Chicken Chow Mein Recipe
My friends and family are always fascinated to know what kind of food Chris and I eat at home. Most people think we eat really posh Chinese food, like we have a large feast with peking duck, dumplings and so forth, but actually most of the time we eat fairly simple food and often a lot of junk.
While we both love eating Taiwanese and Chinese food, especially Chris, usually once a week we eat an amazing 14” pizza from Asda but the rest of the time we eat things like chow mein.
Listening to people while I’ve been living in the UK, a lot of people are really fascinated about chow mein and think it’s a really complicated dish, but for me it’s a simple, tasty and quite importantly, a cheap meal.
Chow mein in my country is like chicken and mushroom pie here. It’s just normal food. So, for my loyal readers, this is what we eat on a very regular basis. If it’s not this, it will be something equally simple like fried rice or Korean fast noodle. Sadly Taiwanese fast noodles, which are simply awesome, are very difficult (if not impossible) to buy here.
Chicken Chow Mein
Ingredients
Ingredients
- 1 medium Carrot
- 1 chicken breast
- 2 cloves garlic chop finely
- 1/2 Chili chop really finely
- 2 Spring Onions chop finely
- 1 thin slice ginger chop finely
- 1 pepper any colour, I used green
- 50 g Chinese white chive cut 2cm lengthways
- 150 g Chinese dried noodles available in any Chinese supermarket
Seasonings
- 1.5 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tsp Salt
- 1 tbsp sesame oil
- Couple pinches Black Pepper
Marinade for the chicken
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tsp Sugar
- 1/4 tsp Salt
- 1 pinch Black Pepper
- 1 tbsp Chinese rice wine
Instructions
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Cut the chicken breast into fine stripes and marinade for 30 minutes at least.
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Julienne the carrot and green pepper.
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Cook the Chinese dried noodle in a pot of boiling water until al dente and rinse under cold running water and drain again. Drizzle with a dash of sesame oil and toss through to prevent the noodles from sticking to each other.
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Heat a frying pan with some oil with full strength gas power to fry the chicken breast until the meat turned white colour and turn off the stove and leave it on a side. (At the time of writing this article I haven't found a good wok in the UK. I tried a Ken Hom wok but every time I try to stir fry of food with a bit of potato starch in it it always sticks to the wok really badly, effectively ruining the wok). These woks are completely useless.
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Heat a wok with 1 tablespoon of oil and stir fry chilli, spring onion, ginger and garlic first then add all the vegetable. Stir fry all the vegetables until it’s soften.
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Add noodle and chicken into wok and keep stir fry for a couple minutes then add all the seasonings for chow mein and give it a good stir fry for another couple minutes.
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Place it into a plate and serve.
I love chow mein and this looks really delicious! Too bad you can’t get your instant noodles.
Hello Roti,
I love chow mein too and it sucks that I can’t get Taiwanese instant noodles here so I always shake my ass and beg my mother to post me some from Taiwan ho ho ho ho ….
For bringing great recipes to me, check out your Sunshine Award, http://www.thelonelyradish.com.
Hello Sara,
Thank you for your nomination. I really appreciate this.
I love chow mein, it’s a favorite in my house. I have made it at home but usually just fry the chicken. I can’t wait to try your recipe so I can use your marinade too. Great post yet again 🙂
Hello Nancy,
Thank you for your comment.
A super delicious chow mein bowl!
Thank you very much!
This looks great and “doable” going to add this to our menu rotation !!!
Chow mein is really a tasty and easy dish. It also have a lot of vegetable in it so it’s healthy as well.
Looks great! Have you tried looking for woks online?
Hello Shirley,
Thank you for your comment.
I tried to find a wok online but just feel nothing is right I was thought I can trust Ken Hom’s wok (because a lot of people told me he is the best Chinese chef around) but the result is so disappointed.
Never actually knew how to make this, always ordered it out, but now I’m going to make takeout at home!
Hi Rick,
Thank you for your comment. I hope you can have a lot of chow mein at home in the future. lol
This looks delish! Thank you for sharing! I’ve been saving your recipes so I can try at some point. 🙂 I love chow mein but for some reason the recipe I have takes me a lot of effort so I don’t make it very often. I think I’ve been buying bad woks…my last one was from Ikea (b/c it was a steal) but I ruined it after only a few meals and threw it out. I haven’t bought another one, but I need to!
Hi Judy,
I hope my chow mein recipe can help you. You can use any vegetable and meat that you like or you have at home to create the chow mein you like. I have problem with my woks as well. They just seems like not last a very long time. I need to buy a new wok myself as well and I always remember my family always buy our family wok in the traditional market near by home and it’s very nice and cheap. I guess wok is just not a very western thing……..
This looks soooooo good.
Chicken chow mein is my sister’s favorite meal. I can’t wait to give this a try! Thanks for sharing!
Hi Monet, thanks for your comment. I hope you and your sister will enjoy this recipe.
I love to eat chow mein at home. There’s something about noodles I can’t resist.
I used to think it was so daunting to make it at home until my friend told me how easy it was. Mine still doesn’t turn out as well as it does in a Chinese restaurant but it least I can satisfy a craving when it hits. Thanks for the tip about tossing the noodles in sesame oil first. That will help me.
Hi Jean,
I think one of biggest problem of cooking chinese food at home is the most of the stove at home is not as strong as restaurant. That’s why you think the home made chow mein is not as good as restaurant made but if you add the ingredients in the right order and I think your chow mein will be as tasty as restaurant made. I hope you will enjoy my recipe and have fun to cook it in your home.