Easy Homemade Chicken Chow Mein

Chicken chow mein in a pan and portions in bowls.

5 from 5 votes

Easy Homemade Chicken Chow Mein makes fantastic midweek family dinner that is both delicious & healthy. Ready in under 30 minutes, who needs a takeaway!

Course Dinner, Midweek Dinner

Cuisine British, Chinese

Keyword 30-minute meal, chicken chow mein, chicken stir fry, fakeaway, takeaway

Prep Time 10

Cook Time 15

Total Time 25

Servings people

Calories 548kcal

Author Jo Allison

Equipment

Ingredients

250 g medium egg noodles (uncooked) or you could use "straight to wok noodles" - see notes below
½ large head of broccoli cut into small florets
1 yellow or red pepper deseeded and thinly sliced according with your preference
1 carrot peeled and cut into small matchsticks
3 garlic cloves minced or finely chopped
1 thumb size piece of ginger peeled and grated
2 large spring onions finely sliced and divided
250-300 g leftover roast chicken or fresh chicken breast/thighs see notes below
1 tablespoon rapeseed /olive oil
1 tablespoon sesame oil for the noodles

Sauce

3 tablespoon Hoisin sauce
2 tablespoon soy sauce or tamari
2 tablespoon sesame oil

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

Start with preparing all your ingredients which you need to have handy as once you start cooking things are happening quickly.
Prepare your stir fry sauce by mixing hoisin sauce in a small bowl together with soy sauce and sesame oil.
Cook egg noodles in a large pot of boiling water according to your package instructions. Drain and run under cold tap to stop cooking process. Put it aside in a large bowl with a tablespoon of sesame oil which will prevent noodles from sticking and keep them nice and shiny.
Heat tablespoon of oil in a large frying pan or wok. Add your broccoli florets, carrots and bell pepper and stir fry on high heat until slightly softened but still slightly crunchy about 5 minutes.
Add half of the sliced green onions, garlic and ginger and stir fry another couple of minutes.
Add leftover roast chicken and mix it well with the veggies allowing it to heat through for a couple of minutes.
Add noodles and your stir fry sauce to the pan or wok and mix well. Fry for a couple of minutes stiring and mixing all the veggies through and heating the noodles up.
Serve immediately sprinkled with saved spring onions.

Notes

Nutritional information is approximate, per serving and should be treated as a guideline only.
If you’re using either fresh chicken breast or chicken thighs simply cut the meat up into small chunks and season with some salt and pepper. When using fresh chicken as opposed to leftover roast I like to cook it in the hot wok/frying pan first as it usually releases quite a bit of water. Simply pan fry it in one tablespoon of hot oil for about 5 minutes until cooked through. Take it out onto a plate and then proceed as per recipe below adding your cooked chicken chunks for the last couple of minutes together with noodles and the sauce.
I'm not a huge fan of "straight to wok" cooked noodles and much prefer cooking my own which is not only cheaper but almost as quick. However, you could use them here if you wanted to. As they tend to be quite sticky I would recommend putting them in the colander over the sink and pouring a little of freshly boiled water over them to loosen the up and then quickly running them under the cold tap and popping in the large bowl with a tablespoon or so of sesame oil.
Feel free to substitute the veggies for anything you like. Green beans, tenderstem broccoli or thinly sliced cabbage work particularly well.
Store leftovers in the fridge and eat within 1 day (hot or cold).
Not suitable for freezing.

Nutrition