Panda Express Chow Mein Copycat
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This Panda Express chow mein copycat version can be made in just 20 minutes right at home (and it tastes so much better than the original!).
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Why you’ll love Panda Express Chow Mein Copycat
- Lightning fast recipe. This is a speedy 20 minute recipe start to finish. It’s so much faster than delivery or takeout using Yaki-Soba noodles, onion, celery, cabbage, and an easy stir-fry sauce.
- Uses better-quality ingredients. You can use high quality oils and avoid unwanted sodium and preservatives, loading this up with all the feel-good veggies, perfect for those picky eaters!
- So customizable. Making this at home allows you to completely customize this dish with what you have on hand, adding in leftover proteins (for example, rotisserie chicken) and lingering veggies to transform this into a hearty main dish.
What is chow mein?
This is a popular Chinese dish that translates to “stir fried noodles” in Cantonese. The noodles are stir fried or pan-fried, resulting in a crispier texture in a light sauce whereas lo mein noodles are softer and fully boiled with a richer sauce.
Key Ingredients
- Noodles: Yaki-Soba noodles, ramen noodles, or fresh Chinese egg noodles
- Vegetables: onion, celery, and cabbage
- Sauce: soy sauce, garlic, brown sugar, ginger, and white pepper
How to make Panda Express Chow Mein Copycat
- Cook the noodles. Boil the Yaki-Soba noodles until loosened, about 1-2 minutes, rinsing with cold water to halt the cooking process.
- Prep the stir fry sauce. Combine the soy sauce, garlic, brown sugar, ginger, and white pepper.
- Stir fry the vegetables. Cook the onion and celery in a large cast iron skillet over medium high heat until tender, then stir in the cabbage until softened.
- Combine and toss. Stir in the Yaki-Soba noodles and stir fry sauce until the noodles are evenly coated in the sauce.
What to serve with Panda Express Chow Mein Copycat
Tools For This Recipe
Panda Express Chow Mein Copycat: Frequently Asked Questions
Yaki-Soba is ramen-style noodles and can be found in the refrigerated aisle of your local grocery store.
Ramen noodles (without the seasoning packet) and lo mein noodles are both excellent substitutes.
Their chow mein includes a simple trio of onion, celery, and cabbage.
Absolutely! This recipe is incredibly flexible and giving, and it’s the perfect opportunity to use up leftover protein (chicken, steak, pork, or shrimp) and veggies (carrots, mushrooms, bell peppers, or bok choy).
Store leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for 3-4 days, reheating on the stovetop over medium heat in a skillet or wok with a splash of water or broth for 3-4 minutes (to restore its original texture).
Panda Express Chow Mein Copycat
Video
Ingredients
- 2 (5.6-ounce) packages refrigerated Yaki-Soba, seasoning sauce packets discarded*
- ¼ cup reduced sodium soy sauce
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tablespoon brown sugar, packed
- 2 teaspoons freshly grated ginger
- ¼ teaspoon white pepper
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 onion, diced
- 3 ribs celery, sliced diagonally
- 2 cups shredded cabbage
Instructions
- In a large pot of boiling water, add Yaki-Soba until loosened, about 1-2 minutes; rinse with cold water and drain well.
- In a small bowl, whisk together soy sauce, garlic, brown sugar, ginger and white pepper; set aside.
- Heat olive oil in a large cast iron skillet over medium high heat. Add onion and celery, and cook, stirring often, until tender, about 3-4 minutes. