Dinner doesn’t get any easier than this Keto Mongolian Beef. Simply add the ingredients to your slow cooker and let it do all the work! It’s as tasty as take-out and far healthier.
This Keto Mongolian Beef is one of my most popular keto slow cooker recipes. It’s what I like to call a “dump-and-run meal”, meaning you just dump in all the ingredients and walk away. A few hours later, dinner is done!
But it still has all the great flavor of the original, with a fraction of the carbs. My kids love this so we make it often. Served over cauliflower rice, it’s an easy and healthy dinner we can all enjoy.
Try my Keto Meatball Casserole for another family-friendly slow cooker recipe!
Why you will love this recipe
We can all use more easy keto dinner recipes, and it really doesn’t get any easier than Keto Mongolian Beef. It takes only about 10 minutes of active prep and then it practically cooks itself.
This recipe has all the classic umami flavor of your favorite takeout. It’s a little bit sweet and a little bit spicy, with plenty of sauce that soaks into any keto rice or noodles you pair it with.
I utilized my slow cooker for this dish to minimize the effort and the clean-up. Tougher cuts of meat like flank steak or skirt steak benefit from slow braising, and become melt-in-your-mouth tender.
But not everyone has a crockpot so I’ve also included instructions for both the Instant Pot and the stovetop.
Ingredients you need
This post may contain Amazon or other affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
- Flank steak: Flank steak is a good choice for Mongolian beef, as it’s easy to slice thinly. You can also use top sirloin or skirt steak.
- Swerve Brown: I highly recommend a brown sugar replacement, as it gives this recipe a more authentic flavor. You can also use granular sweetener and 1 teaspoon of molasses.
- Allulose: You don’t have to add the allulose but it does help make the sauce a bit stickier, like traditional Mongolian beef.
- Tamari: I prefer tamari over coconut aminos, because it has more umami flavor and fewer carbs. It’s also better than soy sauce as it’s completely gluten-free.
- Sesame oil: Use toasted sesame oil for the best flavor.
- Garlic: Fresh minced garlic is best, but if you must substitute granulated garlic, use ¾ teaspoon.
- Ginger: I use ground ginger for simplicity, but you can also use a teaspoon of fresh grated ginger.
- Red pepper flakes: Add another ¼ teaspoon if you like more heat.
- Glucomannan: Traditional Mongolian beef takes cornstarch for a rich, thick sauce. A keto thickening agent, like glucomannan or xanthan gum, makes the sauce thicker without starch.
- Garnish: Green onion, sesame seeds, salt.
Step by Step Directions
1. Prep the beef: Slice the beef thinly against the grain. This is easier to do when the meat is partially frozen. You don’t want it rock hard, but it 30 to 45 minutes in the freezer is about right. Place the sliced beef at the bottom of a slow cooker.
2. Make the sauce: Whisk together the sweeteners, water, tamari, sesame oil, garlic, ginger, and red pepper flakes. Pour over the meat and cook on low for 4 to 6 hours.
3. Thicken the sauce: Remove some of the liquid into a bowl and add the glucomannan. Whisk to combined well, then pour back into the pot and stir to coat the beef.
4. Garnish and serve: Sprinkle the Keto Mongolian Beef with sliced green onion and some sesame seeds. Serve over cauliflower rice.
Expert Tips and FAQ
Instant Pot Directions: Use the sauté function to brown the beef in a little oil first. Don’t add any water to the sauce, as pressure cookers force moisture out of the meat and it may end up quite soupy. Then cook the beef on Manual High for 10 minutes, then thicken with glucomannan.
Stovetop Directions: Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add half the beef and sauté until nicely browned, 3 to 4 minutes. Repeat with more oil and the remaining beef.
Add the sauce to the pan and bring to a simmer. Push all the beef to one side and whisk in the glucomannan, then stir well to combine.
This Keto Mongolian Beef has 2 grams of carbs per serving. It is much lower in carbohydrate than the traditional version, which can easily have 15 to 25 grams per serving.
Mongolian beef is a sweet and slightly spicy dish. You can easily adjust the heat to your liking by adding more or less red pepper flakes.
The popular version of this dish from PF Chang’s contains a great deal of sugar. But this keto recipe has no added sugars and all the great flavor of the original!
More take-out copycat recipes
- Keto Korean Beef tops my list of easy dinner favorites. The meat is richly flavored and perfect with lightly sautéed zucchini noodles.
- Getting my whole family to agree on one dinner recipe is tough, but Easy Keto Chicken Fajitas works every time!
- This Keto Chicken Yakitori always meets with approval. One reader says: “I made this recipe for dinner tonight. Delicious! Even my non keto eating husband loved and gobbled it up.”
