Is Broccoli Beef Healthy? (6 Tips For Weight Loss)

Every time you go to a Chinese restaurant it is almost always guaranteed that they will have a Broccoli Beef dish on the menu.

As a popular and delicious starter meal in several Asian restaurants, this simple dish is a must-have whenever you’re having an irresistible Chinese takeout craving.

So without a question, Broccoli Beef is definitely a mouthwatering entree, but is it healthy?

Broccoli Beef’s main ingredients, which is exactly what the name entails, are broccoli and beef which are both high protein foods that are packed with vitamins and a variety of micronutrients.

However, when ordering from restaurants, this dish can turn into a high sodium meal with added calories coming from an addition of vegetable oil.

In this article, we will talk about how you can incorporate Broccoli Beef into your diet while staying both healthy and in shape.

Here we will give you a couple of tips that can help you detect which Broccoli Beef to eat and some simple do’s and don’ts!

What Goes Into Broccoli Beef
How Many Calories Goes Into Broccoli Beef
Tips For Healthier Broccoli Beef
What You Can Eat with Broccoli Beef
Healthier Ingredient Control in Broccoli Beef
Make Sure To Workout & Build Muscle

Now that we know the 6 steps to eat healthy Broccoli Beef, let’s take a deeper look into each of the details.

What Goes Into Broccoli Beef?

So what exactly is in a Broccoli Beef dish? I mean, it’s as simple as it can get. The main ingredients are… you guessed it!

Beef and Broccoli! Obviously there are some delicious seasonings and sauces that really complete this dish, but there is not too much extra to this simple and easy popular Chinese entree.

Let’s go into detail about what each of these ingredients means.

The Beef

Yes, we all enjoy having some meat in all of our dishes and we know how sometimes certain meats can be a bit more high in calorie and fat compared to others.

But luckily, the Broccoli Beef dish does not fall into the high-calorie category!

Broccoli Beef dish commonly uses flank steak as the “beef” portion of the dish, which is the abdominal part of a cow, in other terms, the stomach muscles!

With a strong, beefy flavor, flank steak is packed with bite and taste and because it has such a dominating taste, you will taste it immediately when paired with other foods.

Unlike other popular steak cuts, like ribeye or filet mignon, that are filled with fat, flank steak is an extremely lean cut with almost no fat, which is what makes it so special.

Being so lean, flank steak is one of the healthiest meats you can eat since it is a great source of protein that will help you hit your daily protein macronutrient while keeping you both full and satiated.

Don’t get flank steak wrong though, just because it is a lean source of protein, which makes it a bit tougher and less tender than the typical steak dinner, if prepared the right way, like in a Broccoli Beef dish, flank steak can easily be a super delicious meal!

Broccoli

Now the second most important ingredient in Broccoli Beef… the broccoli!

Usually steamed in the Broccoli Beef dish, the broccoli is a perfect partner that compliments the flavor and texture of the flank beef as they both enhance each other’s unique taste.

I mean, what better way is there to pair a healthy cut of meat with a healthy vegetable?

Now everyone knows that eating your vegetables is extremely important, but what makes broccoli special?

And why do we always hear about broccoli as a popular food to eat for people who are dieting or trying to stay in shape?

First, the most important component of weight loss is calories, and broccoli is one of the most voluminous foods that fill you up but barely has any calories!

You can eat 150 grams of broccoli for only 50 calories.

To put that into perspective, that is like eating almost a whole head of broccoli! (That for sure would fill me up)

Not only that, what makes broccoli a unique vegetable is that it is filled with protein.

Depending on your diet preferences, a lot of vegetarians and vegans love to incorporate broccoli into their diet to make sure they get enough daily protein and do not become protein deficient.

Another great aspect of broccoli is the number of vitamins and minerals that this vegetable has.

As a great source of Vitamin C, antioxidants, and fiber, broccoli is a great food to incorporate into your diet especially if you have type 2 diabetes if you are trying to control your blood sugar level.

In fact, broccoli should be a main component in everyone’s diet whether your goal is to lose weight, build muscle, or be healthy and energetic in general.

Additional Ingredients and Sauces

Canva - Homemade Asian Beef and Broccoli.jpg

For the typical Broccoli Beef recipe, it usually consists of soy sauce for flavoring and a bit of cornstarch and olive oil for the overall aroma and gives the Broccoli Beef sauce a thicker consistency.

Most restaurants also like to add either garlic, white onion, and sesame seeds into the dish that just gives that final delicious grilled onion fragrance.

(My mouth is just watering thinking about this Broccoli Beef dish)

Besides the cornstarch and olive oil, soy sauce, garlic, white onion, and sesame seeds are all low-calorie ingredients that are foods with their own additional benefits.

Since the recipe does not require too much cornstarch and olive oil, it is not too unhealthy, but be careful!

These calories do add up very quickly and easily.

Sometimes some recipes call for brown sugar or honey to give the Broccoli Beef a twinge of sweetness as well!

