Every Din Tai Fung green bean recipe online is missing at least four of the six ingredients they actually use at the restaurant. I tracked down the ingredient lists DTF uses to train their kitchen staff, and most recipes only get two of them right. That’s why your version at home never tastes like the restaurant.
If you’ve tried making these at home and they didn’t taste anything like Din Tai Fung’s, the recipes you were following were the problem. They’re all working with about a third of the actual ingredient list. This post covers every ingredient DTF actually uses and exactly how they put the dish together.
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Garlic oil. You only need a tablespoon or two per serving, but it’s worth making a full batch. Combine about a cup and a half of neutral oil (soybean, vegetable, or canola) with eight to ten minced garlic cloves in a cold saucepan. Heat them together on low for ten to fifteen minutes until the garlic turns pale gold. Starting with cold oil lets the garlic release its flavor evenly instead of burning on the outside. Strain it through a fine mesh strainer as soon as it comes off heat. The strained oil keeps at room temperature for about a month and works as a drop-in replacement for neutral oil in any stir-fry.
Totole mushroom bouillon. This is the brand that matches DTF’s specs. Their training materials confirm the bouillon “contains MSG as an additive,” and Totole lists MSG as its fourth ingredient. Lee Kum Kee’s version uses nucleotide enhancers instead of MSG, so it won’t taste the same. If you can’t find Totole, any mushroom bouillon with MSG on the label will work. If you’re using an MSG-free brand, add a quarter teaspoon of MSG separately. Look for the yellow-and-green package with the mushroom on it.
Zha cai (Szechuan preserved mustard stems). These are the pale, translucent bits you can see in photos of DTF’s dish. Look for a red-and-yellow can labeled “Szechuen Preserved Vegetable” with shredded mustard stems inside. Wujiang brand foil packets from the refrigerated section of any Asian grocery store also work well. Check the ingredients on whatever brand you buy, because some cans labeled “Szechuan preserved vegetable” are actually radish, not mustard stems.
Cooking michiu (Taiwanese rice wine). This is widely available at Asian grocery stores. Michiu is lighter and cleaner than Shaoxing wine, and that’s what DTF uses. Dry sherry is closer to Shaoxing than to michiu, so it’s not a great substitute here, but it’ll do in a pinch.
Fresh green beans. About 12 ounces, trimmed and cut into 3-inch pieces. Pat them completely dry after washing. Any surface moisture will cause violent spattering when they hit the hot oil.
1. Make the garlic oil ahead of time. Combine the oil and minced garlic in a cold saucepan and bring them up to temperature together on low heat. Cook for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the garlic is pale gold. Pull it off heat a shade before it looks done to you, because the residual heat in the oil will keep cooking it. Strain immediately through a fine mesh strainer. Save the crispy garlic bits separately. DTF doesn’t use them in the dish, but they’re a great topping for rice or noodles.
2. Set up for deep-frying. Place a wire rack over a rimmed baking sheet near the stove. Do not use paper towels. Most oil absorption happens after food leaves the fryer, so you want oil dripping away from the beans, not pooling against them.
3. Flash-fry the green beans. Heat 3 to 4 cups of neutral oil to 375°F in a wok, Dutch oven, or heavy pot. Use a thermometer. Drop the beans in and fry for 45 to 60 seconds. You want blistered, wrinkled skins and bright green color. They should snap when you bite one, not bend. Transfer to the wire rack.
4. Heat the garlic oil in a clean wok. Add 1 to 2 tablespoons of garlic oil over medium heat. Swirl to coat the surface.
5. Cook the aromatics fast. Add the fresh garlic and minced zha cai at the same time. Stir-fry for 10 to 15 seconds, just until fragrant. The garlic should stay white to barely translucent. Then splash in the michiu. It’ll sizzle and mostly evaporate on contact.
6. Toss the beans with the seasoning. Turn the heat to high. Add the flash-fried beans and immediately sprinkle the mushroom bouillon and salt directly over them. Toss everything together for 15 to 30 seconds until the seasoning dissolves and coats every bean evenly. If you can still see granules, keep tossing. Serve immediately.
Don’t skip the deep-fry. Home burners put out 6,000 to 15,000 BTU. Commercial wok burners run 100,000 to 150,000 BTU. That’s a 7 to 10x gap, and it means your stove can’t vaporize moisture fast enough to blister the bean’s surface before the inside overcooks. The flash-fry at 375°F solves this completely. The beans actually absorb less oil this way than if you stir-fried them. The high heat turns the moisture inside the beans to steam, which pushes outward and creates a barrier that keeps oil from soaking in.
Pull the garlic oil early. The garlic will go from golden to burnt in seconds. If it looks done to you in the pan, it’s probably already a little past where you want it. Pull it when it’s still pale gold and let the residual heat in the oil do the rest.
Use a wire rack, not paper towels. About 64% of oil absorption happens after food comes out of the fryer. As the internal steam cools and condenses, it creates a vacuum that pulls surface oil inward. A wire rack lets oil drip away from all sides. Paper towels trap oil against one side of the bean.
The sauté is thirty seconds, not three minutes. Once the beans go back in the wok, you’re just dissolving the seasoning and coating them. The beans are already cooked from the fry. Anything more than 30 seconds and they start going limp.
Save the crispy garlic bits. DTF strains them out and doesn’t use them in the finished dish. Sprinkle them over rice, noodles, or back on top of the green beans.
These are best eaten immediately. The blistered texture starts to soften within about 20 minutes at room temperature.
If you have leftovers, store them in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 2 days. Reheat in a dry skillet or wok over high heat for about 60 to 90 seconds. The microwave works but you’ll lose the crisp skin. The texture changes either way, so don’t expect reheated beans to match the fresh version.
The garlic oil keeps at room temperature in a sealed container for about a month.
You can try, but it won’t produce the same result. Air fryers circulate hot air, which dries the surface of the bean rather than blistering it. The rapid moisture-to-steam conversion that happens in 375°F oil is what creates that specific wrinkled, puckered texture. An air fryer will give you roasted green beans, which taste fine but aren’t the same dish.
DTF’s confirmed ingredient list doesn’t include soy sauce. The training materials describe the garlic oil as “garlic oil (soy base),” which refers to soybean oil as the carrier fat, not soy sauce cooked into the oil. The same phrasing appears in other DTF dishes like “green onion oil (soy base).” The soy allergen flag on DTF’s allergen guide traces to the mushroom bouillon, which contains soy sauce as a sub-ingredient.
Long beans (yard-long beans) work well and are a common substitution in Chinese cooking. French beans (haricots verts) are thinner and more delicate, so you’d need to reduce the fry time to about 30 seconds to keep them from going limp. Frozen beans don’t work. The excess moisture causes dangerous spattering in hot oil and the texture will be mushy.
The traditional Sichuan version uses ground pork and a different preserved vegetable called ya cai. Din Tai Fung stripped the pork out and swapped in zha cai for their version. If you want the traditional Sichuan take, look for Yibin Suimi Yacai brand ya cai in foil packets.
