Vietnamese Caramelised Pork Bowls

I reduced the sugar by half, still crisped up well.

I had to make several improvisations and definitely took notes from the comments. Here is what I did: - My local store didn’t have the red chilis, I used jalapeños and deseeded those. Added a bit of red bell pepper for color and a dash of red chilli flakes for extra kick. - Shout out to @Millie R’s notes below! 3.5 tblspn of brown sugar was the perfect adjustment. And I did use the cornstarch slurry she suggested as well. - I added some bok choy right before the brown sugar and sauce for extra fiber and crunch (I think spinach would work well too, I personally like extra veggies whenever I can). - In addition to the cucumber and green onion, I topped it off with toasted sesame seeds. It was delicious! I will be making this again :)

used soy sauce bc i don’t like fish sauce and tasted just as good :) served it over rice with green onions. soooo yummy :p

Mix cornstarch slurry (1 tbsn cornstarch, 2 tpsn water) to keep the meat from getting dry. I mixed it after I put the meat in the pan. A lot comments on too sweet, so I did 3 and half tspns of brown sugar

If you like wayyyy too much sugar and fish sauce than it might be for you

Used gr. beef and cubed pork and probably more than recipe calls for. Kept it mild but very good

Absolutely delicious. I added 5x birds eye chillis (I like it hot) chopped water chestnuts, 2 small sweet peppers and I used 2Tbs palm sugar instead of brown sugar as I didn't have any. Had it with lots of fresh herbs and cucumber and tomatoes. All finished with a good squeeze of lime juice!

So I couldn't find the right chili's so I just used some chili oil instead of regular. I'm generally not a fan of fish oil; I don't normally eat fish at all, husband loves it tho, but the brown sugar and fresh ginger takes it, you can't even taste it. I also added green onion near the end of cooking my toddler ate it up. It joined her clean plate club fast. The second time I made it I sauteed some veggies first to add them back in later.

Delish

Switch the pork for beef, and it was still delicious. I definitely recommend it. I will make it again.

This is about the 10th time I have made this dish absolutely love it easy to prepare and cook mmmmm

Good but dry. Didn't want to add any extra sauce flavors.

Add leafy greens

Very quick and flavourful. I added a couple extra chilies (tear gas during first couple of minutes) and served with rice, sliced cucumbers, and sliced tomatoes. It was a touch dry, but maybe my pork was too lean?

We double the recipe to have leftovers. It is so good and easy to make!

Mentally prepare for the smell when adding the fish sauce 🤢🤣

Definitely make again. Served as a rice bowl with a cucumber and tomato salad and lime squeezed over the meat.

8.5/10. all kids liked it. some thought it needed to be stirred more cause it was very caramelized. ate with vermicelli noodles, fish dipping sauce, spring mix, carrot sticks and cucumber

I used shredded pork instead of ground. You really have to let it caramelize or its just pork in sweet sauce. It should be dry and shiny and it is delicious when its fully caramelized.

Served with wombok slaw, cucumber, tomato, coriander and squeezed half lime over whole bowl. Yummo

Me and my bestie are hooked on this dish!

Added orange pepper. Really easy to make.

Use 2 tb of sugar

Great. Easy and quick. Perfect for week dinner

It's amazing! I left out the chili for my son, and added chili oil to mine as others have suggested. I also didn't have fish oil, so I used soy sauce and a dash of Worcestershire sauce.

Adding this to the rotation, it is delicious!

Super facile et ça régale J'ai ajouter des accompagnement en plus A recommander

I'd never used fish sauce before, thank god it didn't taste like it smelt whilst cooking! Would make again. It took much longer to caramelise than the recipe says

It was lovely and easy to make. However I didn't identify any heat in it from the 1 chili, at least not with the seeds removed. So next time I'll either leave the seeds in or add another chili, maybe also with seeds in. I don't like things overly hot, but this was very underwhelming on the heat. The cucumber paired nicely with it to cut through the sweetness.

Very flavorful and simple to make. Would absolutely make this again.

Our favorite! Made it once with broccoli, peppers, onions, and mushrooms. Great combo!

This was amazing! So easy and tasty. I had to cook for longer to caramelise but one of the best meals I’ve made in ages.

This needs more veggies added to it. Possibly add some bell peppers when you add the onions. Or a stir fry blend would be great, too.

