Low Calorie Beef Noodle Soup

Homemade bone broth noodle bowl with braised beef shank. Roughly 490 calories and 36g protein with natural collagen in every bowl. Most fat is from the beef shank itself. The shank braises low and slow, letting the broth get full of collagen peptides. Doubanjiang, star anise and peppercorns build a deep, slightly spicy and mouth numbing broth. Topped with enoki mushrooms, quick pickled onions and chili oil. Loosely based on a recipe from Kenji Lopez Alt I posted here before!

By Sam Luck-Leonard

Low Calorie Beef Noodle Soup

Ingredients

  • 1 Beef Shank
  • 1 Yellow Onion
  • 2 Cinnamon Sticks
  • 2 Roma Tomatoes
  • 4 Cloves Garlic
  • Chili oil (optional)
  • Chinese Noodles
  • Dark Soy Sauce
  • Enoki Mushrooms
  • Ginger Root (a few slices)
  • Rice Vinegar
  • Salt
  • Sichuan Peppercorn
  • Soy Sauce
  • Spoon or two of Doubanjiang
  • Star Anise
  • Sugar
  • White Peppercorn

Instructions

  1. Get out a pot or a wok. I used a wok for this part because I wanted less dishes in the end and didn’t mind cleaning the wok in the middle of cooking
  2. Put the wok over medium high heat and heat up some sesame oil. Once heated, place the beef shank down and let it sear on the bottom of the pot for a minute
  3. Fill the pot with water to cover the meat and place 1/4 of a yellow onion in with the water and onion. Increase heat to high and add in two crushed cloves of garlic and a few slices of ginger root
  4. Once starting to bubble, let the pot sit for about 15 minutes until you see the top start accumulating small proteins you can then take out of the broth
  5. Take the shank out along with the onion, garlic and ginger root. You can discard the onion garlic and ginger root. Save the broth in a bowl separately
  6. Wash and dry your wok or pull out the wok for the first time and heat up just a little more sesame oil in it on medium heat
  7. Mince up two more cloves of garlic and cut half of the yellow onion into slices. Add to wok when oil is heated
  8. Take two Roma tomatoes and cut them into eighths. Add a scoop or two of Doubanjiang (Sichuan Broad Bean Sauce), depending on your sodium and spice preference, to the wok with the Roma tomatoes
  9. Lightly move around and fry on medium heat for a couple minutes to incorporate all of the flavor into the oil in the wok
  10. Add in a couple star anise, about five to six white peppercorns, a little bit more Sichuan peppercorns and two cinnamon sticks. Mix around and fry in these aromatics for a couple more minutes
  11. Add in a decent bit of soy sauce, dark soy sauce and rice vinegar into the wok. This amount is up to you for sodium content and acidity preferences as well as sweetness from the dark soy sauce
  12. Add the reserved broth from earlier as well as the beef shank. Add in more water as needed to cover the shank and fill the bowl with plenty of liquid
  13. Bring the broth in the wok to a simmer and let sit about 2 to 2 and a half hours
  14. In the meantime, you can slice up the remaining 1/4 yellow onion. Mix with hot water, rice vinegar, salt, and sugar to quick pickle them while the broth simmers
  15. When the broth is done simmering, remove all solids from the broth. You can discard all solids besides the beef shank
  16. Boil a small pot of water and portion out your noodles. I had Ty Ling Chinese Noodles for mine. Once boiled, place in a bowl. Add in a few of the pickled onions, some washed enoki mushrooms and about 1/4 of the beef shank meat (should pull right off the bone)
  17. Ladle over the broth and serve!
  18. If you already have a lot of the spices for this dish and the Doubanjiang, this is an incredibly affordable dish with good nutrition for little calories. Feel free to substitute the Enoki mushrooms with any other kind of fungi or veggie