This easy braised daikon radish recipe shows you how to make a comforting and healthy one-pot dinner in no time. {paleo}
Wednesdays and Thursdays are always the most challenging days for a home cook, because you’ve probably used the weekend leftovers and you’re not ready for a splurge yet. They are also the days when you’re swamped with work and wish it were already Friday. The last thing you want to do is spend hours in the kitchen, to chop, cook, and clean up.
This braised daikon radish recipe is designed for exactly this type of situation.
Not only does it take merely 15 minutes of active prep and cooking time, it only uses one pot to make a comforting dinner that is packed with protein, vitamins, and fiber.
The seasoning and cooking method is similar to mapo tofu. All you need is to infuse the oil with fresh herbs, brown the ground meat (you can use any kind you like!), throw in daikon radish and the rest of the seasoning, and let it cook for 20 minutes. The dish is done once the radish becomes tender. Use a big spoon to get a little bit of everything – tender radish, ground meat, and clear broth. You’ll be surprised how easy it is to create a flavorful dish with such a few ingredients.
After returning from my gourmet trip in China, I’m now on a low carb diet to lose a few pounds. I didn’t pair rice with this dish. But if you’d like to add some carbs to your dinner and make the meal more substantial, start steaming the rice at the same time and both dishes will be finished at the same time. You can also throw in a can of beans while braising to make a bigger meal. If you have some leftovers, the dish will taste even better the second day!
More delicious winter soup recipes
- Watercress Wonton Soup
- Roasted Kabocha Squash Soup
- Napa Cabbage Soup with Meatballs
- Korean Stew
- Spicy Chicken Noodle Soup
If you give this recipe a try, let us know! Leave a comment, rate it (once you’ve tried it), and take a picture and tag it @omnivorescookbook on Instagram! I’d love to see what you come up with.
Chinese Braised Daikon Radish
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 2 green onions , chopped
- 1 teaspoon ginger , minced
- 1 pound (450 grams) ground meat (beef, pork, chicken, or turkey)
- 2 teaspoons Doubanjiang (Spicy Fermented Bean Paste)
- 1 Daikon radish (about 700 grams / 2 pounds)
- 2 cups chicken stock (vegetable stock, or water)
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine (or dry sherry) (Optional)
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1/8 teaspoon five-spice powder (the homemade version works better)
- 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt or to taste
Instructions
- Heat a medium-size dutch oven (or heavy duty pot) over medium heat until hot. Add a tablespoon of oil. Add green onion and ginger. Cook for a minute to release the flavor.
- Add ground meat. Cook and stir until surface turns brown.
- Add the doubanjiang. Cook and stir until the meat is evenly coated.
- Add the radish. Cook and stir to mix well.
- Add Shaoxing wine, chicken stock, soy sauce, sugar, and five spice powder. Cook over medium high heat until brought to a boil. Turn to medium low heat. Simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the radish turns tender. Add salt to taste.
- Serve with steamed rice or by itself.
Made this dish last week and the flavors were great. When adding the 2 cups of broth I thought, “Oh no, too soupy.” But simmering for 20 minutes as instructed resulted in very tasty meat and tender radish. As suggested it was served with white rice which was an excellent palate cleanser … not to mention the chilled riesling.
With the addition of scrambled eggs mixed in, the leftovers made an excellent and quick “stir-fried rice” breakfast the next morning before rushing off to work.
I’ll do this one again!
Hi Stuart, I’m so happy to hear you tried out this dish! It might not look very fancy, but it’s truly comforting. Yes broth does look like a lot at the beginning, but it gets better at the end 🙂 I haven’t served the dish with riesling yet but that’s on my to-do list now!
Great idea of making a fried rice with the leftovers! It sounds very delicious.
Happy holiday!
Hi.. Maggid, that soya sure look comforting.However,
if I’d like to cook This as a ‘less spicy’ version for my 3 year kids,
Do I Juz omitted the doubanjang or is there any other adjustments I Shud make to the recipe?
Thx
NJ
Hi NJ, if you have fermented black beans, you can add 2 to 3 teaspoons. They are not spicy and add nice flavors. Or you can simply skip the doubanjiang.
Happy cooking and let me know how the dish turns out! I hope both your kids and you will enjoy the dish 🙂
I absolutely love this recipe and make quite frequently with the radish I get from my CSA. It is delicious and so easy to make!
I needed a recipe for the large daikon radish in our CSA share, so we tried this and loved it. I For meat, used very lean ground beef, but only 1/2 lb. Added some carrots for color, and a garlic clove because we love garlic! I ubstituted hoisin sauce plus oil-preserved pepper flakes for the doubanjiang, which I didn’t have., and served it over plain Asian noodles.
Hi Mindy, I’m glad to hear that you take the recipe to another level and created your own! It sounds very delicious and I love the colors in your dish!
I would love to try to use hoisin sauce the next time as well. YUM!
