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This happy family recipe features a simple Chinese-American dish made with seafood, meat, and vegetables stir-fried in savory brown sauce. It’s healthy, flavorful, and quick to make that you can easily put it on repeat every week!
Happy Family Chinese Dish
Loaded with protein and vegetables, happy family is something that almost every Chinese restaurant has on its menu. It’s literally a family of different ingredients combined to make a hearty and delicious meal with the perfect balance of flavors, textures, colors, and nutrition.
Have limited ingredients? Save this recipe for next time and make my Broccoli Beef or Hoisin Chicken instead!
What Is Happy Family
A typical family dine-in experience at any Chinese restaurant includes ordering dishes with vegetables, meat, and seafood of some sort.
The combination of these three elements is where this dish got its name “Happy Family” which is also called “Triple Delight.” It’s a popular Chinese stir-fry with vegetables like broccoli and carrots, meat like beef and chicken, and seafood like shrimp and lobster, all cooked in a simple yet delicious brown sauce.
This is one of those dishes that truly embraces the art of Chinese cooking—combining different flavors, textures, and colors to create a tasty, well-balanced, and satisfying meal!
Ingredients For Happy Family
- Vegetables – Use as many vegetables as you like, but the most commonly used ones are broccoli, carrots, and sugar snap or snow peas. You can also add canned vegetables like mushrooms, bamboo shoots, young baby corn, and water chestnuts for variety. These add a nice crunch and color to the dish while providing a lot of nutrients!
- Meat and seafood – A typical recipe uses beef, chicken, and shrimp. But you can use other types of protein like pork/BBQ pork, scallops, and lobster/crab meat.
- Marinade – made with simple ingredients like sugar and dry sherry wine or Chinese cooking wine to tenderize the meat and seafood while adding lots of savory flavors!
- Brown sauce – I made my own mix using light and sweet soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, chicken broth, and dry sherry wine. It’s simple yet really flavorful and it coats all the ingredients beautifully!
See the recipe card for full information on ingredients
How To Make Happy Family
This easy happy family recipe can be one of your go-to dishes for a quick and satisfying meal. It’s perfect for both simple weeknight dinners or large family gatherings during the weekend. And if you’re like me who loves a good stir-fry, you won’t think twice about trying this one out!
Here’s how to cook Chinese happy family fish in just 15 minutes:
Step 1. Marinade meat and seafood with some salt, pepper, sugar, and a dash of cooking wine. Set aside. Mix all the seasoning ingredients for the Brown Sauce in a bowl and set aside.
Step 2. In a wok, heat 2 tablespoons of oil until smoky hot, stir-fry onions and peppers until lightly charred, add in minced garlic, briskly stir-fry until fragrant, toss in the broccoli florets, carrots, and continue stir-frying for about 2 minutes. Dash a little salt and pepper, mix well, and dish up. Set aside.
Step 3. Lightly clean up the wok with a damp paper towel. Heat up the wok with the remaining 1 tablespoon of oil, stir-fry shrimp, lobster/crab meat for 1 minute, toss in sliced beef and pork/BBQ pork, and continue to stir-fry for another minute or until lightly browned.
Step 4. Toss in the mixed canned vegetables and stir well. Add in the Brown Sauce seasoning, pour in the chicken broth, and continue to stir-fry until vegetables are tender enough to your liking and the meat and seafood are thoroughly cooked. Adjust salt, sugar, or other flavorings per taste. Dish up and serve with hot steamed rice.
Helpful Tips For Home Cooks
- Use a wok or a large skillet to make this dish. I recommend using a wok as it distributes heat more evenly and the ingredients can cook quickly while retaining their texture and color. But if you don’t have a wok, a large skillet would work just fine.
- Prepare all the ingredients beforehand. Have everything chopped, sliced, and portioned to make the process smoother and more efficient. This dish cooks quickly, so you don’t want to scramble for ingredients while stir-frying.