- Pizza night is back on with my delicious keto pizza dough. Add all your favorite toppings and dig in!
Keto Mongolian Beef Recipe
Equipment
- slow cooker (or Instant Pot)
Ingredients
- 1 ½ lbs flank or sirloin steak
- ⅓ cup Swerve Brown
- 2 tablespoon allulose (optional)
- ¼ cup water
- ¼ cup tamari or soy sauce (or coconut aminos)
- 2 tablespoon sesame oil
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- ½ tsp glucomannan powder (or ¼ teaspoon xanthan gum)
- 2 green onions, chopped
- Sesame seeds for sprinkling
Instructions
- Slice the beef very thinly against the grain. This works best when it is semi-frozen (but not rock solid). Place the beef in the bottom of a slow cooker.
- In a medium bowl or glass measuring up, whisk together the sweeteners, water, tamari, sesame oil, garlic, ginger, and red pepper flakes. Pour over the beef.
- Place the lid on the slow cooker and cook on low for 4 to 6 hours, OR high for 2 to 3 hours.
- When the beef has finished cooking, spoon some of the broth out of the pot into a bowl. Whisk in the glucomannan powder until combined, then pour the broth back into the pot and stir to coat.
- Sprinkle the beef with the chopped green onions and some sesame seeds and serve over cauliflower rice.
Susan Pelter says
This is a great recipe and as easy as advertised! Made it the other night and it was delish. Three observations… The level of sweetness was perfect for my taste, and I tend to like things sweet. It was a little on the salty side (and I love salt!) — however, I used Bragg’s liquid aminos rather than tamari. Next time, I’ll use tamari — or less Bragg’s! Finally, I was amazed at the thickening power of the glucomannan. Having not used it before, totally impressed with the consistency. I am going to try the leftovers as part of a salad tomorrow and am quite sure it will be wonderful.
Carolyn says
Glad to hear it! I love glucomannan for thickening gravies and sauces.
Jennifer says
Where do you buy the glucomannan? I’ve been using the xanthan gum which has worked okay. The whole family loves it!
Carolyn says
I just got mine on Amazon https://amzn.to/2RWNkvq
Mary says
What I like to do, is add some heavy whipping cream, that I’ve beaten until peaks, with some swerve powdered sugar. I then fold into crock pot meat at the very last after dissolving a beef bullion cube. Tastes very good (low carb).
Joy Tomlinson says
This is an excellent recipe! I love to make a double recipe and add 24 ounces of broccoli florets to it. Serve all of it over cauliflower rice and it is a very filling meal. It is delicious! Thank you Carolyn!
Jeannie says
I was thinking of adding broccoli also! When did you add it? At the end?
Philippa says
Was missing my Chinese take-away, but have now found my fake-away….. thank you, love it !
Holli Krebs says
Hi Carolyn, I am wondering on step 4 when you whisk in the glucoman and pour over, how does the sauce thicken without boiling it like gravy? I am looking forward to trying this recipe. Thanks!
Carolyn says
Because it’s not cornstarch. Glucomannan doesn’t need boiling to thicken.
Leslie George says
Hello Carolyn, Yesterday I made your recipe for the Mongolian Beef and the aroma was incredible. I put the crock pot / slow cooker at 4 hrs low and waited. I kept looking through the glass lid and after about an hour I said to self this looks done, but I let it go. After the 4 hours was up the sauce looked and smelled amazing. I pulled a piece of the meat out to taste and it was WAYYYY over cooked and dead dry. As always when I follow a recipe I do it exactly to get a feel for it. I was disappointed to say the least. I looked at another similar recipe I copied and there again with almost the same ingredients and procedure was the 4 – 6 hour time on it for the low setting. I also have another recipe that is made in a skillet / wok. I am hoping that this one comes out better. BTW it is not my slow cooker, I make other things in it which come out wonderfully.
Carolyn says
Could possibly be the cut of meat? What were you using?
YolandaTomaszewski says
I read that potato starch would not turn into glucose and could be beneficial on a keto diet. Would this be an acceptable studtitute for the glucomanin?
Carolyn says
I have never used it and am leery of these claims so I can’t really advise.
Diane says
Thanks so much for this recipe. It’s on my to-do list!
Doreen says
I look forward to making this dish. I’m happy that Monkfruit sweetener will work in this recipe. I don’t know why, but when I use this in baking, my family doesn’t complain about the flavor. I know everyone is different and some say it tastes awful, but it tastes like sugar to me. I love cilantro… no dish water flavor for me, but my genes really don’t like rosemary. Go figure. I love your recipes.
