Mee Rebus | Malay Sweet Potato Curry Noodles | noodles in sweet potato gravy

How to make Mee Rebus, a hawker centre staple of Malay noodles in a delicious, sweet potato gravy.

Mee Rebus, which literally translates to “boiled noodles” in Malay, is a beloved noodle dish in Southeast Asia. It has a rich and savoury broth that is made from a blend of spices, herbs, and sauces. This is a Malay dish of blanched yellow noodles topped with a lusciously thick, yummy sweet potato gravy. This is a hawker centre staple in Singapore and Malaysia, and eaten typically for breakfast and lunch.

The dish is typically served with yellow egg noodles, boiled potatoes, bean sprouts, tofu, hard-boiled eggs, and garnished with chopped scallions or cilantro.

Why you will LOVE Mee Rebus?

1. That GRAVY: Mee Rebus is known for its thick and flavourful gravy, which is made by combining a variety of spices and herbs. The broth is usually made with a base of boiled sweet potatoes and is then flavoured with ingredients like lemongrass, galangal, and tamarind.
2. Uniquely delicious: I don’t know any other dishes that tastes quite like this! The combination of sweet potato, umami salted soybeans and curry is MAGICAL.
3. HEARTY: Tender noodles in a sweet potato gravy… this one hits the spot each time!

Key Components for Mee Rebus

There are four key components to the perfect bowl of Mee Rebus:

Noodles:

• Yellow noodles (also called egg noodles or wheat noodles): Fresh yellow noodles are typically used. It’s a thick, wheat noodle that can grab at the thick gravy well. Feel free to use your noodles of choice; personally I’ve used this pastas for Mee Rebus and it works great!

Sweet Potato Gravy:

• Sweet potato or potato, boiled and mashed to create the gravy
• Beef Stock: Water or chicken stock works as well

Gravy Spice Paste:

• Shallots or Onions
• Garlic
• Ginger
• Salted Soybeans or Taucheo
• Dried Chilli Paste (optional): This adds richness and a hint of spice to the dish.
• Dried Shrimps
• Meat Curry Powder
• Water

Toppings:

• Vegetables: Traditionally taugeh or beansprouts are used, but I used bok choy in this recipe. Generally you want to use lighter vegetables such as leafy vegetables for Mee Rebus. Blanch the taugeh, bok choy or your vegetable of choice, and set to one side.
• Garnishes such as fried tofu, boiled eggs, lime, green chillies, spring onions and fried shallots

Key Ingredients to make the BEST Mee Rebus Gravy

Sweet Potatoes

I used a mixture of orange and purple sweet potatoes with this, so the colour is darker than usual. It still tastes the same. I’ve also made this with regular potatoes too, and it was equally delicious, albeit tastes very slightly different. Sometimes I would do a combination of potatoes and sweet potatoes.

I steamed my potatoes, but you can boil it too.

Can I use other starches?

YES! I have tried to make this with pumpkin and it turned out so delicious. It was not as thick as when potatoes were used, so I would add lesser stock.

Meat Curry Powder

Any store-bought meat curry powder will work, I would suggest using a blend for beef or lamb for best results, but I have used a chicken curry powder with equally delicious results.

I use Baba Meat Curry Powder.

Beef Stock

My cheat ingredient: I used stock from bouillon cubes. You can also use chicken stock or vegetable stock. In a pinch, water works too – but it is far less tasty.

Most hawker centre stalls would use bouillon cubes as well; Mee Rebus is sold very affordably! It would not be practical to use homemade stock.

OF COURSE, if you want to go the healthier (and luxurious) route, you can make and use beef stock! As a bonus, your gravy will have delicious chunks of beef.

It’s easy as well: cut beef into chunks (chuck will work fine) and boil in water until fully tender and stock is well-infused. This might take 1-2 hours for full infusion.

Alternatively, use a pressure cooker! This is also my preferred method. Pressure cook for 30 minutes and beef stock and beef is ready.

Taucheo or Salted Fermented Soybeans

Taucheo is Salted Fermented Soybeans, usually sold in supermarkets in Singapore/Malaysia/Thailand/Indonesia in glass jars. It’s salty, and gives the dish a uniquely umami depth of flavour.

In a pinch you can try these alternatives: Miso paste, non-spicy Doubanjiang, or Korean Doenjang paste.

I personally have not tried with any of this ingredients, if you do please let me know, super curious!

Key Steps to Making Mee Rebus

1. Cook the Sweet Potatoes

The first step is to cook the sweet potatoes until they soften. To do this, you can either boil or steam the potatoes. I prefer to steam the potatoes, since it would retain all the nutrients that otherwise might have been lost from boiling.

