---
title: 'American Meat Sauce Noodles (老扬基炸酱面)'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=nZCB9LUunJM'
video_id: 'nZCB9LUunJM'
date: 2026-06-28
duration_sec: 838
---

# American Meat Sauce Noodles (老扬基炸酱面)

> Source: [American Meat Sauce Noodles (老扬基炸酱面)](https://youtube.com/watch?v=nZCB9LUunJM)

## Summary

The video explores creating an American version of Zha Jiang Mian, a Chinese noodle dish with fried meat sauce. The creator adapts the core technique—frying minced pork belly and a thick fermented sauce—using American ingredients like bacon and a homemade barbecue sauce.

### Key Points

- **Concept of Zha Jiang Mian** [0:00] — Zha Jiang Mian is a Chinese noodle dish with a fried meat sauce, but it's more of an adaptable idea than a single dish, with variations across China and Korea.
- **American adaptation challenge** [1:47] — The creator aims to invent an American version using local flavors, starting with a mix of ground pork belly and bacon.
- **Finding the American 'Jiang'** [2:54] — The difficult part is finding a thick fermented sauce; the creator decides on a homemade barbecue sauce with tomato base, fermented components, and American flavors.
- **Cooking process** [6:42] — The pork and bacon are rendered, then combined with a sauce made from crushed tomatoes, beer, stock, brown sugar, and spices, simmered until thick.
- **Serving and toppings** [10:36] — The sauce is served over pasta with base seasonings, and optional toppings like pickled jalapenos, sour cream, cheddar cheese, and Doritos.
- **Taste test and adaptability** [12:09] — The dish is deemed a success, and the creator suggests it could be adapted further, e.g., served with cornbread, fries, or on a hot dog.

### Conclusion

The American Zha Jiang Mian successfully blends Chinese technique with American flavors, proving the dish's adaptability and potential for further creative variations.

