Chicken chow mein is probably already one of your favorite Chinese takeout dishes. This one-pan dinner is so satisfying with chicken, vegetables, classic chow mein noodles, and the best homemade chow mein sauce. Also, it’s way healthier than ordering takeout.
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I can’t wait to share this recipe for chicken chow mein with you because it hits all the marks!
Chicken Chow Mein
Chow mein is a traditional Chinese dish made with egg noodles and stir-fried veggies. We love adding a protein and our favorite is chicken, but you can try different meat or tofu. This dish is pan-fried so the noodles get a nice crisp to them and then tossed in a yummy sauce. Chow mein is perfect for those nights when you don’t want to dirty too many pans or make a big mess of the kitchen.
Chow mein gets its signature flavor from the thick, dark homemade sauce the noodles are tossed with. It’s the perfect balance of sweet and salty and makes putting down your chopsticks absolutely impossible.
Ingredients for Chow Mein:
- Chow Mein Noodles: Chow mein noodles are made with wheat and egg. They are very similar to Italian pasta noodles and have a wonderful bite to them. Most grocery stores carry dry chow mein noodles in the Asian aisle. But, if you are lucky, you will find pre-cooked chow mein noodles in the refrigerated section that can be thrown straight into your pan.
- Vegetables: Carrots, cabbage, green onions, and bean sprouts are the perfect combination of veggies to use for chow mein. However, they can easily be replaced with other veggies like bok choy, celery, broccoli, spinach, kale or baby corn. Feel free to get creative and use what you like or whatever you have hanging around in your fridge!
- Meats: Great quality chicken breasts are your best bet for slicing into chow mein-ready strips. If you like, feel free to swap chicken out for beef, shrimp or pork.
- Hot tip: Hosting vegetarians also? Use vegetable broth and set some of your noodles aside to toss them with cubes of baked tofu.
The BEST Chow Mein Sauce:
The homemade chow mein sauce is amazing in this recipe! Combine soy sauce, light sesame oil, oyster sauce, granulated sugar, cornstarch, and chicken broth to make the signature sweet and savory sauce that makes chow mein taste authentic.
How to Make Chow Mein:
- In a small mixing bowl, combine ingredients for chow mein sauce: oyster sauce, sesame oil, soy sauce, chicken broth, and cornstarch. Set aside.
- Cook noodles according to package instructions, set aside.
- Heat a large wok or pan. Add a bit of oil to the pan and cook chicken until it’s golden brown. Remove chicken and set aside.
- Add carrots, cabbage and pressed garlic and saute for a few minutes until veggies are slightly softened.
- Add chicken back to the pan, followed by cooked noodles and pour the sauce right on top. Cook for about 2 minutes, distributing all that saucy goodness around evenly.
- Add chopped green onions and remove from the heat. Serve hot!
We love recreating popular takeout recipes. Noodles are king in Chinese cooking! This Homemade Chow Mein Recipe is simple to make and oh-so-satisfying, these stir-fried noodles are sure to become a part of your weeknight dinner rotation.
More Quick Asian Recipes
- Chicken Stir Fry with Rice Noodles – Make this amazing dinner in just 30 minutes!
- Chicken Stir Fry– so much better than takeout.
- Beef Stir Fry Recipe with 3 Ingredient Sauce– So Easy- perfect weeknight dinner.
- Korean Stir-Fried Glass Noodles a.k.a Japchae– You will be going for seconds!
- Yakisoba Noodles Recipe– A Classic Yakisoba, made in one pan
Chicken Chow Mein with the Best Chow Mein Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 lb chicken breast, boneless, skinless
- 3 Tbsp oil
- 12 oz chow mein noodles, (uncooked noodles)
- 2 cups cabbage
- 1 large carrot, julienned
- 1/2 batch green onions
- 2 garlic cloves
Chow Mein Sauce
- 4 Tbsp oyster sauce, or added to taste*
- 3 Tbsp low sodium soy sauce
- 3 Tbsp light sesame oil, (not toasted)
- 1/2 cup chicken broth
- 1 Tbsp corn starch
- 1 Tbsp granulated sugar
Instructions
- In a small mixing bowl, use a whisk to combine oyster sauce, granulated sugar, sesame oil, soy sauce, chicken broth and cornstarch. Set aside.
- Cook your noodles according to package instructions then drain, rinse with cold water and set aside.
- Heat a large wok or pan with olive oil over medium-heat. Cut your chicken breasts into bite-sized strips and cook them in the oil until golden brown. Remove strips and set aside.
- Add carrots, cabbage and pressed garlic and saute for a few minutes until veggies are slightly softened and the cabbage is a bit translucent.
- Add chicken and noodles back into the pan. Pour sauce over the top and continue cooking all the ingredients together for another 2 minutes.
- Garnish your chow mein with chopped green onions and serve the noodles straight from the pan and piping hot!
Notes
*Oyster sauce can vary in salt content and if you use regular soy sauce rather than reduced, you will want to adjust the oyster sauce to taste.
Nutrition Per Serving
Filed Under
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Hi! I’m Natasha Kravchuk, a New York Times bestselling cookbook author, recipe developer, food photographer, and writer. Here you’ll find delicious, reliable recipes made with simple ingredients, plus easy step-by-step photos and videos to help you cook confidently at home. 
