Easy Bo Tai Chanh (Vietnamese Beef Carpaccio Recipe)

Bo Tai Chanh, or Vietnamese Beef Carpaccio, is a refreshing and light protein-packed dish that is flavorful and delicious. Made with juicy and tender wagyu beef mixed in a delicious umami sauce, this dish is undeniably delicious. But is beef carpaccio healthy?

This Vietnamese beef carpaccio can be a very healthy dish, consisting of 315 calories, with 39 grams of protein, 15 grams of fat, and 10 grams of carbs.

As you can see, the dish has a very impressive nutrition profile predominantly consisting of proteins, making it a great, protein-packed meal.

You can easily pair it with garlic noodles , some healthy pho, or a comforting bowl of chicken rice porridge to make it a well-balanced meal.

However, the key to making this dish help rather than hinder progress towards your fitness goals is portioning ingredients carefully.

Jump to:

• 🍎 Calories and Nutrition – Is Beef Carpaccio Healthy?
• 🍏 How to Make It Healthy – The Fitsian Method
• 💡Tips and Tricks
• 📋 Ingredient Notes
• 🔪 Step by Step Instructions
• 🍳 Recipe

🍎 Calories and Nutrition – Is Beef Carpaccio Healthy?

To understand the calorie and nutrition content of Bo Tai Chanh, it’s useful to look at the core ingredients that make up the recipe. The dish is made of three main components: the beef, the carpaccio sauce, and the garnishes.

• Beef:  Beef carpaccio is made with sliced beef, usually of a more tender and less fatty type. While beef is very delicious, it is relatively more calorie dense compared to lean proteins such as chicken, so it is extra important to portion control when eating it if your goal is to lose weight. A 4oz serving of beef has 217 calories, 21 grams of which are from protein and 15 grams from fat. The plus side is that beef packs much more protein dense compared to most lean meats.
• Carpaccio Sauce: The sauce is relatively simple here and consists of a mixture of fish sauce, sugar, shallots, and diced cilantro. These ingredients do not add a significant amount of calories to the dish -- they just need to be portioned carefully, especially the fish sauce and sugar.
• Garnishes: Vietnamese beef carpaccio is often topped with shallots (either fried or fresh), fried garlic, and/or nuts. It's important to be careful here as the garnishes can really add up in calories - 1 oz of peanuts pack about 161 calories. Here, it's best to opt for lower calorie garnishes like fresh garlic and shallots, or air fried garlic chips and shallots for the crisp without the extra oil.

Looking at each component, it’s easy to see that while Vietnamese beef carpaccio consists of a number of healthy ingredients, it can be made into a high calorie dish if the higher calorie ingredients are not portioned correctly, making it less than ideal for dieting purposes. This bo tai chanh recipe will show you some tweaks that will make it low calorie and delicious.

🍏 How to Make It Healthy – The Fitsian Method

While the ingredients that go into the dish are naturally pretty healthy and don't have any calorie bomb culprits, it's still important to portion carefully and keep calorie and protein content in mind. Here's how I portioned the recipe to be only 315 calories with 38 grams of protein:

• Use 4 ounces of wagyu beef tenderloin slices at 217 calories
• Portioned out sauce ingredients mindfully, each individual component of sauce not that bad but can add up. In this recipe, the total calories from the sauce add up to about 98 calories using the measurements below
• Only used 1 teaspoon of sugar to balance out the flavor
• Garnished with shallots and air-fried garlic chips -- omitted usage of nuts given higher calorie content

For a detailed breakdown of each ingredients, their portioning, and how they make up the nutrition profile of this Vietnamese beef carpaccio, you may refer to the table below:

💡Tips and Tricks

What cut of meat is beef carpaccio?

Beef carpaccio is often made with fillet mignon or eye of round. These cuts are relatively less fatty so lends to the texture of the carpaccio better. Given that this dish is essentially served raw, it's important to opt for higher quality beef. In this recipe, I used the beef tenderloin slices for Snake River Farms, one of my favorite beef sources.

What sides can I eat with the Vietnamese beef carpaccio?

Vietnamese beef carpaccio is often served as an appetizer at restaurants, but given the calorie and nutrition profile for this recipe, you can easily eat it as is. Pair it with a side of garlic noodles or rice for a more well-balanced meal.

Is beef carpaccio safe to eat?

Vietnamese beef carpaccio is served raw and while there is always some risk with consuming raw foods, there are ways to mitigate the risks. I always choose high quality beef from a trusted vendor when making this dish (in this recipe I used Snake River Farms).

What brand of fish sauce should I use?

I personally love the Three Crabs Brand fish sauce. For more information about the different fish sauce brands, check out this article about the Top Ranked Fish Sauce brands.

How do I portion each ingredient accurately?

Here are some key tools I would recommend for portioning ingredients:

• A kitchen scale is an essential tool in meal prepping and portioning each ingredient as accurately as possible. Guesstimating is not recommended, as it more often than not will lead to inaccurate tracking of calories and/or macros. Therefore, you can very easily end up way more calories than you thought you did, or way less protein than you thought you did. Kitchen scales can easily be purchased via Amazon and are very inexpensive so it's definitely worth getting one -- this scale is a great budget-friendly option.
• Measuring spoons and cups are very useful for measuring out liquid ingredients. If you don't have these, you can always measure out the equivalent amount using a bowl on a kitchen scale and pour the ingredient(s) out until you reach the desired portion.

If you liked this recipe, check out the following:

• Soy Marinated Salmon recipe – Another great refreshing raw bar favorite made with salmon. 
• Bo Kho recipe – Another delicious healthy Vietnamese dish featuring beef
• Healthy Vietnamese Food – A collection of my favorite Vietnamese dishes made low-calorie and macro-friendly

📋 Ingredient Notes

Carpaccio Sauce

• ¼ cup Fish Sauce
• 1 teaspoon Sugar
• Juice from half a lime
• ½ cup Cilantro

Beef and Garnishes

• 4 oz Beef tenderloin slices
• Shallots (Diced)
• Air Fried Garlic chips (Optional)

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🔪 Step by Step Instructions

1. Gather all the marinade ingredients. Mince the cilantro into small pieces. A method I like to use for cutting larger quantities of cilantro for sauces and marinade is to roll the cilantro bunch into a ball and cutting through that. In a small bowl, mix together the cilantro, fish sauce, and the sugar. Squeeze in the lime juice. Taste the marinade and adjust by adding more sugar or lime juice to your liking.
2. Prepare the air-fried garlic chips if using. This consists of slicing the garlic into slices, spraying with cooking spray, and putting them in the air fryer for a few minutes at 380 degrees Fahrenheit. Check out this recipe for air-fryer garlic chips for more details.
3. Weigh 4 ounces of beef and begin arranging the beef slices on a plate.
4. Carefully pour the marinade over the beef slices so that each slice is soaked through with the marinade.
5. Slice the shallots into small slices. Top the beef with shallots and garlic chips.
6. Enjoy the delicious Vietnamese beef carpaccio!

🍳 Recipe