## Transcript

Here in China, one of the most popular 
noodles is Zha Jiang Mian – “Fried sauce  
noodles” - basically, noodles in with a delicious 
meat sauce. And today, I wanted to try my hand at  
inventing an American version of the dish... 
and stay with me on this one. Because the  
Chinese term “Zhajiang”, it's a dish, but it's 
not really just one dish. It's more of an idea  
that's been relentlessly adapted all throughout 
the country. The fundamental technique is to fry  
out a bit of minced pork belly, then use that lard 
to fry some kind of thick fermented sauce… thus  
giving it the name deep fried sauce. The most 
famous Zha Jiang is definitely the original,  
the Old Beijing Zha Jiang Mian, which uses a 
fermented sauce called Gan Huang Jiang. The second  
most famous is the Korean Jajangmyeon, which uses 
the Korean chunjang. But you can find this basic  
idea again almost everywhere. Like, where we live 
in Yunnan, it's got its own local version with  
its own local fermented sauce. A few days back, 
we covered the Cantonese version which uses the  
Cantonese Minsi paste. And after that, we taught 
you how to make the Sichuan version, which fries  
up Pixian Doubanjiang. Which all for me? It does 
kind of get my brain churning a bit… because like,  
I'm an America. And if this technique is used 
everywhere from Hong Kong to Korea to the Yunnan  
Myanmar border, what's stopping us from making our 
own? We like meat. We like noodles. We like deep  
frying things in lard. Even the most maladjusted 
expat I've ever met here in China still loved Zha  
Jiang Mian. For a dish with so many variations 
throughout China, throughout the world,  
why not an American one? So that's the challenge 
that I've set here for myself today. A Zha Jiang  
Mian with American flavors, which for the pork 
is definitely the easy bit. I mean, obviously,  
obviously, we're going to be using some American 
style bacon. Now, if I went all bacon, I think  
it would definitely be a little bit too bacony? I 
mean, this is going to be a meat sauce after all,  
think something like a ragu. So, this here is 
a mix of 450g of ground pork belly with 100g  
or about five strips of bacon. Now, just like the 
previous Zha Jiangs, for the pork belly, best is  
going to be a coarser grind. So, you might want to 
find a proper butcher that's able to do that for  
you. But if that is impossible or really expensive 
where you live, just try to find the fattiest one  
that you can find. So then I'm just going to slice 
up this bacon into the same coarse grind sort of  
consistency… and then this here is going to be a 
really nice base for our sauce. Which then brings  
us to the difficult part of the exercise, which 
is some kind of thick fermented sauce. Which… I  
don't think we really have in America. I mean, 
we've got some stuff that's fermented. I mean,  
we do liquor pretty well. We've got some nice 
fermented hot sauces. There's some vinegars,  
cheese, and sauerkraut, but nothing that really 
snugly fits in with this application. Because for  
me, I kind of put fermented things into a couple 
of different buckets. There's boozy ferments,  
there's sour ferments, there's what I think 
of as lightly fermented protein ferments,  
heavily fermented protein ferments, and then 
clear umami fermentss, kind of like soy sauce  
and fish sauce. Now, our cuisines, we've got these 
ones. We borrowed soy sauce from pretty early on,  
but we don't traditionally have anything 
in this middle category here, the Jiangs,  
which I'd imagine is why the cheffy types have 
been so religiously into Japanese miso ever since  
they first got their hands on it. So, like maybe 
we could go miso, but again, I did want American  
flavors here. So, maybe we can take a step 
back. Historically, we did have something in  
this category in the form of mushroom ketchup, 
but it seems like we basically stopped making  
that around when we collectively fell in love 
with the tomato. And ever since, it feels like  
the tomato has functionally filled this void for 
us. So, in our search for the American “Jiang”,  
this is where my head's at. The American Jiang, it 
should one - be a thick sauce. It should two - be  
something recognizably an American flavor. 
Three, probably have a tomato base in it,  
and four, ideally have some kind of fermented 
component to it. So after thinking about this  
problem for way too long, the American Jiang… it's 
got to be barbecue sauce, right? I mean, it's not  
really a Jiang, but it is undeniably us. Now, I'm 
kind of tempted to just try this bottle straight,  
but I'm getting an inkling that it might kind 
of suck? So, instead, I'm thinking something a  
little bit more… homemade barbecue sauce inspired. 
So, I'm thinking of something in the manner of a  
Kansas City, but I also don't really want to use 
ketchup? So instead, I'm just playing it safe,  
going with canned tomatoes, tomato paste, and a 
little bit of a grab bag of this ingredient list.  
Which then brings us to the last thing before we 
cook. Both the Cantonese and the Sichuan versions,  
they both include some kind of spicy sauce in 
their mix. And I was also thinking that that also  
felt like a good idea. So, I was thinking maybe 
Heinz chili sauce, but to me that's about as spicy  
as mayonnaise is? So, I don't know. I was thinking 
chipotles en adobo. I was thinking maybe Sriracha,  
but I just decided to keep things simple. And last 
night, I soaked up 15g of dried chili in with hot  
boiled water... and today, we'll turn that into 
a paste. So, I'll just snip these into sections,  
give them a little chop, and you could totally use 
a food processor for this, but I wanted to use a  
trick that I taught you a couple of weeks ago, 
which is to smash two cloves of garlic. And here,  
I'll sprinkle on a 1/4 teaspoon of salt, 
smash that in, and then start to chop that  
together with the chilies. Because garlic's 
an emulsifier, in just one or two minutes of  
chopping, that's all going to come together into 
a really nice paste. So now we've got our tomato,  
we've got our chili paste. So now let's go outside 
and we can start with our pork. So the technique  
here is to start with about a tablespoon of 
oil. Then go in with the pork and bacon and  
over a medium/medium high flame, begin to slowly 
render out that fat. Now, this is going to take  
a hot second… so I'm going to quickly run inside 