Pay attention to timing of caramelization as you can quickly burn the mixture. Served with rice and cucumber.

I personally have never worked with fish sauce I was a little nervous while it was cooking bmc of the smell lol but ohhh it was soo good! & a 'save that recipe' moment from the little one

Absolutely amazing, so flavourful and pairs so well with rice

I omitted the chilis and served a hot chili oil on the side, but this turned out to be a big hit! quick and easy, and works with just about any ground meat.

This is a delightfully delicious new route with mince. We had it over vermicelli noodles and it was absolutely worth it. Making that fine distinction between savoury and sweet with a spark of spice, this is one I'll happily go back to. I found frying the mince seperately works better in creating a tender, yet caramalized meat and then adding in the onions back afterwards (which I'd fried first and removed).

Very yum, reminds me of maple breakfast sausage. I couldn't successfully reduce the sugar as others have. I had trouble when I doubled the recipe but I'll be trying x1.5. I love the cucumber and tomato alongside it! ~ 1 ½ tbsp oil over high heat Add ~½ c. finely diced 🧅, 2 tsp minced 🫚, 2 minced 🧄 cloves, and 1 finely chopped chili. Cook 2 mins. Add pork and cook ~2 mins until white all over, breaking up with spoon. Add 5 tbsp brown sugar and 2 tbsp soy sauce. Stir, leaving to cook without touching until all the juices cook out and the pork starts to caramelize, ~2 mins. Then stir and leave it again for around 30 seconds. Repeat twice. Serve over 🍚, garnished with sliced scallions.

this was SOOOOO good. I didn't have chilis so I subbed red pepper flakes and cayenne pepper. next time I'm gonna have to make double!!!

Delicious, I added a couple of tbsps of water during the caramelisation process to stop it drying out too much

Super easy dish to make, and skipping the chili and adding Sriracha for those who want heat was genius!

Absolutely delicious! Quick and easy and kids love it too

I kept thinking, "Oh surely, it's done, but no, you keep cooking and stirring till it's full caramelized, and then it is super delicious."

Absolutely delicious. I didn't use the cucumber, tomato, or the chilis as I just.. didn't have it. This dish tastes so good. Sometimes if I'm broke and I don't have anything I'll just use meat, brown sugar, Worcestershire, and powdered spices. It's not as delicious but it's still really good.

Only used 3 spoons of sugar instead of 5. Would have been way too sweet. The cucumber and tomato added the freshness as it was sweet. Daughter liked it. Will try again

No cheese recipies

Caramel eyes!!!

5 stars. Great sweet/spicy contrast. Added 1/2 bell pepper with the onion and an egg, sriracha and crunchy garlic chili oil on top.

I love this recipe but with tweaks. 5 TBSP brown sugar is far too much. I think 1 TBSP per pound is better. I also added cabbage and shredded carrots, and cooked everything up stir fry style in a wok. Served with rice and cucumber. My son finished his plate which hasn't happened in awhile.

I didn't add all the brown sugar, added more garlic, ginger and pork mince. Still found it a little too sweet, will add more chilli next time, but was delicious and so fresh tasting

I added some shredded cabbage and carrot in the last few minutes of cooking to add veges to the dish and it turned out great

Very sweet buy the cucumber and tomatoe breaks it up. Kids loved it also.

Super delicious! Obviously meat is the main ingredient, and next time I'd expand the vegetable sides to balance out the sweet.

Tasted great, but smelled like a few of my college roommates while cooking.

Easy yet delicious. Thank you!

I would leave off fish sauce and use 1 chili pepper the rest sounds delicious

Delicious super sweet with lovely fluffy rice

Mest ended up dry while I was attempting to get the caramelization.

Tasted good, first time I had cooked with fish sauce so the cooking smell was a bit off-putting! If I was to make again I wouldn't dd the fish sauce

serves 4 is actually 2, very nice

Deliscious! Used left overs and put in a rice wrap...so yummy

Easy to make, just be careful not to over cook when caramelizing

Amazing and super easy to make!

Good. Had to rehydrate dried red chili, used 2, almost no heat. I'll cook again soon to see how many to use.

