Glass Noodle Stir Fry with Cabbages (2024)

Cabbage glass noodle stir fry is a very popular Chinese street food.

This easy cabbage glass noodle stir fry can be made within 20 minutes! It’s a perfect quick workday or weekend lunch.

You can also easily adapted it to be vegan friendly by substituting the eggs with frim tofu.

What’s Glass Noodle?

Glass noodles are made of vegetable starch – “most commonly mung bean, and less often sweet potato, or pea” (right, they are not made of glass!) – and they have a transparent appearance.

Mr He’s favorite street food

When Mr He was in middle school, he often found it super difficult to walk away from the street food sellers around the school who make glass noodle stir fry.

You can smell the aromas from 5 miles away!!

And they taste so good that he would finish the whole thing (it’s a meal size) on the way home and totally have no room for dinner anymore!

So today, I’m going to show you this addictive recipe that we found it nostalgia and satisfied our taste buds!

Vegan/Vegetarian Adaptable

Glass noodle is the main ingredient in the dish, but if you don’t have it, you can replace with rice noodle or just normal noodle (maybe not pasta..).

Other popular ingredients are cabbages, carrots, and eggs.

You can easily adapt this dish to a vegan/vegetarian friendly dish by substituting the scrambled eggs with firmed tofu. And there’s also vegan “oyster sauce” made of shiitake mushrooms.

Explore Ms Shi’s other vegan recipes ~

Chinese food: Stir-Fry Everything

Cabbages and carrots are cut into very thin slices and are stir-fried thoroughly, very thoroughly.

You might wonder why – carrots normally have an earthy and bitter taste, but they will turn into sweet flavor after you stir-fry them thoroughly with oil.

Better flavor is one of the reasons why I always stir-fry my carrots.

Some people might say the vegetables would lose some nutrients when you cook them.

But Mr He would not consume the vegetables if his taste buds can’t even enjoy them thus losing all of the nutrients!

The stir-fried egg is the secret of the aromas!

“I am surprised to realize a lot of people hate eggs, and one main reason is due to its bad smell.

We have always been a fan of eggs so we really never thought about it. It turns out that eggs contain sulfur (also known as “S” in the chemistry table if you take chemistry class), which contributes to the bad smell.

If you boil your eggs (with shell), sulfur is captured inside the shell so you can smell it when you peel the eggs (especially overcooked boil eggs).”

– Mr He wrote these upper paragraphs for me, it’s funny that he was trying to give us a chemistry lesson.

If you stir-fry your eggs with oil, sulfur would instead be released into the air (I guess this is why we always turn the fan on vent out the air when cooking!).

Magically, you can turn the eggy smell into aromas with the help of stir-fry! Many popular Chinese dishes use this trick, for example, tomato-fried-eggs (yum~).

Maybe I should share this recipe someday too!😝

How to Makecabbage glass noodle stir fry

EQUIPMENT

• 1 wok/large frying pan with lid

INGREDIENTS

• 100 grams Dry glass noodles (about 2 small bundles)
• 1/2 Cabbage (about 400g)
• 1 Carrot (Optional)
• 3 Garlic cloves (about 1 tbsp. minced garlic)
• 3 eggs
• 6 tbsp. Cooking oil (3 tbsp. for frying eggs, 3 tbsp. for frying cabbage)

Seasoning:

• 1 tbsp. Oyster sauce

• 1/2 tbsp. Aromatic vinegar (Or balsamic vinegar)
• 2 tbsp. Light soy sauce
• 1 tbsp. Dark soy sauce
• 1/2 tbsp. sugar
• 1/2teaspoonsalt

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Soak 100g dry glass noodles in hot water for 5 minutes until soft. Drain and cut the glass noodles in half lengthwise. Set aside.

2. Remove the core from the cabbage (*see note 1). Cut the cabbage into halves. Cover half of the cabbage with food wrap, store in the fridge. Slice the other half of the cabbage along the vertical edge into long shreds. Set aside.

3. Mince 3 garlic cloves. Optionally, shred 1 carrot. Set aside.

4. Heat 3 tablespoons of oil in a large frying pan over medium heat for 2 minutes. I test the temperature by putting my hand about 5 inches above the pan, once I could feel the hot air, it means that the oil is hot enough.

5. Crack in 3 eggs to stir fry over medium heat for 1 minute. The eggs don’t need to be fully cooked now. Transfer the scrambled eggs to a place. Set aside.

6. Keep using medium heat. While the frying pan is still hot, add 3 tablespoons of oil in the pan, add minced garlic and shredded carrots to fry for 30 seconds.

7. Add shredded cabbage to the pan. (It might look like you have prepared too much cabbage. It’s fine! The cabbage shreds will shrink dramatically after cooked.)

8. Cover the pan with a lid, cook the cabbage over medium heat for 3 minutes. (There’s enough oil on the bottom, and the cabbage will release water, so no worries, it won’t get burnt.)

9. 3 minutes later, open the lid, the cabbage shreds should turn soft now. Stir and mix everything well.

10. Add the soaked glass noodles and seasoning sauce to the pan. (If you are new to cooking, you can prepare the sauce in a bowl before you start the cooking process. )

11. Stir and mix everything well with chopsticks or tongs.

After the glass noodles have absorbed the sauce and turned into a reddish brown color, add the scrambled eggs, mix everything well, and turn off the heat.

12. Plate and enjoy!

NOTES

1. I learned a trick to remove the core “fast”. You can try hitting the core of the cabbage on a hard surface for a couple times, the cabbage leaves should fell apart loosely after hitting .

Then you can use a small knife to cut around the core if needed. After this you should be able to pull out the core easily. I tried this method, it worked. But I think cutting the whole cabbage into halves and slice out the core would actually be easier.

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