How Many Calories Goes into Broccoli Beef

For the typical Broccoli Beef dish, one serving of around 5 ounces contains only 150 calories!

That is actually not bad at all! Let’s look into detail on the macronutrients of the average Broccoli Beef dish.

For each serving, this dish contains 7 grams of fat, 13 grams of carbohydrates, and 9 grams of protein.

With only 7 grams of fat and 13 grams of carbohydrates, you can easily fit Broccoli Beef into your diet!

On top of that, this entree also contains 9 grams of protein which is always a great macronutrient to incorporate into your diet to help you keep and build muscle.

Not only does it help you retain muscle, but protein out of the three macronutrients (fat, carbohydrates, and protein) is the most satiating and filling food.

In other words, foods high in protein will make you full faster and keep you energetic throughout the day!

When looking at the fat content of the Broccoli Beef dish, it is slightly on the higher side when we compare the fat and protein ratio, since each gram of fat contains 9 calories whereas protein and carbohydrates contain only 4 calories.

That means, when we’re looking at foods, we want to make sure that the fat content is less than the amount of protein and carbohydrates in a dish by around ⅓ when we are making decisions about the healthiest option.

7 grams of fat is not a third of the 9 grams of protein, but it is usually pretty difficult to find foods served in restaurants or major chain fast foods that give us our ideal protein to fat ratio.

Keep in mind the serving size as well! 150 grams is not a whole lot of food, so it is very likely that just the Broccoli Beef will not be enough to satiate us for one meal.

So after analyzing the calories and macronutrients of a Broccoli Beef dish, we discovered that although it is not the highest protein dish and has a bit more fat than we like, it is definitely still a great food to order when eating Chinese takeout.

In fact, this is a great trade-off compared to the popular Orange Chicken.

Each serving of Orange Chicken contains more than triple the number of calories and way more fats and carbohydrates!!

Stick with Broccoli Beef which is still delicious and a much better option to reduce your overall daily calorie intake.

Tips to a Healthier Broccoli Beef Dish

As we saw earlier, even though Broccoli Beef contains great ingredients, sometimes it is not as healthy as we would like it to be.

Good news though! Broccoli Beef is a super easy dish to make that only takes you about 20 minutes to prepare at home!

The best thing about making homemade food is you get to regulate what ingredients go into your food and make it to your liking without adding all the additional oils and fats.

With just a few ingredients, you can whip up a delicious homemade Broccoli Beef dish that is cheaper and healthier. I have no doubt in my mind that you will make it just as, if not more, yummy!

Tip 1: Watch the Sauce!

Quite often when we’re trying to lose weight, we tend to neglect the hidden calories which are usually in the sauces.

We think: well it’s just beef and broccoli… how can it be so high calorie?

It’s not just that!!! Broccoli Beef dishes require cornstarch, olive oil, and brown sugar that can easily pile up the overall amount of fat and carbohydrate content in a dish.

If you want to lower the fat and carbohydrate content in your Broccoli Beef dish, really watch how much of these ingredients you’re putting into your food.

1 tablespoon of olive oil is 120 calories and almost 14 grams of fat! So be careful and don’t go carelessly adding a bunch of olive oil into your food.

To reduce the amount of sodium in your dish, try using a low sodium soy sauce which makes your dish overall not too salty.

Trust me, using low sodium soy sauce won’t make it taste worse than regular soy sauce.

Finally, also manage the amount of sugar that you put into your Broccoli Beef dish.

Sugar is filled with carbohydrates so it is important to also manage the amount of sugar that you put in! It never hurts to put less than required.

Tip 2: Stick to the Flank!

Not all cuts of beef are the same. If you’re thinking:

Ah I don’t have any flank steak at home so I will just use a cut of ribeye steak for replacement… should be around the same right? Most definitely not!

Depending on what type of steak you use can make a huge overall difference in the amount of total calories and fat in your Broccoli Beef dish.

Luckily, the original recipe for Broccoli Beef uses flank steak which is a great source of lean protein.

For every 3 ounces of Flank Steak, there is around 160 calories, with only 6 grams of fat and 24 grams of protein.

This is by far one of the best and leanest cuts of steak out there!

Compared to 3 oz of Ribeye which contains 210 calories, with 12 grams of fat and 24 grams of protein. That’s double the amount of fat!!

Tip 3: Portion Control

In the end, if our goal is weight loss, we want to make sure we are not eating too much.

Broccoli Beef is a relatively healthy dish but if we end up eating too much, we will most likely gain weight. By carefully managing how much we eat can go a long way!

One of my favorite ways to portion control is to only eat what is on my plate.

In other words, since Broccoli Beef is typically put as a center plate, or a shareable dish, I like to put the amount that I am going to eat all on my plate without grabbing more.

That way, I can visualize exactly how much I am eating.

