In my opinion, chow mein is always the highlight of eating at Panda Express. It’s just so good! I was happy to find THIS copycat recipe. I added some carrots for color, but followed the rest of the recipe almost exactly, and it turned out great!
In fact, it turned out too good. I really had a hard time stopping myself from getting more and more and more. Well, eventually I stopped. Made myself brush my teeth and do my whole oral hygiene bedtime routine so that I wouldn’t pick in that delicious chow mein anymore. Now we will have plenty of leftovers for tomorrow— yay!
Chow Mein Recipe (Panda Express Style)
Ingredients:
- 2-3 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tsp. grated ginger
- 1/4 tsp. black pepper
- 1 Tbsp. packed brown sugar
- 1/4 C. soy sauce
- 2 Tbsp. + 1 Tbsp. olive oil
- 1 yellow onion, chopped
- 3 stalks celery, chopped
- about 1 1/2 C. grated carrots (I bought the pre-grated carrots from the store)
- 1 head Napa cabbage, shredded (I usually don’t include the very outer leaves)
- 3 (5.6 oz) packages refrigerated Yaki-Soba noodles (the package I bought contained 3 smaller packages… it was about 17 oz. total, and you can just discard the seasoning sauce packets)
Instructions:
- In a small bowl, combine the garlic, ginger, black pepper, brown sugar and soy sauce. Stir and set aside.
- Heat a pan to medium-high heat. Add 2 Tbsp. olive oil. Saute the onions, celery, and grated carrots until onions look translucent, about 4 minutes. Add in the cabbage about 1 C. at a time, stirring occasionally to help it wilt from the heat. Also add the soy sauce mixture along with the cabbage (see note* below).
- Boil water in a large pot, add the 3 packages of noodles and boil for about 2 minutes to loosen them up a bit. You can use a spoon or fork to help separate the clumps of noodles. Drain all the water out. Add the last Tbsp. of olive oil to the noodles so they don’t stick to the pot.
- Add the sauteed vegetables to the pot with the noodles. Stir and cook for about 3 minutes. Serve immediately.
We ate this chow mein with some fruit salad. It was nice having something fresh and sweet next to it!
*Note: My pan wasn’t big enough for me to keep adding all that cabbage, so I just added some to the pot of drained noodles and put a fitted lid on top to help it cook faster. Then I added the pan of vegetables to the noodles/cabbage mixture.
**Inspired by THIS recipe.