Easy Chow Mein Recipe - WonkyWonderful (2024)

FAQs

Easy Chow Mein Recipe - WonkyWonderful? ›

At my local Chinese, they call this Crispy Chow Mein Noodles. It's a Hong Kong / Cantonese style dish, and there are a lot of variations but the core of it is a bed of deep fried crunchy noodles topped with a saucy stir fry.

At my local Chinese, they call this Crispy Chow Mein Noodles. It's a Hong Kong / Cantonese style dish, and there are a lot of variations but the core of it is a bed of deep fried crunchy noodles topped with a saucy stir fry.

An expert chef's tip for perfect chow mein

Before frying them, it's best to steam the noodles rather than boil them, then dunk them in the hot water for just a minute. Remember to let the noodles cool down. When you're pan frying the noodles, let them cook and crisp up, and don't move them around too much.

Overcooking the Noodles: One of the most common mistakes is overcooking the chow mein noodles, leaving them mushy rather than al dente. The key is to cook them until they're still quite firm, as they'll continue cooking when you add them to the stir-fry.

The biggest difference between chow mein and lo mein lies in the translations of their names: chow mein is fried, and lo mein is tossed. The experience is somewhat different between the two. Lo mein tends to be saucier and more toothsome, with a texture some describe as “slippery” because of the noodles' softness.

House Special Chow Mein is a classic Chinese dish made better at home! Crispy chow mein noodles, tender velveted chicken, juicy shrimp, crisp veggies, and fresh bean sprouts are tossed in a homemade sweet and savory chow mein sauce that's so easy to make!

What are those crunchy things in your stir-fry? They're water chestnuts, and they're surprisingly good for you! You probably already know a few things about water chestnuts. They're white and crunchy, and you'll find them in a ton of Asian-style stir fry dishes.

A great Chow Mein comes down to the sauce, made of soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, sugar and cornstarch for thickening. Slippery noodles slick with the savoury sauce is noodle heaven!

All you need is soy sauce, black vinegar, sugar, oyster sauce, black pepper, and sesame oil. The flavor that is often missing in homemade chow mein is the tanginess. Black Vinegar is less harsh than regular vinegar, which gives the chow mein a subtle hint of tanginess that brings the dish together.

The first is to cook your protein and your vegetable separately, and combine them only after both are fully cooked. A second rule of thumb for stir-frying: Choose one vegetable per stir-fry. Finally, always remember to add liquid only after everything is more or less finished cooking.

What makes chow mein taste like chow mein? ›

Simple sauce: While chow mein sauce is unbelievably easy to make, it still brings a complexity of flavors to the dish. The careful combination of ingredients like soy sauce, sesame oil, oyster sauce and sugar results in a chow mein sauce that has hints of both savory and sweet notes.

Wet refers to boiled noodles, while dry means deep-fried noodles. There's one key ingredient that indicates which version of chow mein will end up on your plate — water. As long as you intend to make wet chow mein, you must use more water than you normally would.

The difference is the texture. Crispy chow mein is when the noodles are shallow or deep fried in oil and covered in the saucy topping. Soft chow mein is when the soft noodles are pan fried with the sauce and other ingredients.

In the American market, two types of chow mein include crispy chow mein and steamed chow mein. The steamed chow mein has a softer texture, while the former is crisper and drier. Crispy chow mein uses fried, flat noodles, while soft chow mein uses long, rounded noodles.

If you can't find these, you can use other noodles – it won't be 100% the same but it will be close enough. Some substitutes are: Yakisoba noodles. Lo Mein noodles (these will be thicker and won't have the slightly crispy nature of chow mein when fried)

Chow mein vs chop suey are both popular Chinese dishes that are often confused with each other. Chow mein is a stir-fried noodle dish that typically includes vegetables and meat, while chop suey is a dish made up of meat, vegetables, and sometimes noodles that are cooked in a thick sauce.

I never gave much thought to water chestnuts. They were always those bland crunchy white discs in my supermarket frozen stir-fry mix. I always thought they were added as filler-- something cheap to bulk up the bag so the supermarket could charge more money.

They're basically deep-fried egg noodles (or fried wonton wrappers or egg roll wrappers). Golden brown and crunchy, they're often served in little wooden bowls as a restaurant appetizer with duck sauce and Chinese hot mustard on the side.

Ingredients in chow mein sauce include cornstarch (for thickening), light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, Chinese cooking wine (also known as Shaoxing wine), and granulated sugar.