Shoyu Beef with onion is one of my go-to dishes to make at home with ground beef. My grandma use to make it for my Dad when he was growing up, and on a whim I decided to recreate it. I have heard her recipe, but I had to experiment to figure out the ratios of sugar to soy sauce to mirin that I like the best. If you are like me the only things you know how to cook with ground beef are spaghetti and hamburgers, which is a pretty limited selection of items you can cook. So after experimenting with some proportions of ingredients (and looking at my grandmas old recipes), I believe I have a really nice mix of soy sauce, sugar, and mirin that creates some tasty shoyu beef with onions.
The key really is the shoyu sauce, and getting the soy sauce to sugar ratio perfect. I must have made plenty of overly sugary and overly salty shoyu beef dishes until my kids said it was amazing.
Tips for cooking Shoyu Beef with onion
- Ground beef with some fat is better than 97% lean. In fact I would recommend 80% or even 87% as options for your ground beef. If you notice I don’t drain the fat either.
- Sweet onion or yellow onions for me it doesn’t really matter, it just matters that you dice them up good, and you cook them until they are translucent.
- Add the sauce mixture just as your ground beef is getting browned all over.
What to eat with Shoyu Beef
- A bowl of rice is perfect to have with shoyu beef. I actually like to add the shoyu beef over the rice.
- Peas – I don’t love peas but my Dad swears it’s not shoyu beef unless you add some frozen peas to your shoyu beef.
- Green onions – For that extra coloring I prefer a green onion garnish. Though I would avoid the green onions if this is for kids.
If you want to try some other Asian beef recipes I highly recommend this Japanese Flank Steak or Japanese style beef and potato stew, Nikujaga.
Shoyu Beef with Onion
Equipment
- 1 Non-stick Pan
Ingredients
- 1 lb Ground beef
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 tbsp mirin
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 1 Onion
- 1 tbsp Vegetable oil
Instructions
- Get your ingredients
- Peel and dice your onion.
- Mix your 1 tbsp sugar, 1/4 soy sauce, and 1 tbsp mirin together in a bowl and mix well.
- Put your stove on medium heat, and add 1 tbsp of oil to your pan.
- When you oil is hot, maybe 1 minute, add your diced onions to the pan. Cook your onions until they are about translucent. I estimate about 2-3 minutes.
- Add your ground beef to the pan and cook and brown for another 5 minutes.
- When the ground beef has sufficiently been browned add your sugar, soy sauce, and mirin sauce to it. Then I would cook for another 2 minutes.
- Serve over rice!
If you are also on the hunt for some dishes to cook with ground beef or pork, here are some of my recommendations, Hawaiian Melted Cheese and Beef sandwich, Mapo Tofu with Ground pork, and the Woks of life Curry Puffs.
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