Egg Foo Young with Gravy Recipe for Chinese American Crispy Omelettes

This egg foo young with gravy recipe makes the Chinese American restaurant specialty of crispy omelettes doused in gravy and sprinkled with lively scallions, nutty sesame seeds and crispy bean sprouts. Served with steamed rice, this fantastic and filling omelette can be eaten for breakfast, brunch, lunch, or dinner, and is just as delicious as the Cantonese original.

You all enjoyed our recipe for the original Cantonese-style egg foo young – or egg foo yung, egg fu yung or the Cantonese fu yong dan or fuyong dan – a delightfully crispy omelette filled with flavourful pork, fresh spring onions and crunchy bean sprouts. With provenance in Southern China dating back to the 18th century Ching Dynasty, it’s one of our best Chinese egg dishes and one of our best omelette recipes.

So for this week’s edition of Weekend Eggs, we thought we’d share our Chinese American egg foo young with gravy recipe, which makes a popular Chinese takeout dish that originated in Chinese American restaurants in the 19th or 20th century. There are numerous origin stories. Similar egg foo young iterations exist in Chinese diasporas around the world, each with their own tweaks, and they’re all delicious.

If you love a good omelette, try our recipes for my luxurious Southeast Asian crab omelette, the puffy Thai omelette kai jiaw, Thai fried egg salad for yam khai dao, our herby Cambodian sa’om omelette, two classic omelettes, and Lara’s Russian sour cream omelette with broccoli and bacon.

If you haven’t visited us in a while, Weekend Eggs recipes we’ve published in our re-booted breakfast eggs series include recipes for a breakfast burrito, classic Mexican huevos rancheros, Mexican migas recipe with a twist for a ‘Migas tortilla’, fried eggs breakfast taco with chorizo, crunchy potatoes and spicy chorizo oil, scrambled eggs breakfast taco  with avocado and chorizo, Basque fried eggs with chorizo and potatoes for ‘messy eggs’, Mexico City-inspired chorizo eggs, pesto scrambled eggs, and a Japanese rolled omelette recipe.

We’ve also published eggs recipes for scrambled eggs with sauteed mushrooms on sourdough, soft scrambled eggs with Chinese barbecue pork and chives, Indian egg bhurji, Chinese marbled tea eggs, Russian devilled eggs, Turkish çılbır poached eggs and menemen scrambled eggs, Calabria’s take on ‘eggs in purgatory’ with ’nduja, Thai son-in-law eggs, Cambodian steamed eggs, and Malaysia and Singapore’s half-boiled eggs with kaya jam and toast.

But before I tell you more about this egg foo young with gravy recipe, we have a favour to ask. Grantourismo is reader-supported. If you’ve cooked our recipes and enjoyed them, please consider supporting Grantourismo by using our links to buy something on Amazon such as these cookbooks for culinary travellers or classic cookbooks for serious cooks or support our epic Cambodian cuisine history and cookbook on Patreon.

Now let me tell you about this egg foo young with gravy recipe.

Egg Foo Young with Gravy Recipe for the Chinese American Restaurant Favourite

Our egg foo young with gravy recipe will make you the Chinese American version of the original Cantonese omelette that emerged in Chinese diasporas right around the world, as the dish has evolved to suit local tastes and availability of ingredients.

You’ll find egg foo young everywhere from London to Kuala Lumpur but this egg foo young with gravy recipe makes the Chinese American iteration that has long been a Chinese restaurant favourite. It’s especially popular as a takeout dish – or take-away dish for those of us outside the USA.

The main difference between the original Cantonese egg foo young recipe from Southern China and the Chinese American egg foo yung with gravy recipe is that the American dish consists of smaller omelettes rather than one large omelette that’s sliced or broken apart with chopsticks.

Another difference is that the original Cantonese crispy omelette is often eaten with a little soy sauce – it doesn’t need a lot as there’s so much flavour within the omelette itself – while the Chinese-American omelette is doused in a thick brown savoury gravy, which is also delicious.

Like a lot of egg dishes here in Asia, the original Cantonese egg foo yung is eaten any time of day – breakfast, lunch, a snack, dinner, or supper – whereas the Chinese-American egg foo young is typically ordered as takeout or eaten at a Chinese restaurant for dinner or lunch.

Just a few quick tips to making this egg foo young with gravy recipe for the popular Chinese-American restaurant takeout dish.

Tips to Making this Egg Foo Young with Gravy Recipe

We only have a few tips to making this egg foo young with gravy recipe for the Chinese-American omelette that’s long been a popular Chinese restaurant takeout dish in North America, as it’s a quick and easy omelette dish.

And while I say ‘North America’, this recipe makes the egg foo young that’s popular in the USA, as the Canadian egg foo young is often described as “soft and fluffy”, which this is not.