If I just grab a little bit, and I keep going back for seconds, thirds, and even fourths, I have no idea how much food I am actually consuming.

By putting just enough Broccoli Beef on my dish, I know my portion size and avoid overeating.

Tip 4: Know What You Can Eat with Broccoli Beef

Most likely, you won’t want to eat your Broccoli Beef all by itself.

With all the other delicious Chinese food drifting around the table you will definitely want to get a taste and bite of everything else.

So what are some healthy pairings you can eat with your Broccoli Beef?

The most typical and commonly known pairing with Broccoli Beef would definitely be white rice.

White rice is a great source of carbohydrates that is voluminous and can keep you feeling satisfied at the end of a meal, but it is important to watch the amount of rice you consume!

Make sure you don’t eat too much white rice because it is really easy to overeat when it comes to carbohydrates.

Avoid other high carb and saucy dishes like green onion pancakes or any extremely oily and deep fried meats.

Stick with the other vegetable dishes on the table such as steamed vegetables and mushrooms.

If they have some sort of chicken stock soup available on the menu, that is a great option as well!

Not only is it a great source of protein, I always feel much more full and satisfied after drinking a small bowl of warm soup.

Tip 5: Ingredient Control in Broccoli Beef

Our Final Homemade Broccoli Beef Comparison

Alright, so now you know some tips and tricks on how to make a healthier Broccoli Beef dish, let us take a look at how a popular Broccoli Beef dish recipe’s nutrition looks compared to our healthier edited version!

Here, I inserted the ingredients and portion sizes of each ingredient of a typical Broccoli Beef dish into my favorite tracking app, MyFitnessPal, and used the tips we talked about before to make our version.

The typical Broccoli Beef dish contains:

One recipe yields around 4 servings and 1 serving of Broccoli Beef is typically around 340 calories.

With around 16 grams of fat, 19 grams of carbohydrates, and 28 grams of protein, this recipe is not bad at all!

But let’s say that you really want to cut down the amount of fat in your Broccoli Beef dinner. What can we do?

Let’s cut down on just four ingredients of the Broccoli Beef recipe. Cornstarch, sugar, olive oil, and soy sauce.

Cornstarch: Original 0.5 cup/New: 2 tbsp

Sugar: Original 3 tbsp/New: 2 tbsp

Olive Oil: 2 tbsp/ New: 1 tbsp

Soy Sauce: 2 tbsp/ New 1: tbsp

Let’s take a look at our new Broccoli Beef Nutrition!

Our final edited version of Broccoli Beef also yields 4 servings and each serving contains 13 grams of fat, 14 grams of carbohydrates, and 27 grams of protein.

Wow! We cut down 60 calories, 3 grams of fat, and 5 grams of carbohydrates while keeping almost the same amount of protein in this dish!

Not only that, we significantly reduced the amount of sodium in this dish.

Tip 6: Make Sure To Workout & Build Muscle

All the tips we talked about before focused on our diet and nutrition, but another crucial factor that comes into play is definitely exercising.

In order to live a balanced and healthy lifestyle, not only do we need to watch our daily intake, but we also need to make sure we are keeping our body active and moving to keep ourselves healthy and strong long term.

Walking or any cardiovascular exercise is a great way to lose weight and keep ourselves energized, but the most overlooked form of exercise is strength and weight training.

Before I had any knowledge about exercise, I always thought the only way to lose weight was running.

However, ever since I started weight training on a regular basis, not only have I lost way more weight, but I also look so much leaner and fit and feel way more energized throughout the day.

Weight training has definitely been a life changing experience and regardless of your age I recommend that everyone should do it to become the best, healthiest, and strongest version of themselves.

Good news is, although it is highly recommended that everyone gets a gym membership, you can still strength train and build muscle at home!

If you’re looking to start working out at home, then make sure to check out our articles for the best home workout equipment here.

https://www.aspirefitnesswalnut.com/home-workout-equipment

So what exactly is the importance of weight training?

The most effective and efficient way to build muscle is through some sort of consistent resistance training that will help increase your overall physique musculature.

But then again, why is it important to build muscle?

The best thing about having more muscle mass is that since muscles require more energy than fat, the more muscle you have, the faster your resting metabolic rate.

In other words, you burn a lot more calories with muscle rather than fat!

Final Takeaway

So comparing these two versions, I would say that the first original recipe is not that bad at all.

Compared to take out, this recipe is already much healthier than the typical Broccoli Beef you will find in the average Chinese restaurant.

Although our edited healthier version is lower in calorie, fat, and carbohydrates, you might not want to sacrifice the overall taste of the dish just for 60 calories.

After all, recipes include these certain specific amounts of each ingredient to really elevate the overall taste of the dish and taking out some of it might change how delicious the overall meal is.

Sometimes it is okay to stick with the recipe, but if you really want to stick to your goals, making a few adjustments here and there won’t really hurt.

Which leads us to our final point.

Yes eating good is important, but let us talk about exercise!