Traditional Taiwanese Lo Ba which Lo ba literally means stewed meat in Taiwanese. “Lo” = stew “ba” = meat, is one of those comfort foods that will have your house smelling delicious all day. The star anise and cinnamon give this dish its authentic Taiwanese flavor.
This simple recipe only takes a few minutes to make and I’m sure it will become a family favorite. Serve with a side of steamed broccoli.
Brown the meat with the shallots (or onion) and spices.
Then add the soy mixture, simmer.
Serve over noodles.
Taiwanese Pork Noodle Recipe - Lo Ba
If you don't have rice noodles, use any type of dried pasta that you want - even angel hair, spaghetti or linguine. It's not authentic, but it will work just fine!
Ingredients
- 1 (10 ounce) package dry rice noodles
- 2 tablespoons cooking oil
- 3 shallots, thinly sliced (or 1/2 small onion)
- 2 whole star anise
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 2 tablespoons garlic, minced
- 1 pound ground pork
- 1/2 cup soy sauce
- 1/2 cup rice vinegar
- 1/4 cup warm water
- 2 tablespoons sugar
Instructions
- Prepare a large bowl (ice bath) with 12 ice cubes and 4 cups of water, set aside.
- Bring 4 cups of water to a boil in a large pot, then add the dry rice noodles and boil for 2 minutes. Remove the pot from heat and let the noodles sit in the hot water for another 2 minutes. Drain the noodles, then immediately drain them into the prepared ice bath to stop the cooking process, let cool for 1 minute. Drain and set aside.
- In a mixing bowl, combine the soy sauce, the vinegar, warm water and the sugar. Whisk together well.
- Heat a fry or saute pan over medium high heat. When hot, add in the cooking oil, shallots, garlic, star anise and cinnamon stick and saute until fragrant about 30 seconds. Add the ground pork breaking the meat into small pieces and cooking until the browned. Once the meat has cooked through, add the soy-vinegar mixture. Simmer for 5 minutes on medium-low heat. Serve over rice noodles.
Notes
Recipe and photos by Shelisa of Big2Beautiful blog.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
Did you try this recipe? Please leave a star rating in the recipe card below and leave a review in the comment section! I always appreciate your feedback and I know other readers do, too!
Stay in touch with me in our 
Wish I had read the comments first, the vinegar is definitely too strong! And don’t blindly follow the noodle directions, they didn’t work at all for the type of noodles I have.Other than that, great recipe.
I love all your recipes! I very rarely comment on websites but my love for your site was too strong!
I’ve just moved to Taiwan and am missing all the (simple) Cantonese meals my mum used to make. I have bookmarked a ton of recipes and will try them out in the coming weeks!
Thank you so much Anastasia!
Was there a mistake in this recipe? 1/2 c rice vinegar? I made it tonight and it was really really strong.
Jaden , was wondering can this recipe be adapted to use the Frozen Recipe Crumbles that are not made of Meat…they are soy.
Thanks, joette
I made this last night and it was fantastic!!!!!! I too used ground turkey because that’s what I had on hand, and it was still delish! Next time hopefully I’ll have turkey sausage on hand so I can see the difference in flavors. I did as other suggested and reduced the rice vinegar to 1/4 c. I doubled everything except the noodles so we’d have extra. This meal had so much flavor and clean-up was a breeze since I used just one pan to do everything in.
So far, Jaden, your recipes are a huge hit in my kitchen!
I made this for my family a few weeks ago and they loved it! Being Chinese and my hubby Filipino, we had it over rice and it was fine. From other recipes and reading some of the comments, I modified it slightly – I used brown sugar instead of white, reduced the rice vinegar to 1/4 cup, used almost 2 pounds of ground pork, and tried to simmer it for as long as my children could hold out, possibly another 30 mins to soften the pork. To keep it from drying out, I kept adding water to it … probably another 1/2 cup. It still came out great. I’m going to make it again tonight and serve it over the rice noodles, and will also try adding some cooked soy sauce/browned/packaged firm tofu to it, as my daughter loves tofu. I’m also going to try and use ground turkey.
In Taiwan many shops near my apartment sold this over rice, with some pickled radish on the side. It was one of our favorite meals. And so cheap!!
Hey Jaden!
Can you eat this with rice too? Or just some type of noodles?
This was SO delicious!! Thank you for this quick, easy and tasty recipe. It was an immediate favorite!
Thank you for the recipe! I made the pork tonight and served it over rice. It was really yummy!
yum! my boyfriend and i love this recipe. however, next time i think i’ll use 1/4 cup of rice vinegar, instead of 1/2″ cup.
I just made this last night for my family using ground turkey, and served it on Chinese egg noodles and baby bok choy. The flavors were really deep and rich for such a quick cooking dish. Thanks for the tasty recipe!
I made this for supper last night using soba noodles and ground turkey (because it’s what I had on hand). My guys went back for seconds and made for no left overs to enjoy tomorrow! We will definitely be making “Asian Spaghetti” again!
Looks like the perfect meal for this weekend. When the fall starts to approach in the end of August, I find myself using a lot more pork and warm cozy flavors like this. Perfect, thank you!