So good! I added a little sesame oil and Szechuan peppercorn for a little extra kick.
I’m so glad to hear you tried the dish and enjoyed it Andy! Oh yes, a bit sesame oil and Szehcuan peppercorns sound GREAT! I’ll try it myself the next time 🙂
Hi Maggie,
Is there a substitute for the five spice powder in this recipe?
Hi Gemma, you can use a cinnamon stick, 1 star anise pod, 1 teaspoon fennel seeds, 2 cloves, and a small teaspoon Sichuan peppercorns (Sichuan peppercorns are optional) to replace the five spice. But if you don’t have any of those, you can skip it all together. The five spice just adds subtle flavor. The rest of the ingredients will make a flavorful enough stew 🙂
Happy cooking and let me know how the dish turns out!
I cooked this dish tonight and was so surprised at how quick and tasty it was! It’s the first Chinese dish I’ve ever cooked and has definitely inspired me to keep going – it was so simple and satisfying. Thank you for also including metric units and explaining some of the ingredients such as Doubanjiang in detail – it really helped when buying them from the Asian grocers. Keep up the good work!
This was delicious, and a very easy, healthy meal to make.
I’m also happy with the results of the homemade five-spice recipe. I too have found store-bought ones to be too aniseed so the different effect of the homemade version was a revelation!
Excellent. I love to find ways of cooking daikon and lately, doubanjiang . I just happened to have all of the ingredients. The doubanjiang really makes it zing… No leftovers for fried rice…..
This was AMAZING. this reminded me of my mom’s dish that i grew up eating and i’ve never been able to replicate the taste until now. Thank you!
The sauce was beautiful, but unfortunately, the daikon was so bitter it took a bit of the flavor away. I did hear that if you want to take the bitterness away, you can soak the daikon in salt water.
Hi Maggie,
I grow daikon in my garden in the Japanese mountains. This year, they’re huge. I’m looking for something that’s easy to make and doesn’t require an oven. This recipe is ideal. I believe can find the doubanjiang (known here as “tobanjan”) and the five-spice in my local supermarket. I’ve bookmarked this. Looking forward to getting started.
Always love daikon radish and really appreciated the variety. Super tasty. My whole family thoroughly enjoyed it!!!
I think there are 454 grams to 1 pound, not 700 grams as in the recipe. So my question is: Is it 700 grams or 1 pound? There is quite a difference in the amount.
Same is true for the daikon radish. Is it 700 grams or 2 pounds (approx. 900 grams)?
Hi Fred, I used 700 g when I developed the recipe. But because the dish is rather forgiving and the quantity of daikon does not matter so much for a slightly bigger daikon, I put 2 lbs there just so it’s a roundup measurement. Either will work.
Hi Maggie,
The dish is simmering right now! I assume you cover the pot while simmering, right?
I’ll rate the dish after I’ll eat it this evening.
Thanks!
It’s an easy and nice dish. We scooped it over rice in a bowl. I was afraid that the doubanjiang would make it too spicy, but that was not the case. I always have the feeling that when you add spicy ingredients to a hot liquid dish (like a soup or a stew) the dish tastes spicier than when you add the same spicy ingredients to a non-liquid dish. Anyway, the amount of doubanjiang in this recipe is just how I like it.
I kept the lid on during simmering, which was fine.
Omg! Thank you so much. I had a bunch of daikon radish I needed eat. I wanted a different way of eating it. This will be a family dinner dish now. Yum!
This recipe is so easy and delicious. I love it!
What a wonderful, delicious recipe. Thank you so much for sharing it.
A staple in our rotation! So hearty and delicious
Hi Maggie,
My husband and I are trying to decrease our meat consumption. What do you recommend as a substitute for the ground meat? Everything else sounds delicious and approachable! Thank you!
I think a few rehydrated dried shiitake mushrooms add a ton of flavor. You can also use regular mushrooms as well.
I made this last night using Impossible ground “beef”. So delicious! Thank you for the recipe.
I was skeptical about the flavor since this is quite a simple recipe with minimal ingredients. However, I’m not up to complicated recipe with 2 pages of ingredients either. Let’s just say I’m very pleased with the end product. You must try this!! Didnt make any adjustment except the sequence and excluded the wine (to make it Halal). I stir-fried the minced beef with doubanjiang then soy sauce with sugar to bring out the soy flavor before I poured in the chicken stock. This pleased my daikon lover son so much he asked me to make this again this week. This recipe is a time saver for busy working mum. It’s simple, with minimal effort, flavorful and the left-over keeps well. However, any tips to remove the slight bitterness taste in the daikon?
Daikon usually doesn’t taste bitter to me, but I think the duration of cooking affects its flavor. It is usually quite spicy, but it becomes sweeter when you cook it longer and the other hidden flavor will come out. Maybe you can try to taste the daikon during the braising and see what what stage you like the taste the best? Also, maybe you can slightly increase the sugar to cover the bitterness.