Sriracha Beef Bowl

My oldest son introduced us to this one, based on a recipe he learned from a meal delivery service (EveryPlate).  Yes – he subscribed to a meal delivery service, both to save him the bother of going to the grocery store, and to prod him into cooking instead of ordering out.  Whatever it takes.  As a bonus we all got to see the meal plan recipes and try out the ones that looked best.  EveryPlate calls this one their “Beef Bahn Mi Bowl”.  Sounds pretty delicious, huh?  Except that bahn mi is a Vietnamese sandwich.  Wait, what?  Vietnamese cooking has been influenced by years of French occupation, but apparently the Vietnamese make some pretty great bread as a result.  See how much you can learn by searching for a recipe? 

I’ve made this one a couple of times now, with only minor tweaks.  The boys really like it as is.  I did add cabbage as an additional vegetable.  Cabbage would be challenging for the meal delivery service to ship, but it’s easy to pick up at the grocery store.  And a head of cabbage lasts a long time in the fridge so you can use the rest for another meal, like coleslaw or fish tacos or lo mein, for example.  I used purple cabbage the first time because it’s more colorful.  But the second time I opted for green cabbage.  I like the taste a little better, and it doesn’t leach purple color onto the other food.  You can use whatever you like best.

The sriracha mayo sauce is really the star of this meal.  I bought some squeeze bottles from Amazon and tried to make the sauce in the squeeze bottle so I could make pretty sauce trails for my photos.  The squeeze bottle was a total fail.  First, I couldn’t get the mayo into the bottle.  Then the sauce was too thick and didn’t blend together, no matter how hard a shook that bottle.  And then we couldn’t get all the sauce out and wound up wasting a lot.  While I was struggling to get mayo into the bottle, Tim suggested putting the sauce in a Ziploc bag next time, then clipping off a corner and squeezing it out like cake frosting.  Great idea.  I just wish he’d come up with it before I bought 6 squeeze bottles.   

Sriracha Beef Bowl

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Prep Time 15 minutes mins

Cook Time 30 minutes mins

Course Main Course

Cuisine Asian

Servings 6 servings

Ingredients

  

• 1 1/2 lbs. ground beef
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon sugar optional
• 1 1/2 cups uncooked Jasmine rice
• 2 large carrots

For the pickled vegetables

• 1/3 head cabbage optional
• English cucumber
• 1/2 cup vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar

Sriracha mayo sauce

• 1/2 cup low-fat mayo
• sriracha sauce to taste

Instructions

 

• Bring water and rice to a boil, and continue cooking rice according to package directions.
• Slice cabbage into thin strips, and place strips in a bowl
• Cut the cucumber in half lengthwise, then cut into thin slices. Sliced cucumber will make half circles. Put the cucumber in a second bowl.
• Mix the vinegar and ½ teaspoon sugar. Pour half of the vinegar/sugar mix into each bowl of veggies.
• Chop the onion.
• Brown the ground beef, garlic and onion over medium high heat.
• Peel the carrot and shred it using the large holes of a box grater.
• Using the pan lid, drain the beef fat into a can which you can throw away later.
• Return the pan to the heat, and add soy sauce to the beef mixture.
• Mix the mayo and sriracha to desired heat. You can add a bit of lemon juice if you have any.
• To serve, place a scoop of rice in the bottom of a large bowl. Top with spoonfuls of beef, carrots, cucumbers, and cabbage. Finally drizzle or squeeze the sriracha mayo over the entire bowl.