and on a separate burner, I'm going to start to  
soften up some onions - try to make everything 
a little bit more barbecue saucy. So, I'll just  
mix in a 1/4 teaspoon of salt in with a half a 
thinly sliced onion, then a tablespoon of peanut  
oil and then enough water to just barely cover 
the bottom. We'll let this go over a low flame  
for about as long as our pork needs: we're just 
giving everything a head start to break down, just  
try to remember to give this a stir every couple 
of minutes to make sure that nothing's scorching.
So, now we'll run back to the pork. And after 
a minute or so of frying this, it's going to  
be nice and loosened up a bit like this… just 
keep it going. After a couple more minutes,  
it'll start to reach the “I'm being annoying 
and sticking to the pot!” stage… just keep  
being patient with it. Scrape off anything 
that's sticking, and if you really need,  
you can also add in a little bit more 
oil. After a few more minutes of that,  
it's going to start to render out its lard... 
and at this point, you're not going to need to  
nurse things quite as hard. After 10 more 
minutes of this stage, you're going to be  
looking for the pork to be nice and golden brown, 
a bit like this. Just don't take things too brown  
or too crispy because remember, we do want 
this as a base for our meat sauce. But, uh,  
now I just remembered I'm going to swap this to a 
clay pot because I don't want the acidic tomatoes  
to be ruining my wok seasoning… so once that's in, 
we'll move back inside real quick to the onion.
So, this is what I'm looking at now. It's 
pretty broken down. I'll just let this go  
for another minute or two and then toss that 
into a bowl. So right. Heating up the lard  
now over a medium flame... the classic Zha Jiang 
technique is to add a couple tablespoons of that  
oil in with your sauce and then mix that really 
well. The reason for this move is to heat up the  
sauce a bit gentler, because sometimes 
if you just dumped everything straight,  
things can sometimes scorch on you. So then just 
give that a quick fry, and then we'll also do the  
same move then with about a tablespoon of tomato 
paste. Fry that for a hot second. And then once  
that's fragrant, we'll toss in a tablespoon of 
paprika and the onions. Then we'll mix that,  
fry it a bit to make sure that the oil stained 
all nice and red, and then go in with 200g of  
crushed tomatoes. Then we'll toss in 200 ml 
of stock together with 200 ml of a light beer,  
and then start to bring this up to a light boil, 
seasoning with a ¼ teaspoon chicken bouillon  
powder, 2 tbsp dark brown sugar, 1 tbsp of soy 
sauce, a half teaspoon brown coriander seed,  
and a good crack of black pepper. Then we'll 
just let that go over medium/medium high for  
about 20 minutes to evaporate off all that 
moisture that we just added and continue  
to break down the onions. After that time, 
what we'll be looking for is for the mixture  
to have kind of reached its lava bubbling 
stage, something that looks a bit like this:
Then we'll drizzle in a slurry of a half 
tablespoon cornstarch mixed with a bit of  
water bit by bit. And once that's stirred in, 
we'll do our final seasoning. I'll add in a bit  
more MSG and brown sugar. Another generous crack 
of black pepper this time. And a sour component,  
which today I'm going to be starting with about a 
teaspoon of Tabasco. If you want things a little  
bit more sour, you could maybe add in a little 
bit more Tabasco. Or if you wanted things a  
little bit more barbecue saucy, maybe a bit of 
cider vinegar. But at this point, this already  
tastes pretty good to me… so, we can just run 
inside and see how it is. Now, my conception  
here was going to be to do a ganban mixed noodle 
kind of in the Sichuan style. So, we'll give each  
bowl some base seasoning at first. So, let's do 
an 1/8 teaspoon each salt, MSG, sugar, soy sauce,  
Worcestershire sauce, and then a good crack of 
black pepper. Then, we'll just boil up some pasta,  
take it a touch past al dente, then out, jiggle it 
to cool down, and let the steam escape. Now, let's  
do the move of a tablespoon of the pasta water. 
And together with that, the pasta also in. I'll  
give this a quick mix first and then we'll smother 
that with all of our sauce. Now, in Beijing, this  
famously comes with like a mountain of optional 
toppings, so I was thinking it might be kind of  
fun to do the same thing here. Now, I admittedly 
did kind of go light on the sourness… so I think  
we can have a bit of pickled jalapenos on the 
side. And if anybody wants theirs a little more  
spicy, some chopped green chilies, a little less 
spicy, some sour cream, or for a little freshness,  
a bit of chopped onion. Then for the sides, 
when I think of American snacks, I can't think  
of anything more American than Doritos. So, we'll 
add in a little bit of pile here. And definitely  
being American, I think we have to add in a bit of 
cheddar cheese. Top it with a little scallion...  
and this is looking pretty good I think. So, 
yeah. Um, let's give this to a neutral party.  
See how I did. Steph, do you wanna? Here you go. 
All right. Let's see. Smells like Mexican food.
Pretty good. Feel like tortilla 
chips would be better. So, yeah,  
I definitely consider this one a success. Um, 
personally, I'm going to be making it again,  
but I do also think that this can also be adapted. 
Because like if we look at the Cantonese one, it's  
served with wanton noodles in wanton shops. Or if 
we take a look at the Sichuan Zha Jiang, it's got  
alkaline noodles and it's often in soup, which 
is just perfect for the foggy Sichuan winters.  
So, I think we can also take this base and adapt 
it into the American cultural context. So, maybe  
you could also take this, serve it with cornbread, 
serve it with fries, or even top it over hot dog.  
Why not? So, yeah, originally we were all going to 
have all three of these Zha Jiangs as one video,  
but um after thinking on it, we did really want 
to do the Cantonese and Sichuan ones justice?  
We were originally just going to cut this, but 
I don't know. I just kind of have too much fun  
with it. So, huge, huge thank you to everybody 
that's supporting us on Patreon. You can find  
a written recipe for all three of the Zha 
Jiang in the link Substack post below. And,  
of course, subscribe for more Chinese 
or Chinese and American cooking videos.