PANDA EXPRESS CHOW MEIN COPYCAT RECIPE
This post may contain affiliate links that won’t change your price but will share some commission.
This amazing, easy, and quick stir-fried Panda Express Chow Mein Copycat Recipe is fantastic! Completely customizable and absolutely delicious! Throw in whatever veggies you have and enjoy.
PANDA EXPRESS CHOW MEIN COPYCAT RECIPE
I enjoy recreating restaurants at home, cutting calories and putting my own spin on them. You can check out all my Restaurant Remakes here. As well, this recipe takes less than 30 minutes. I can’t drive to, order, and get my food at a restaurant in that amount of time. Bonus points for being cheaper and healthier at home.
Panda Express Chow Mein Copycat Recipe is noodle based with a rich tasty sauce and a few vegetables. You can add any vegetables you like or have on hand. Additionally, you can add sliced or ground chicken or turkey for more protein. I love an all pasta meal, but the boys like a hearty bite of meat.
WHAT IS CHOW MEIN?
In American Chinese cuisine, it is a stir-fried dish consisting of noodles, meat (chicken being most common but pork, beef, shrimp or tofu sometimes being substituted), onions and celery. It is often served as a specific dish at westernized Chinese restaurants.
For the noodles in this recipe, I use three bags of dried Ramen noodles and discarded the seasoning pack. These are the cheap packs for ramen soup that costs about $.25. Those are usually on the soup isle. In the Asian section of my local grocery store, they have Simply Asia brand ramen noodles.
TIPS FOR SUBSTITUTIONS
- First, I used cabbage instead of celery.
- If you can’t find ramen noodles, regular spaghetti noodles will work just fine.
- Most noteworthy, be attentive to your noodles and don’t overcook them.
- I recommend reduced sodium soy sauce.
- Additionally, fresh ginger is a key ingredient. Dry, ground ginger really doesn’t have the same flavor.
- I listed peanuts as a garnish and they are totally optional. However, I really enjoy the nice crunch they offer the dish especially since there is no meat in it.
- I love my 3.75 Le Creuset Braiser braiser for this recipe. As well, it’s large enough to hold everything and looks pretty to serve in.
More Asian Inspired Recipes
More 20-Minute Recipes
- 20-Minute Tomato Pesto Pasta
- Cherry Tomato and Basil Angel Hair Pasta
- Lemon Garlic Shrimp Pasta
- Be sure to check out my roundup posts 34 Watermelon recipes and 30 Burgers.
- You can also find great recipes at Recipe Index
Shop some of my recommended products by clicking on the photo below
Please keep in mind that nutritional information is a rough estimate and can vary based on products used.
Panda Express Chow Mein Copycat Recipe
Want to save recipes? Create an account or login & then you can use the “Save Recipe” button when viewing a recipe to save it to your Recipe Box. You can access your saved recipes on any device and generate a shopping list for recipes in your collections.
Save To Your Recipe BoxIngredients
- 1/2 cup reduced sodium soy sauce
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons ginger fresh, grated
- 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 3 (3-ounce packs) ramen noodles discard seasoning pack
- 2 tablespoon sesame oil
- 1/2 cup onion diced
- 2 cups cabbage shredded
- sliced green onion and chopped peanuts for garnish
Instructions
- In a small bowl, whisk together soy sauce, garlic, brown sugar, ginger, and pepper.
- Cook ramen noodles according to package directions. Drain well.
- Heat sesame oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and cabbage. Cook, stirring often, until tender, about 3-4 minutes.
- Add noodles and soy sauce mixture and stir until noodles are coated with sauce. Rest for about 2 minutes. Serve immediately.
This dish is fantastic! Way better than the actual Panda Express noodles. My teenager went back for seconds AND took the leftovers back to college with him. Can’t get much higher praise than that!
How much celery would you use instead of cabbage?
Would this reheat well? I’d like to make this the night before and eat it for my lunch over a couple of days.
Yes, it really does. I think it’s better reheated.
This was a hit! I added ground beef, carrots and zucchini. Thank you!
We have a sesame allergy, can I substitute other vegetable oil or will it alter the sauce too much?
Olive oil is a good sub for sesame oil.
Delicious! My whole fam enjoyed it – definitely going to be my go-to chowmein recipe! I added chicken strips as well 🙂
Very good! I had some leftover chicken so I added that to it, the sauce is perfect! Definitely a keeper!!!
My noodles came out a little more soft than pandas , do you know why that might have happened?
Shorten your cooking time for the noodles and that should do the trick. I’ve found different brands have slightly different cooking times.
I just made this recipe, but I altered mine, as soon as the chicken broth came to a boil I placed the ramen in and only boiled it 4 2 minutes then drained it cooled it in fridge for 15 minutes then fried it in the same pan I made the ginger pork with additional sesame seed oil for for a few minutes in really hot pan & it was perfect the noodles were just like chowmein they weren’t soft more like chewy and delicious
This Panda Express Chow Mein Copycat Recipe is so delicious! I used San-J Tamari Soy Sauce in this recipe for an added extra flavor. Yummy!
I just made this with a couple adjustments. I added browned ground pork & used 2 tbs of minced onion instead of fresh. I also used shredded mixed veggies (sold in bags near bagged lettuce & coleslaw). Very delicious! I didn’t use low sodium soy sauce since I didn’t have any & the dish was a tad salty but still great.
I really liked this, but mine had a bitter taste? Do u know what that might of been from..only thing I can think of is that afterwards I checked the sesame oil I used and it had expired. Otherwise it was great, I will make again and add broccoli and mushrooms.
Excess soy sauce
This is a good recipe but jus put half the ginger. I feel like ginger is so overpowering at times. But overall great recipe.
This sounds so good – would like to try. I just wondered what type of cabbage are you using – chinese napa cabbage or just the regular kind (that we use to make coleslaw)?
I used regular cabbage.
I’ve used the coleslaw salad mix in the produce dept. It’s got cabbage and carrots already shredded. Worked very well
Made this last night and my family loved it! I was told repeatedly that this chow mein was BETTER than Panda Express! I used napa cabbage and it was really good! Definitely a keeper!
Awesome!! So happy to hear this!!
I used the already shredded because I already had it on hand. These are great. I’ve made them several times now. Added, chix and shrimp too. Won’t buy those take out noodles again🥡🥡
I made this tonight and really liked it. I’ve used a similar Panda Express copycat recipe which calls for yakisoba noodles, which are more expensive and aren’t as readily available, and oyster sauce. I like that your recipe didn’t use these 2 things and it actually tasted more like Panda Express. It was my second time trying chow mein with ramen noodles and this time was more successful. I think the trick is to stop cooking them as soon as they’re no longer stiff. I also sprayed them with cold water and added them to the vegetables as soon as they finish draining. I used 5 packages of noodles instead of 3 and there was enough sauce to coat them all (but perhaps I used less veggies than the recipe called for). This will be a new regular at our house; my 4 kids loved it.
Thanks so much, Nichole. I literally could eat this every day. 😁
Great tip – I made these last night sans veggies since I didn’t have them on hand (but do have lots of Asian condiments as I make Asian dishes often), and the family really liked it. I should have taken the noodles off as soon as no longer stiff and rinsed them – that’s a great tip. They ended up a little on the soft side, but still delicious.
Perfect week night dinner ! So inviting !