I made mine into a bibimbap type of bowl by adding the carrots, egg, and gochujang. I followed the recipe at first (beware the fish sauce smell🤣) but I couldn't find bird's eye chili, so I had to use quite a bit of sriracha and gochujang to spice it up. Then I added a bit of soy sauce because the sweetness is just really in your face. It turned out great, honestly. Just make sure you taste your food and season to your preferences

Smells really weird, not appetising at all.

This is amazing in a vermicelli noodle salad with cucumber, carrot, shallots, tomato slices and Vietnamese dressing. Delicious!

Really nommy, I liked it a lot. Made it with splenda brown sugar, so the texrure was slightly off, but the flavour was still amazing. Next time I'll use regular brown sugar to compare though. I also used beef and it was great.

Everyone loved it. I used rice noodles to serve it. Along with halved cherry tomatoes and quartered slices of cucumber. I think next time I will add more veggies like zucchini and bean sprouts. Plus I needed more heat, the jalapeño pepper wasn’t enough. Gotta buy the right chili. But the carmelized meat was amazing.

My wife is Vietnamese and I wanted to make a Vietnamese dish for her. She took one bite and loved it! Every other bite was accompanied by "mmmmm, it's so good!" So I think this recipe is a winner. I already have requests to make it again 😁

Delicious and serving it with the cucumber I think really helped lighten and freshen each bite. Very nice!

Made it with white rice. Subbed some of the ground pork with mushrooms to make it healthier, and it came out great.

Took a while to caramelise but super yum. Also goes well with hoison.

I enjoyed this for being quick and easy, though the minced beef texture wasn’t my favorite. Flavor was good but something was missing, maybe could have used more heat.

I made this, and we all loved it however it was quite sickly sweet by the end of eating it. What can I substitute the sugar for, as I'm assuming this is the sweetness or the fish sauce? I put cabbage in it instead of on rice.

I had it with cabbage instead of rice and it was delicious!

I switched things around: instead of 5 tbsp of sugar, I only added one, but I added a couple of tbsp of soya sauce and squeezed a lime while sautéing. I obviously served it with jasmine rice.

*Be sure to drain the pork before adding sauce and brown sugar or it won't caramelize!!* Was delicious! Used soy instead of fish sauce, and served with rice.

Needs some sort of salad alongside as quite dry without.

Deceptively lovely, very simple to prepare. Be sure to cook through to get that carmelisation that Nagi raves about, that's what makes this dish!

Looks don't justify - this is the most delicious meal I've ever cooked! Didn't use chilli (husband sprinkled his with chilli flakes) and substituted fish sauce for soy sauce. Put 1 drop of lemongrass oil in while caramelising mince. Topped with peanuts, avocado, zucchini, carrot - didnt have any shallots. Very quick and cheap! Only made enough for 1 meal (2 adults, 2 toddlers)

Enjoy and will cook again

I dare say Mom's cast iron skillet never saw anything like this before. Just look at the caramelization! No bird chilis, but I used crushed red pepper flakes and will put Sriracha and chili oil on the table. I tasted the pork already because it's irresistible. This is dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow.

This was so amazing! Sweet and very flavorful. Dipped the Cucumbers (added later on) in some white vinegar as well for more flavor.

Can easily substitute vegetarian mince or TVP

I couldn't see the instructions for salad so I did: 2 vine tomatoes cubed. Cucumber cut thinly and cucumber cut in cubes for different textures. 1 spring onion. 1 red chili. Small thumb tip of ginger thinly sliced. Coriander stalks chopped roughly. Salt. Fish sauce to taste. Rice wine vinegar to taste. Light brown sugar to taste.

Quick and easy. Family enjoyed I served with a different salad to one suggested on recipe. Sprinkled peanuts on top as I didn’t have any crispy shallots

Unexpectedly sweet flavor. Tasted fresh with the cucumbers and tomatoes.

I made it for my mother and farther, my mother and I liked it my farther was not a big fan is it

caramelization is key 👍

Served over a rice vermicelli and veg stir fry, and used oyster sauce instead of fish sauce. Took a lot longer than the suggested 6 minutes to start to caramelize but really tasty!

Absolutely loved this dish! Anything that’s Asian is a favourite, I added a bit of soy sauce, ground coriander and ginger, also served it with pickled cucumber and carrot. It was a bit dry though, but the caramelisation made me get over it lol.

Added pickled cucumbers, red onion and carrots. Also added bean sprouts and a fried egg on top. Highly recommend