- Use high heat for a short amount of time to retain the freshness and crunchiness of the vegetables. Chinese cooking is all about quick and intense heat, so make sure your wok is hot enough before adding in the ingredients.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, this dish is loaded with highly nutritious ingredients such as meat, seafood, and various vegetables. It also uses minimal oil for stir-frying, making it a healthy option for the whole family.
Happy family has a good balance of sweet and savory flavors from the brown sauce that coats the tender meat, juicy seafood, and crunchy vegetables. The sauce has a familiar umami flavor because it almost tastes like something you’d get from a Chinese takeout!
Yes, Happy Family is also known as Triple Delight in some Chinese restaurants. It includes a mix of meat, seafood, and vegetables stir-fried together in a delicious brown sauce.
There are 315 calories per serving.
What To Serve With This Recipe
This recipe is best served as an entree with a bowl of white rice. Serve this dish with other Chinese classics such as hot and sour soup.
For an easy and wholesome Chinese-style weeknight dinner, I recommend the following recipes:
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Happy Family
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons oil
- 1 cup onion, green and red bell peppers, cut
- 2 cups mixed vegetables , (broccoli florets, sliced carrot and trimmed sugar snap peas/snow peas)
- 1 1/2 cups canned vegetables , (straw mushroom, bamboo shoot sliced, young baby corn and water chestnut sliced)
- 1 cup meat, (pork/BBQ pork, chicken breast, and beef (sliced))
- 1/2 cup mixed seafood, (peeled and cleaned shrimp, lobster meat/crab meat and sea scallops)
- 3 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
Marinade:
- 1/4 teaspoon sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
- 1 teaspoon dry sherry wine , or any Chinese cooking wine
- 1/2 teaspoon cornstarch
Brown Sauce:
- 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
- 1 tablespoon sweet soy sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
- 3 dashes ground white pepper
- 2 tablespoons dry sherry wine , or any Chinese cooking wine
- 1/2-3/4 cup chicken broth , mixed with 1 teaspoon of cornstarch
- salt and sugar, to taste
Instructions
- Marinade meat and seafood with a little salt, pepper, sugar and a dash of cooking wine. Set aside. In a bowl, mix all the seasoning ingredients for the Brown Sauce and set aside.
- In a wok, heat 2 tablespoon oil to smoky hot, stir-fry onions and peppers until lightly charred, add in minced garlic, briskly stir-fry until fragrant, toss in the broccoli florets, carrots, and continue stir-frying for about 2 minutes, dash a little salt and pepper, mix well and dish up. Set aside.
- Lightly clean up wok with damp paper towel. Heat up wok with remaining 1 tablespoon oil, stir-fry shrimp, lobster/crab meat for 1 minute, toss in sliced beef and pork/BBQ pork and continue to stir-fry for another 1 minute, or until lightly browned.
- Toss in the mixed canned vegetables, stir well, add in the Brown Sauce seasoning, pour in the chicken broth and continue to stir-fry until vegetables are tender enough to your liking, meat and seafood is thoroughly cooked. Adjust salt, sugar, or other flavorings as per taste. Dish up and serve with hot steamed rice.
Notes
- Use a wok or a large skillet to make this dish. I recommend using a wok as it distributes heat more evenly and the ingredients can cook quickly while retaining their texture and color. But if you don’t have a wok, a large skillet would work just fine.
- Prepare all the ingredients beforehand. Have everything chopped, sliced, and portioned to make the process smoother and more efficient. This dish cooks quickly, so you don’t want to scramble for ingredients while stir-frying.
- Use high heat for a short amount of time to retain the freshness and crunchiness of the vegetables. Chinese cooking is all about quick and intense heat, so make sure your wok is hot enough before adding in the ingredients.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Love to cook too. Thank you for the recipe.
Love to cook!!! Tried this recipe and came out ok but bitter. Don’t know what I did wrong…., is 1 1/2 tablespoon of thick soy sauce a little too much?
Yummy my family loved it