Easy Thai Beef Recipe – Best Thai Basil Beef
With so many of us still hunkering down as much as possible and learning to cook restaurant favorites at home, 2021 could be the year those take-out menus hanging out in the kitchen drawer take a back seat to delicious dinners right from your own kitchen!
If you love Asian cuisine, my Easy Thai Beef is sure to become a staple on your weekly menu plan! Simple ingredients come together for a meal filled with flavor, that can be on the table in about 30 minutes. After a long day, making dinner can sometimes seem impossible, but with this recipe you can impress the family with a tasty take-out quality meal in no time.
Related: 15 Take-Out Fake Out Dishes Easily Made At Home
Sometimes I read recipes and I get annoyed because they call for specialty ingredients I don’t have on hand, are hard to find in my area, or I don’t want to purchase for just one recipe. So the fact this recipe doesn’t call for anything you can’t buy in your regular grocery store is an added bonus to me. The only thing you might have an issue finding, simply because of the time of year, is Thai basil. If that’s the case, you can easily swap it out for a combination of Italian basil and a few leaves of mint mixed in.
What is the Difference Between Thai Basil and Italian Basil
The first thing you will notice about Thai basil compared to its Italian cousin are the purple stems and narrow leaves. It also has a spicier and bolder flavor too. While Italian basil is known as “sweet,” Thai basil has a notable anise flavor. Most grocery stores carry both varieties, but if you have a hard time finding it, please visit a local Asian market instead. Most in our area carry it and they are locally owned shops that can certainly use business during these times.
How To Make Easy Thai Beef
This recipe comes together in almost no time, so be sure to gather all your ingredients at the start so you can move from one step to another easily. I always begin by prepping any veggies a recipe calls for, so chop the red peppers and onions and slice the English cucumber.
Next, you will prepare the two sauces for the dish. One will be added to the beef once it’s cooked. The other will be used as a quick marinade for the cucumbers that top each serving.
As you brown the beef, don’t move it around too much at the beginning. Place it in the skillet and allow it to cook for some time before you start stirring it. You want it to brown, infusing flavor into every bite. Once it is nice an brown, you will add the soy mixture and basil to add even more deliciousness.
While your beef mixture cooks, prepare some rice any way you like. For our family, instant rice is perfectly acceptable, but if you have a rice steamer, jasmine or basmati would be tasty too. Oh, and if you prefer brown rice, it would be yummy as well.
There is no reason why we have to miss out on our favorite restaurant dishes right now. With simple make at home versions, we can enjoy so many of them, plus control the ingredients. It might just be one good change that comes out of this pandemic that we actually want to keep around.
Love making copycat recipes? Try these next!
Easy Thai Beef
Ingredients
- 2 lbs ground beef
- 2 red bell peppers, diced
- ½ cup + 1 tsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 2 limes, juiced
- 5 large garlic cloves, minced
- 2 tbsp Thai basil, finely chopped
- ¼ tsp dried red pepper
- 1 English cucumber, thinly sliced
- pinch of salt and pepper
- cooked white rice
Directions
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In a large skillet over medium high heat, brown beef until no longer pink.
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About half way through cooking, add bell pepper and garlic.
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In a small bowl whisk together ½ cup soy sauce, lime juice, sugar and dried red pepper.
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Set aside.
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In a medium bowl combine cucumbers, 1 tsp soy sauce and 1 TBS basil.
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Stir well.
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Set aside.
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When meat mixture is browned, add soy sauce mixture and 1 tbsp basil.
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Stir well. Reduce heat to simmer and cook 10 minutes until reduced.
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Serve beef over cooked rice and top with cucumbers.
Kitchen Counter
Serves 4.
Krista Marshall is the creator of Everyday Mom’s Meals and a full time stay at home mom. She lives in northern Indiana with her husband of 17 years and their two amazing and busy sons, age 16 and 4. Everyday Mom’s Meals is for everyone from the novice cook to the experienced home chef. Krista wants to get families around the table with simply made, delicious food. You can follow her on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and Twitter too!