 cups of cold water to a large stock pot. Cover and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Once you have boiling water, uncover and turn heat to low for 10 minutes. Skim the scum off the top. Transfer beef to a large bowl (unless you have two stock pots) and pour the broth on top through a fine mesh strainer.
2. Add avocado oil to the large pot with onions, pepper, coriander seed, lemon zest, garlic cloves and bay leaves. Cook for 10 minutes.
3. Add bean paste and tomatoes and continue to cook for two minutes.
4. Add soy sauce and sugar. The original recipe called for light soy sauce, but I didn’t have any. I used dark soy sauce.
5. Add the beef and broth back to the stock pot. Bring to a boil and then turn heat down to low for 90 minutes.
6. In a separate pot, cook the noodles per the package instructions.

The last step is to add noodles to each serving bowl, spoon soup over the noodles and garnish with chopped green onions and cilantro. We added extra sriracha sauce because we like that extra kick. This recipe is a great way to cook roast meat quickly. If you don’t like spicy soup, this recipe is not for you.

This recipe is not ideal for cooking in a slow cooker or instant pot because you have to bring it to a boil twice and add the noodles at the end.

Recipe Card