Egg Foo Young Recipe - Better than Takeout! (2024)

FAQs

Egg Foo Young Recipe - Better than Takeout!? ›

Egg foo young is more than just an omelet

Well, it's basically a pancake, fried fritter, and omelet all in one. The secret to good egg foo young is how well the ingredients are mixed. Done right, it becomes fluffy and delicious.

Egg foo young is more than just an omelet

Well, it's basically a pancake, fried fritter, and omelet all in one. The secret to good egg foo young is how well the ingredients are mixed. Done right, it becomes fluffy and delicious.

Is Egg Foo Young healthy? Egg Foo Young is one of the healthiest Chinese takeout meals if made at home! While restaurants tend to cook the omelettes in a LOT of oil, when made at home it's a low fat, high protein, low carb dinner option.

Chicken, beef and shrimp pan-fried with bean sprouts, cabbage, carrots and eggs in a special brown sauce.

Egg foo young can be served plain, but it's traditionally dressed with a thick, soy-sauce-based gravy. The gravy can be made with a variety of ingredients like chicken stock, soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, and a bit of sugar.

Egg Foo Yung is a Chinese egg omelet. The name is Cantonese and means "hibiscus egg." Egg Foo Yung (also spelled Egg Foo Young and Egg Fu Yung) is made with beaten eggs and most often ham, but—as with the omelet we are all familiar with—a variety of meats and seafood as well as vegetables can also be added.

Egg Foo Young is a fluffy Chinese egg omelette served at any Chinese restaurant as a main dish or side dish. This omelet has bean sprouts, shrimp (or meat of your choice), and shallots. Then fried in hot oil and topped off with a thick brown gravy and spring onions. It's best served over white rice.

Steamed Fish and Vegetables

Takeout menus tend to offer a mild-tasting variety of protein-rich white fish, such as sole, and it's paired with mixed vegetables. The veggies add fiber, a key nutrient for digestion and heart health. If you have the chance to choose or add Chinese eggplant as a veggie, go for it.

You can keep the leftover egg foo young pancakes in the fridge for up to four days or freeze them for up to four months. I reheat them by popping them in a toaster oven or an air fryer set at 375°F for 5 to 8 minutes or until heated through.

The egg foo young origin story is said to go back to the southern Chinese coastal province of Guangdong, formerly known as Canton. The dish can now be found as a Cantonese hybrid not only in this country, but across Asia too.

What's the difference between Foo Yung and omelette? ›

The most important difference between a regular egg omelette and authentic egg foo yung is the filling. There are countless variations you can embrace with the basic egg foo yung recipe, but the ingredients list will usually include an assortment of vegetables like onions, bean sprouts and mushrooms.

Serving Egg Foo Yung

You could probably eat Egg Foo Yung on its own but I cannot eat it without a rich Chinese gravy and white rice. The gravy is made from a mixture of chicken broth, oyster sauce and soy sauce that gets brought to a simmer and thickened with a cornstarch slurry.

While Doubanjiang can be considered the "mother sauce" of Sichuan cuisine, there are some prominent flavors in modern Sichuan cooking that are often referenced as sauces but are composed of other ingredients and sauces during cooking. These include: Yuxiang (魚香)

The sauce usually contains beef stock or beef broth to give the dish extra flavor, but you can use chicken broth or stock if you like. Brown sauce is typically a Western Chinese takeaway thing. In some cultures, brown sauce isn't used at all.

In Chinese culture the egg is very significant, valued for centuries as a food supplement—especially for children, pregnant women, and those who are ill.

Chefs cook with high-quality woks and powerful heat

Chinese restaurants have high-quality woks and commercial-grade burners that allow them to cook at high heat. This helps create the Maillard reaction — a chemical reaction that browns the food and unlocks new levels of flavor and aroma.

The dish originates in the southern Chinese coastal province of Guangdong, which was known as Canton. Most versions which are found today are a Cantonese hybrid both in the United States and Asia.