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.Â
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.Â
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!Â
- 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.Â
- Hot tip: Hosting vegetarians also? Use vegetable broth and set some of your noodles aside to toss them with cubes of baked tofu.Â
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.Â
- Cook noodles according to package instructions, set aside.Â
- 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.Â
- 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.Â
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
- 6 tbsp oyster sauce
- 3 tbsp low sodium soy sauce
- 3 tbsp light sesame oil, (not toasted)
- 1/2 cup chicken broth
- 1 tbsp cornstarch
- 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
Nutrition Per Serving
Filed Under
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Hi! I'm Natasha Kravchuk. Here you'll find delicious, trusted recipes with easy step-by-step photos and videos. 
Can hoisin sauce be subbed for oyster sauce? Tell Teresa to use coconut aminos in lieu of high sodium soy sauce!!
Hello! Yes you can use hoisin sauce but take note that it’s sweeter and less salty and it has a more distinct flavor. It’s also thickier so it might affect the texture a bit. Let us know how it goes!
In response to Theresa and high sodium. I used homemade stock with no salt and my chow mein got the blessings of the entire family! It was almost perfect. Next time I probably won’t use so many noodles. Delicious all the same following recipe provided! It’s a keeper 🙂
Omg sauce is good,followed receipt to the tee,but way too high in sodium,not good for health .I do alot of your recipes and thoroughly enjoy them but for anyone with high blood pressure this is way too much
Hi Teresa! I’m glad you enjoy the recipes! You can use low sodium alternatives as needed if they are available or adjust the saltiness to your preference.
Excellent and easy!! I did add some marinade to the chicken as well some cornstarch. Added garlic and yellow onion to the veggies. Tasted as good as a restaurant!
My family is very picky, but we all loved this. I used chicken, carrots, cabbage, broccoli and green onions. Making it today again to celebrate the Chinese New Year! I will add water chestnuts if I can find some.
Oh dear heavenly plate of goodness… I’m in Scotland in the UK 🇬🇧 and takeaways here are amazing but not for the health conscious… this blew any chowmein iv ever had clean out the water… it was outstanding…
I used cabbage broccoli carrot sprouts and mushrooms … this is my new fav dish to make
I love how you started your review. It made me smile big.
That’s so great! It sounds like you have a new favorite, Gillian!
I dunno – this was lacking in some ooomph, flavourwise … It left us a little underwhelmed.
Loved the recipe. The only thing i would do differently is cook the veggies a little longer they were a little crunchy. I used carrots, celery, snap peas, broccoli slaw and bean sprouts. The carrots and snap peas were a little crunchy. Loved it though. So good to have chinese food that you know what’s in it.
Veggies I used were cabbage, carrots, red bell pepper, onion & garlic. Took a little longer for veggies to soften, but then, I don’t cook on very high heat. I could probably even leave the sugar out of the sauce as it was plenty sweet and didn’t use oyster sauce (didn’t have any). But the best part was I used a pack of my new Momofoku noodles and it sent it over the top Thanks for a divine recipe and made my Saturday evening perfectly. Most of the snow here in panhandle Florida has finally almost all melted, so this was a perfect ending to my day 🙂
Hi Wanda! I’m glad you were able to enjoy this meal. Thank you for the feedback.
Just finished dinner. I try to stick with recipes as published, at least the first time, however sometimes substitutes are needed. In this, Hoisin for the Oyster, we have none and my wife would not touch it if we did. Out of carrots, could have sworn I saw them before going to the market, but I did have the baby corn and had bean sprouts which I usually have in chow mein. So in they went, not a bad trade for the carrots.
Chow mein in my experience has the crispy noodles, so we had those.
None of my swaps changed the recipe much, the taste should have been pretty close to what was intended.
Awesome! and since it is just the 2 of us, we have lunch tomorrow.
Thank you for sharing your experience with the recipe, Bill!
Good flavor but it ended up goopy, that’s always the tricky part. Either to much sauce, or maybe different noodles, I used fresh type chow mein noodle.
Hi Jaybo! I’m sorry about that noodles. I’ve never had that experience. I wonder if it was the type/brand or if they were over cooked.
The texture improved after sitting in the fridge overnight. I think the noodles were undercooked, maybe the cornstarch needed time to blend in. I will try again.
This recipe turned out awesome. I made it exactly as listed and EVERYONE LOVED IT! Saving it for later.
Can you change out the oyster for hoisin sauce? Would that mess up the sugar measurement?
It might affect the flavor profile of the recipe as hoisin sauce is sweeter. If you want to give it a try, you can reduce the sugar in the recipe and add as you prefer.
Yes you can. I used a 1.1 ratio. It turned out great. Just don’t add the sugar. It will make it too sweet.
Thank you so much for sharing that with us, Jose!
I left the sugar in, didn’t feel it left too sweet, but will try without next time.
Loved how easy this recipe was and all my favorite veggies, but sauce was way to salty for me , followed exactly will try again just cut back on some ingredients.
Best chowmein sauce ever! This recipe was quick, easy and delicious.
I have made this so many times, I always double the sauce as we like it saucy, and I change up the veggies like broccoli, peppers, carrots and mushrooms. Sometimes I use Shanghai noodles instead. My daughter bought me your cookbook for Christmas last year and I use it all the time 😊
Can you make this without the chicken or will it mess up the measurements? Thanks!
We have always used and loved this recipe with chicken. But also, this is a very versatile recipe so feel free to try it without chicken or even substitute with tofu or other ingredients that you like.
I have made this recipe and we really love it right after it is cooked. However, leftovers on the following day have an off taste. Could it be that I used the toasted sesame oil? I see that you do not recommend using it.
There could be several reasons, it could be because of oxidatiom of ingredients, overcooking of reheating or not storing the leftovers properly. After cooking, allow the chow mein to cool at room temperature for no more than 2 hours before refrigerating. Store leftovers in an airtight container to prevent them from absorbing fridge odors.
Thank you so much for your advice Natasha. I have also ordered virgin light sesame oil to see if that helps too.
I made this and replaced the chicken with tofu and substituted vegi broth.it was DELICIOUS!! Everyone loved it and agreed it is better than take out. Thanks Natasha. Your recipes are always easy to understand.
Hi Valerie! Thanks so much for sharing your experience with us.