Cooking the Omelette

Firstly, and most importantly, you need a wok to make this crispy omelette. We recommend a seasoned carbon steel wok. You really need your wok hot for this dish to work.

You will need a good high smoke-point oil such as peanut oil for this.

Use a decent thermometer because if the oil temperature is lower than 190°C (375°F), you’ll be making a soggy mess of an omelette, which you definitely do not want.

I use a fish slice to shape and flip the egg because tongs can break up your omelette when you’re flipping it over.

The egg mixture should puff up like it does with this Thai omelette recipe.

Have a sheet pan with rack covered in kitchen towels (or kitchen wipes as they’re sometimes called) ready for the finished omelettes.

The Gravy / Sauce

American cooks use ‘gravy’, whereas here in Southeast Asia we’d call it a ‘brown sauce’. We’ve used both in the recipe below.

Note that you want to really reduce the gravy right down, otherwise it just makes the omelette soggy rather than enhance the flavour.

Don’t forget to increase the amount of gravy that you’re making if you are cooking these omelettes for a group of friends or family this weekend.

Batch Cook or Keep the Omelettes Warm in an Oven

If you’re making this egg foo young with gravy recipe for a large group and you don’t have a massive wok to do the omelettes in big batches, put your oven on low-medium heat to keep the finished omelettes warm while you cook the others.

Serving the Omelettes

Serve the omelettes alongside steamed rice, douse the omelettes with the gravy, sprinkle the omelette with sesame seeds, and garnish with crunchy bean sprouts and slices of fresh spring onions or green onions. Enjoy!

Egg Foo Young with Gravy Recipe

Egg Foo Young with Gravy Recipe

AuthorTerence Carter

This egg foo young with gravy recipe makes the Chinese American restaurant specialty of crispy omelettes doused in gravy and sprinkled with scallions, sesame seeds and bean sprouts. Served with rice, the fantastic, filling omelette can be eaten for breakfast, brunch, lunch, or dinner and is just as delicious as the Cantonese original.

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Prep Time 15 minutes mins

Cook Time 10 minutes mins

Course Breakfast, Brunch

Cuisine Chinese/American

Servings made with recipeServings 8 Pieces

Calories 1208 kcal

Equipment

Flat Bottomed Wok – Carbon Steel

Ingredients

 

MetricUS Customary

 

1x2x3x

• 6 large eggs
• 150 g char siu pork - chopped into small chunks
• 80 g bean sprouts - blanched
• 6 green onions - white bases removed and cut into 4cm sections; green tops chopped finely for garnish
• 1 tsp light soy sauce
• ½ tsp sesame oil
• ½ tsp cornstarch - mixed with water to form a paste
• 4 tbsp cooking oil - like peanut oil that has a high smoke-point

Gravy/Sauve

• 200 ml chicken broth
• 2 tsp light soy sauce
• 1 tsp toasted sesame oil
• 2 tsp cornstarch - mixed with water to form a paste

Garnish

• 1 tsp white sesame seeds

Instructions

 

• Make the egg mixture: in a bowl, crack the eggs and whisk lightly. Add the light soy sauce, sesame oil and cornstarch slurry, and whisk lightly to combine.
• To make the gravy or sauce: in a pan over low heat, combine the chicken stock, light soy sauce, cornstarch slurry, and sesame oil, and leave to simmer on low to reduce to a thick sauce while you're making the eggs.
• To the egg mixture: add the bean sprouts, the white ends of the green onions, and char siu pork and combine well.
• To the wok: add the oil and heat up to 190°C (375°F), using a kitchen thermometer to check the temperature. Carefully add a small ladle full of the egg mixture to the wok, making sure to get a little of each ingredient in the mix.
• The egg mixture should bubble up, form into an omelette, and start to brown on the bottom in around 30 seconds. When it does, use a fish slice to carefully flip the egg over. If it's ready, it should turn over easily with the fish slice.
• Cook the other side of the omelette for around 30 seconds, then remove and drain the omelette on kitchen towels. Note: if you're cooking for a crowd, keep the finished omelettes in an oven over low-medium heat.
• Serve the omelettes with steamed rice, spoon the reduced gravy over the omelettes, and sprinkle some bean sprouts, white sesame seeds and green onion slices onto each omelette.

Nutrition

Calories: 1208kcalCarbohydrates: 19gProtein: 60gFat: 100gSaturated Fat: 16gPolyunsaturated Fat: 25gMonounsaturated Fat: 51gTrans Fat: 1gCholesterol: 1040mgSodium: 2185mgPotassium: 1224mgFiber: 4gSugar: 6gVitamin A: 2172IUVitamin C: 38mgCalcium: 270mgIron: 8mg

Click through for more ideas for what to cook this weekend and please do let us know in the comments below if you make this egg foo young with gravy recipe for the Chinese American crispy omelettes. We’d love to know how the dish turns out for you.