This post may contain affiliate links.
This delicious Chicken Chow Mein recipe is super quick and easy – a dream of a family friendly one pot stir fry. Rustle it up in about 20 minutes and you’ve got a nutritious fakeaway noodle dinner with those scrumptious Chinese-inspired flavours.
Welcome to another favourite takeaway one pot dinner, made at home – Chinese Style Chicken Chow Mein.
Technically we need a couple of extra bowls in the mix when preparing this easy Chicken Chow Mein recipe (one for mixing the sauce and one for soaking the noodles), but it’s still definitely a one pot meal as it all gets cooked in just one pan.
It’s also unbelievably easy to make and delicious.
Why you’ll love this Chicken Chow Mein recipe
⭐️ Better than a takeaway – healthier, cheaper, quicker
⭐️ Super speedy and simple store cupboard ingredients
⭐️ A one pot midweek saviour!
About Chicken Chow Mein
The origins of a traditional centuries-old Chow Mein dish come from China, where it was a ‘chaomian’.
It’s a dish that includes stir fried noodles, vegetables and usually meat, with chicken being the most common.
The dish travelled across to America with Chinese settlers, where it became the dish we know well today (‘chow’ meaning stir-fried and ‘mein’ meaning noodles), although food historians have noted that the flavours and style of the dish does vary around the United States these days.
This version of the recipe is very simplified, but if you fancy trying out a more authentic Cantonese Chow Mein, take a look at this recipe from the blog Made with Lau.
How we came up with this version:
In the first version of this recipe we tried prepped all of the veggies from scratch, but after the next test with the shop-bought prepped ingredients (we used the one from Aldi), we weren’t looking back.
It does have sweetcorn kernels in it, which wouldn’t be my first choice for the recipe, but for us it was worth it for the time saved on lots of chopping.
Of course, if you’d prefer to prepare your own veg for this recipe, go ahead (see instructions below).
We also tested with less soy and oyster sauce, as this sauce can be quite salty, BUT in the end we opted for more as it gives that classic takeaway colour and tang.
Pre-order my brand new ONE POT book and get it in your kitchen on the day it is released! 📚 Amazon 🇬🇧
Chicken Chow Mein Ingredients
For the sauce:
- Cornflour
- Soft dark brown sugar
- Garlic – this can be fresh or from a jar
- Dark soy sauce
- Oyster sauce
- Chicken stock
For the stir fry:
- Sunflower oil
- Chicken breast
- Chinese 5 spice
- Stir fry veg bag – Or separately prepared veg (see below)
- Dry noodles
How to make Chicken Chow Mein
1. Mix the sauce ingredients together in a bowl and set aside. Place the noodles in a bowl with boiling water to soak.
2. Fry the chicken in hot oil and 5 spice as per the recipe below.
3. Add in the vegetables until softened.
4. Stir in the sauce and coat the ingredients before adding your noodles in.
Substitutions
- Vegetarian: You can replace the chicken with a protein alternative if you want to make it a veggie dish. Also swap the stock to vegetable.
- Stir fry veg: You can choose a bag of whatever you’d prefer in it. Some supermarkets offer a choice. Anything that stir fries in about 5-10 minutes is ideal.
Leftovers
In the fridge You can keep this recipe in the fridge for 3 days. Reheat fully by before serving. It may need an extra splash of water to loosen the sauce up first.
In the freezer This is at its best when eaten fresh, but if you do want to freeze it, you can. Just wait until it’s totally cold and then put into a freezer proof container and freeze for up to 3 months. Defrost thoroughly before reheating.
Top tip
Prepping your own vegetables
If you can’t get a bag of stir fry veg, replace it with:
- 1 medium carrot, sliced into batons
- 1 red pepper, sliced
- 1 green pepper, sliced
- 1/2 cabbage, shredded
- 150g bean sprouts
FAQs
Yes, you can. Make sure you use gluten free noodles, a tamari-style of gluten free soy sauce and gluten free oyster sauce.
Yes! This is the nature of this type of soy sauce-based dishes. You can, of course, use reduced sodium sauce.
For this recipe, it’s a simple concoction of soft dark brown sugar, garlic, dark soy sauce, oyster sauce and stock, all thickened with cornflour.
These are all ingredients I always have in, so it’s an easy and inexpensive meal if you’re the same.
I use the dried egg noodles that take just a few minutes to soften in boiling water before adding them into the pan to mix with everything else.
You can also use straight to wok noodles if you prefer.
You could either use a wok if you have one that’s big enough, or any kind of decent saute pan.
I recently tasked myself with trying out a variety of one-pan pans in a quest to find out which ones were up to the important job of making an all-in-one meal. Read my pan review here. I hope it helps!
Yes! Try out my Sticky Beef Noodles, Slow Cooker Chicken Noodles with Curry Sauce, my Honey Garlic Beef Noodles (also a slow cooker recipe), my Peanut Butter with Halloumi Noodles or my 15-minute Gyoza Noodle Soup.
Let me know how you got on and what you thought of these recipes. Please rate the recipe using the ⭐️ below.
Also I’d LOVE to see your cooking creations. If you’d like to share yours with me, you can tag me on Instagram (@tamingtwins).
Easy Chicken Chow Mein {One Pot}
Ingredients
For the sauce:
- 2 tbsp Cornflour
- 1 tbsp Soft dark brown sugar
- 2 Cloves Garlic, Crushed
- 4 tbsp Dark soy sauce
- 4 tbsp Oyster sauce
- 300 ml Chicken stock
For the stir fry:
- 1 tbsp Sunflower oil
- 650 g Chicken breast (approx x4), Cut into strips
- 2 tsp Chinese 5 spice
- 600 g Stir fry veg bag
- 250 g Dry noodles
- 4 Spring onions, Finely chopped (optional)
Instructions
- Put the cornflour in a small bowl, add the sugar, garlic, and enough soy sauce to mix a smooth paste. Add the remaining soy sauce, oyster sauce and chicken stock. Whisk until smooth and set aside.
- Place noodles in a separate bowl. Pour boiling water straight from the kettle over the noodles, pop a plate over the top and leave to soak while you cook the stir fry.
- Heat the oil in a large frying pan or wok and add the chicken with the 5 spice. Stir fry for 6-7 minutes until the chicken is almost cooked.
- Stir the noodles with a fork to make sure they are softening evenly.
- Add the vegetable mix to the chicken and stir for a further 4-5 minutes until softened a little.
- When the noodles are just cooked, drain.
- Add the sauce to the chicken and vegetables and cook for 3-4 minutes until thickened and coating the ingredients.
- Add the drained noodles and toss to coat everything well. Garnish with the spring onions if using.
Notes
- 1 medium carrot, sliced into batons
- 1 red pepper, sliced
- 1 green pepper, sliced
- 1/2 cabbage, shredded
- 150g bean sprouts
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
LOVE this recipe! And seems a lot healthier than the takeaway version. First time using 5 spice and the smell is beautiful. Took me quite a bit longer time-wise to make (possibly as I didn’t use a ready made stir fry veg pack) but the end result was amazing
Literally just made and eaten this and, if there was any left, I’d be going back for seconds. Unfortunately, my family have demolished it. Quick and easy to make and absolutely delicious!!@