TIP: chop the sweet potatoes up into smaller chunks so it cooks quicker.

Once sweet potatoes cook, mash it and keep to one side.

2. Blend the Spice Paste

While potatoes are cooking, make the spice paste. Throw the ingredients in a blender and blend!

3. Make the Gravy

Add oil to a pot, and heat over low to medium heat. Once hot, add the spice paste, along with a bruised lemongrass (see post on how to bruise lemongrass here). Stir fry until fragrant, and paste dries out slightly.

Add stock next and allow to boil before adding the mashed potatoes.

Let it stew until it reduces to desired consistency. Season with salt and sugar, and the gravy is done!

4. Blanch Noodles and Vegetables

If you have a noodle sieve strainer, you can cook your noodles and vegetables at the same time! I don’t, so I like to blanch my vegetables first and keep that to one side. Using the same post of boiling water, I blanch my noodles next.

5. Add Toppings and Serve!

Prepare your toppings – I recommend serving them in small bowls so that everyone can customise their own bowl!

Add noodles to a bowl, top with the gravy and add toppings of choice.

Can I make this Mee Rebus Vegetarian or Vegan?

This recipe is not vegetarian nor vegan, but it could very well easily be!

I’ve made so many versions of it that is vegan! Swop out the beef stock for vegetable stock, or even with just water. Omit the dried shrimps and the boiled eggs, and you won’t miss much, I promise. The bulk of the flavour comes from the sweet potatoes, taucheo and the meat curry powder (which has no meat ingredient).

More Recipes Like This

• Mee Siam
• Mee Soto
• Seafood Mee Goreng

Mee Rebus

Recipe by Sha

5.0 from 1 vote

Course: Uncategorized

Servings

2-3

servings

Prep time

30

minutes

Cooking time

30

minutes

Ingredients

• Mee Rebus Gravy

• 500 grams Sweet Potato, boiled and mashed

• 1 litre Beef Stock, from bouillon cube

• 1 Lemongrass, bruised

• Salt and Sugar to taste

• Gravy Base Paste, to blend:

• 3 -4 Shallots or half an Onion

• 2 Cloves Garlic

• 1 tbsp or 1/2 inch Ginger

• 1 tbsp Tau Cheo or Fermented Salted Soybeans*

• 1 tbsp Meat Curry Powder

• 1 tbsp Dried Chilli Paste (optional, omit for a non-spicy version)

• 1 tbsp Dried Shrimps, soaked in warm water

• 1/4 cup Water to ease the blending process

• Served with:

• 400 g Yellow Noodles, blanched

• Taugeh (beansprouts) or vegetables of choice, blanched

• Eggs, boiled

• Tofu Puffs or Fried Firm Tofus

• Green Chillies, Spring Onions, Fried Onions, Lime

Directions

• Prepare the Sweet Potatoes
• Peel and cut sweet potatoes to even cubes.
• Steam or boil the sweet potatoes until fork-tender soft, about 15 to 20 minutes
• While still warm, mash to a paste with a potato masher or fork.
• Prepare the Base Paste
• Add onions, garlic, ginger, tau cheo, curry powder, dried chilli paste, dried shrimps and soaking liquid to a blender. Blend to a smooth paste. Gradually add water, as needed, if the paste is not blending smoothly.
  Note: Do this while the potatoes cook for efficiency.
• Make the Mee Rebus Gravy
• In a pot, add oil and place over low to medium heat. Once hot, add in gravy paste and bruised lemongrass.
• Saute the paste continuously, until fragrant or until the liquid has dried slightly and turned deeper in shade. The oil should also have split from the paste.
• Stir in stock or water and let it come up to a boil.
• Once boiling, add mashed sweet potatoes. Stir through. Mash with potato masher if there are still chunky bits.
• Let the gravy stew until it reduces and thickens to desired consistency, about 5 to 10 minutes. The longer it stews, the thicker it becomes.
• Once it has reduced, season with salt and sugar. Give the gravy a test taste, and season as needed. Turn off the heat.
• Prepare the Noodles and Toppings
• In a separate pot, boil water. Blanch taugeh for 30 seconds and set to one aside. If using other vegetable of choice, blanch to preference.
• Blanch fresh yellow noodles for 1-2 minutes, and set aside. If using other noodles of choice, cook according to package instructions.
• Boil eggs. Peel and set aside to serve.
• Assemble, serve & enjoy!
• Add noodles to a bowl, top with the gravy, boiled eggs, tofu and blanched vegetables. Garnish with spring onions, calamansi lime and sliced green chillies (or serve these on the side). Enjoy!

Notes

• In a pinch you can try Miso paste, non-spicy Doubanjiang, or Korean Doenjang paste.

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