The absolutely best chicken chow mein recipe ever! My family and loved it and will make it again! I can’t wait to try your other recipes! Great job and many thanks! ❤️
Love it! Thanks for your wonderful review, Brenda.
Made this tonight, I loved it. However I made too much. Will it freeze ok? Also I blanched too many noodles. Can they be frozen?
Hi Pauline, I haven’t tried freezing this for a long period of time, please let us know how it goes if you try it!
Made this tonight and it my husband loved it. I added broccoli and red, yellow and orange peppers to the carrots and the sauce was lovely and there were no leftovers.
I’m so glad you both enjoyed it, Jackie! Thank you so much for sharing that with me.
Excellent. I love this recipe, it’s the basic good chow mein. Easy to follow too. Added bok choy and just a few pieces of broccoli. Sooo good.
I’m so glad you enjoyed it, Nicola!
This looks amazing. What kind of meat can I make on the side with this dish? My family are big on more than one dish on their plate lol.
Alicia, I recommend pairing with these delicious Asian recipes HERE. In that link, you’ll find Kung Pao Chicken, General Tso’s, etc. I hope that helps!
Can you use low mein noodles instead of chow mein noodles Or is there no differenc?
Hi Frank, I haven’t tried this with low mein, but I think it could work well to add cooked low mein noodles in step 5 instead of chow mein.
I’m going to make this tonight, and use ramen noodles without flavor packets…easy, peasy; just add them in with the sauce ingred.
I suggest holding out the sesame oil until the end, then add only one tblspn near the end of cooking.
Thank you so much for sharing that with us, Patricia!
I have never tasted Chow Mein this good! Love love loved it!! The noodles and oyster sauce were a little hard to find but worth the trouble!! Thanks for this great recipe👍
You’re welcome, Jenny! It sounds like you have a new favorite, Jenny!
My family all loved this–Even my son who hardly ever eats anything we all eat–. Can you make this over rice noodles?
Thank you for sharing, Lynn. Hi Pam, rice noodles won’t’ work the same way and may soak up too much of the sauce. The preparation of the noodles is also very different. Here is another great recipe for Chicken stir fry with rice noodles you might enjoy.
Absolutely incredible! I’ve made it twice now and it’s been a hit with the family each time. And I use the left over cabbage, celery and carrot to make an sweet chili coleslaw to compliment. Thanks so much!
That’s nice! I’m happy to know that you enjoyed it, Ethan. Thanks for your great review!
Hi. I was wondering if this would be okay made the day before and reheated for my girls card group the next day? Or does it need to be fresh?
Hi KC, we always enjoy this fresh; we found it’s best that way. But if I were to reheat, one of our readers tried is saying this: ” I put in an oven proof dish added some chicken broth to keep moist. Heated in the oven for twenty-five minutes at 350. Just as good as if freshly made.” I hope this helps.
Very good recipe overall. I recommend to add a bit of black pepper and salt when you fry the chicken and about a teaspoon of fresh ground ginger to the vegetables along with some fresh beansprouts.
Thank you for your good comments and recommendation! We appreciate it.
The sauce was very easy to make and was absolutely delicious! The family loved it. I’ve made chow mein a few times but always with store bought sauce…never again. I will be using this sauce all the time. Thank you!
That’s so great! It sounds like you have a new favorite!
Great recipe – very easy to assemble – couldn’t find oyster sauce so used same amount of fish sauce and used thin spaghetti instead of chow mein noodles and it came out great – going to experiment with adding bok choy, napa cabbage, spinach, celery, and onion in the future –
I’m happy you enjoyed that! Thank you for your wonderful review!
Sooo yummy! I made for friends and they thought it was takeout! Definitely a keeper…Thank you!
(that sauce is to die for)
Glad you loved it, Anne. Thank you so much for your wonderful review!
I made this recipe yesterday. It was delicious, better than takeout. I had all the ingredients at home, so I followed the recipe as it was. It tasted very authentic.
Hi Louise, that’s great to hear! Thank you so much for sharing that with us, we appreciate your good feedback.
Hi, Another great recipe, so tasty and quick and easy to make. Will be making this again for sure
I’m glad you enjoyed this recipe, Mark. Thank you for sharing!
Made this several times, such a good recipe. My whole family loves it! It also prints perfectly 🙂
Love it, Kimi! I’m happy that you have this recipe as one of your favorites and that your family likes it too.
Complete BS, that I jump to recipe to print out, and get 30 pages of useless rhetoric. This makes me never wanting to pull any of your recipes again. Thank you for the ink I wasted.
Did you click on PRINT before actually printing it out? I just tried it for myself and it worked just fine, I was able to save 2 pages of the recipe. Make sure to click PRINT after Jump to recipe, then save as PDF.
When you click “print”, it all comes out on one page and no ads. And I’m not computer saavy.
Amazing recipe and so easy to make! We loved it so much that I made twice in one week, just replaced chicken with shrimp the second time for some variety 😜
Wow, looks like you found a new favorite! Thank you for your great review and feedback, Oxana.
I made this yesterday .
Very delicious . Loved the sauce .
I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
This chow-mein sauce was amazing.
To make the recipe even easier, I used pre-bagged broccoli coleslaw (broccoli, cabbage, carrots) as the vegetables, and the pre-steamed noodles from the produce section. Healthy home-cooked meal in ~15 mins.
10/10 recipe.
I’m so glad you loved it! Thank you for the tips and wonderful review!