Stuffed Bitter Melon

Stuffed Bitter Melon is a flavorful and healthy dish. It excellent with rice! We mix ground pork, noodles, and mushrooms for savory filling that gets stuffed into fresh bitter melon. Then cook and eat! Learn tips for reducing the "bitterness" from bitter melon, and how to make this satisfying local Chinese dish.

Why This Recipe Works

Stuffed bitter melon is a local dish that you'll see pretty often in Hawaii home cooking. It's cozy, comfy, and most importantly, delicious with a bowl of rice!

We use bitter melon a lot in Chinese and Vietnamese cook so it makes sense that it would show up in many local households.

This is an easy and flexible recipe. Just stuff cut bitter melon with a ground pork filling and then steam. Instead of using a proper steamer, we just put the stuffed bitter melon in a pan and add some water directly into the pan. Makes it a lot easier!

For the filling, we mix shiitake mushrooms and glass noodles with the ground pork. Then season with oyster sauce, sesame oil, and white pepper.

Sometimes we add wood ear mushrooms instead of shiitake mushrooms. Sometimes we use chopped onions instead of glass noodles. Sometimes we also add soy sauce to mixture.

You know how there are a million different types of dumpling and wonton and pork hash fillings you can make? It's the same idea for this bitter melon filling. Just start with a base of ground pork and work from there ^_^

Bitter Melon

Bitter Melon! We grew up eating bitter melon so this is a vegetable I love very much. We drank bitter melon soup on hot summer days (recipe coming soon for that) and made many different versions of bitter melon stir fry (including an Okinawan dish called Goya Champuru).

You can purchase bitter melon at most Asian markets, and even local farmers market! Pick bitter melons that are long, a pretty light green, and more firm than soft. Try getting the straight bitter melons - they curved ones are gorgeous but are harder to cut and remove the insides/seeds because of the curve.

Some people complain that bitter melon is too bitter, but that is actually part of the appeal.

How to cook bitter melon? Easy! To prepare bitter melon for this recipe, we cut the bitter melon into 1-inch long pieces, and then use a spoon or knife to remove and discard the insides/seeds.

If you want to remove some of the bitter flavor, all you have to is sprinkle salt all over the bitter melon (after cutting and removing the insides/seeds), and let it sit for 15 minutes. Then just rinse the bitter melon pieces and it is ready for cooking!

Ingredients

These are the ingredients you'll need to make Stuffed Bitter Melon:

• Bitter melons
• Ground pork
• Glass noodles - also called vermicelli, cellophane, long rice, or bean thread noodles.
• Shiitake mushrooms + mushroom soaking water
• Oyster sauce
• Sesame oil
• White pepper

Let's get cooking!

Step by Step Directions

Here are the cooking directions with photos. There's also a printable recipe card at the bottom of this post ^_^

Prepare the dried shiitake mushrooms.
Rinse and place the dried mushrooms in a small bowl. Cover the mushrooms with hot water. Place a cover/lid on top of the bowl (to let the mushrooms rehydrate faster) and set aside for 30 minutes.

Prepare the glass noodles.
Place glass noodles in a bowl and fill the bowl with hot water. Let sit for 5 minutes for the noodles to soften. Then drain the water and cut the noodles into small pieces (about 1-inch long or shorter).

Prepare the bitter melons.
Trim off the ends. Cut the bitter melon into 1-inch pieces. Use a small spoon or knife to remove the insides/seeds.

Place the cut and hollowed bitter melon pieces in a bowl. Sprinkle with salt (about 1 tablespoon) and let sit for 15 minutes.

Then gently rinse the bitter melon with water and let drain. Set aside.

Pro Tip: It's this salting and rinsing step that helps lighten the bitterness from the bitter melons. You can't completely remove the bitterness (the bitterness is actually part of the appeal for bitter melon fans!) but this reduces the bitterness significantly.

Cut Mushrooms.
Remove the rehydrated shiitake mushrooms from the bowl. Make sure to save the mushroom soaking water, we will use this water in the cooking step. Use a knife to cut the mushrooms into small pieces.

Prepare the pork filling.
In a bowl, mix together the ground pork, cut glass noodles, diced shiitake mushrooms, oyster sauce, sesame oil, and white pepper.

Stuff bitter melon.
Stuff each bitter melon round with a spoonful of the pork filling. We usually do this on cutting board or large plate.

Place the bitter melon round on the cutting board. Use a small spoon to fill the bitter melon with the pork filling. Then place an extra mound of filling on top so that each bitter melon piece has a round, dome shaped top.

Cook the stuffed bitter melon.
Get it a large pan and put it on the stove. Over medium-high heat, add oil to the pan. Gently place all the filled bitter melon pieces upright in the pan, in a single layer.

Pour the mushroom soaking water into the pan (make sure to leave behind any dirt from the mushrooms). Add enough water to reach about one third of the height of the bitter melon pieces.

Bring the liquid to a boil. Place a lid on the pan and let cook on medium heat for 20 minutes. Check the pan every 5 minutes to make sure the liquid hasn't completely evaporated. If liquid is running low, add more water so that the pan doesn't burn.

Finish cooking, serve and enjoy.
After the bitter melon is fully cooked (test it with a fork, it will be tender and easy to poke), remove the lid and let the remaining liquid cook off.

Plate the bitter melon pieces on a serving dish. Eat and enjoy! It's always so good with rice ^_^

FAQs and Tips

Stuffed Bitter Melon Recipe

See below and enjoy ^_^