Tender pieces of chicken, stir-fried with crunchy vegetables, lots of noodles and a generous coating of my simple and delicious stir-fry sauce.
You can swap out the veggies for any quick-cooking veggies you have, so this is a versatile recipe to clear out your fridge.
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One of the things I love about stir-fries like this is that you barely need to cook the vegetables. This means they not only stay sweet and crunchy, but they are also super quick to cook and they retain their beautiful vibrant colour.
Also, the children will eat all the vegetables in the stir-fry. I think it’s that crunchy element.
If I served them steamed/boiled carrots, they would begrudgingly eat them, but a quick sauteed carrot? no problem.
📋 What do we need?
📺 Watch how it is prepared
Full recipe with detailed steps on the recipe card at the end of this post.
👩🍳Professional tip If you want to make this recipe simpler, you can also use ready-made noodles, but you may need to run them under hot water first to separate them.
No complicated or store bought sauces are needed for this recipe. This Lo Mein gets its flavor from garlic, oyster sauce, soy sauce, aniseed cacao and white pepper. There is enough of the sauce to coat the noodles, chicken and vegetables, without a pool of sauce at the bottom, making everything mushy.
🍽️ with what to serve
This recipe is a meal in itself, no toppings needed, but if you like a drizzle of extra sauce, why not try one of these:
🍲 More fantastic stir-fry recipes
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Chicken lo mein
Quick and easy to prepare, this chicken lo mein is loaded with vegetables and tastes great.
Instructions
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Cook the noodles in a pan of boiling water for 3-4 minutes (until they are just ready). Drain and rinse in cold water to prevent them from sticking and put to one side.
200 grams of dried egg noodles
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Meanwhile, heat the oil in a wok. Add the chicken and cook for 5-6 minutes until it is ready.
3 tablespoons of oil, 3 chicken breasts
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Add the sliced onion and fry for another 2 minutes to soften slightly.
1 onion
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Add the garlic, carrot, red pepper, sugar snap peas and spring onion (green onion). Stir and cook for a minute.
2 garlic cloves, 1 large carrot, 1 large red pepper, 20 sugar snap peas (snow), 10 spring onions (green onions)
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Add in the noodles, oyster sauce, soy sauce, cap manis and white pepper. Fry on high heat, mix everything together until heated – about 3-4 minutes.
4 tablespoons of oyster sauce, 2 tablespoons of soy sauce, 2 tablespoons of aniseed cacao, ¼ teaspoon white pepper
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Serve topped with chopped spring onion (green onion), sesame and chili flakes.
2 spring onions (green onions), 1 teaspoon sesame, ¼ teaspoon chili flakes
✎ Notes
I like to use fine egg noodles for this recipe, but you can use medium noodles, whole wheat noodles, rice noodles. Even cooked spaghetti and tagliatelle work well (it sounds weird to use pasta in a Chinese recipe, but it absorbs the flavors really well).
You can also use ready-made noodles, but you may need to run them under hot water first to separate them.
Cacap from anise
Kecap Manis is a thicker (syrup-like), sweeter Indonesian soy sauce. You can find it in most major supermarkets and Asian stores. It makes a great addition to stir-fries, or as a dipping sauce, so it’s worth using it as an ingredient in the store cupboard.
If you don’t want to buy it, you can replace by adding 1+½ tablespoons of soy sauce and a tablespoon of light brown sugar. It’s not quite the same, but will still taste good.
White pepper
I use white pepper in this dish and not black pepper. White pepper is often used in Chinese cooking and has a very different flavor than black pepper. White pepper is hotter, spicier and has a slightly smoky taste.
vegetarian
Leave the chicken out, or replace with tofu, mushrooms or pieces of koran.
Gluten free
It’s a bit difficult to make this recipe gluten-free, as the noodles and most of the sauce ingredients contain gluten.
You can:
- Replace the egg noodles with rice noodles
- Replace the soy sauce with tamari
- Use gluten-free oyster sauce (Lee Kum Kee do a version)
- Remove the Kecap Manis (I haven’t seen a gluten-free version of this) and replace with 1+½ tbsp tamari and 1 tbsp light brown sugar.
.forward
I don’t recommend making this recipe ahead of time to reheat and eat later, as the noodles will dry out and the vegetables will lose their coagulation. However… I think this Lo Mein tastes great cold the next day for lunch. Add some salad leaves to a noodle salad for an easy meal.
After cooking, cool quickly, then cover and refrigerate. Serve straight from the fridge the next day.
.Nutritional information is per serving.
diet
Calories: 552KKLCarbohydrates: 52Gprotein: 46GFat: 17GSaturated fat: 9GCholesterol: 150mgsodium: 1302mgpotassium: 1053mgfiber: 4GSugar: 8Gvitamin: 4055IUVitamin C: 57.7mgcalcium: 82mgiron: 2.9mg
This recipe was first published in February 2019. Updated in May 2023 with new photos, a video and some housekeeping.
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