Lisa says
Thank you for a delicious recipe. I used coconut aminos instead of soy sauce as soy sauce seems to be a migraine trigger for me. The coconut aminos I use (Coconut Secret Coconut Aminos) have 1g of carbs per tsp so it added 6g of carbs to the recipe or 1.5g per serving). Have you tried Monkfruit sweetener with this? I may try that next time in place of the sweve.
Carolyn says
If by “Monkfruit Sweetener”, you mean Lakanto, then be forewarned that it’s mostly erythritol. So in that regard, it is not very different from Swerve.
Rachel says
Looks like a great recipe! Has anybody tried this without the sweetener? I know it won’t taste quite the same as Mongolian Beef, but wondering if it still might taste like a good dish. I’m new to Keto and have some mixed feelings about using the sugar substitutes. Thanks!
Carolyn says
Should still be fine!
rachel says
I couldn’t find swerve brown at Whole Foods, could I use regular swerve or maybe swerve with a splash ofmy kept friendly maple syrup?
rachel says
keto friendly
Mo says
Hi!
We were going to try out the recipe tonight but noticed the carbs in the swerve brown sugar were pretty much the same as regular brown sugar (4 g per 1 tsp). With 1/3 a cup of this, how does it turn out low carb? Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks!
Carolyn says
Okay so you need to research erythritol because although it has carbs, they have zero impact on blood sugar and thus are not counted as one.
Jeannie says
Hi Carolyn … Have your cook books, and love them.
I am confused though on the number of carbs per serving. The recipe says it serves 4. The amount of Swerve Brown is 1/3 C, which is six tablespoons, which is three teaspoons per tablespoon … so that means, for this recipe that serves 4, there are 18 teaspoons of Swerve Brown used. At 4 gm of carbs PER TEASPOON, that means just from the Swerve Brown alone there are 72 grams of carbs in this recipe, divided by 4 servings is 18 carbs per person/serving. I know I must not be seeing something, but how is this recipe only 2gm total carbs? I did go back to the Swerve Brown nutritional information and see that they remark that Swerve does not raise blood sugar, but the carbs would still be what they are … and how do we know FOR SURE that erythritol doesn’t affect blood sugar as they are claiming? Do you know of any legit studies that support that claim (I’m just thinking back to when a brand of pasta, I believe it was called Dream Field, claimed their product was low carb and did not raise blood sugars much, only to have scientific studies show that it raised blood sugars exactly the same as regular pasts … so … I’m always a bit leery about claims like this). Anyway, thanks for all the hard work and tasty recipes.
Carolyn says
Hi Jeanine. Please see the nutritional disclaimer at the bottom of my post. As a diabetic, I test my own blood sugar and erythritol doesn’t raise it one little bit. Not one iota, and I am not kidding. Did you know that carbs in foods are calculated simply by subtracting the weight of ALL the other nutrients? Which means the only place that they can put the “carbs” in erythritol is in the carbohydrate category. But it simply doesn’t behave like a carb so I won’t count it as one. If I did, it would be misleading to diabetics who do take insulin, as they would bolus for it and their blood sugar would drop alarmingly.
And yes… tons of LEGIT studies to support this claim. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8039489
Michelle says
This is a delicious dish and it’s so easy to throw in the crock pot! I made it today and my husband is already asking me to make it again next week. Thank you, Carolyn!
Amy says
Is the glucomannan powder/xanthan gum necessary, or mainly just used to thicken?
Carolyn says
To thicken. You will find the sauce very watery if you don’t use anything.
Cheryl says
Eating this now. Delicious. Definitely on the dinner rotation
Carolyn says
Glad to hear it!
Taylor says
So much flavor! Love that it’s made in the slow cooker!
Birgit says
I have noticed on several of your more recent recipes that you are using glucomannan whereas you would usually used xantham gum. I am just wondering what the difference is in the results. I have found sometimes xantham gum can have a bit of a “slimy” texture of which I am not a fan. I do trust your opinion.
Birgit says
I have noticed on several of your more recent recipes that you are using glucomannan whereas you would usually used xantham gum. I am just wondering what the difference is in the results. I have found sometimes xantham gum can have a bit of a “slimy” texture of which I am not a fan. I only have the xantham gum but if you recommend using the glucomannan powder, I will order some. I do trust your opinion.
Birgit says
Sorry. It didn’t look as if it posted so I redid the email. I’m new to doing this.
Anna says
Loving this low carb dish! So delicious!
Steph says
Mongolian beef is my husband’s FA-VOR-ITE! Can’t wait to surprise him with this for dinner!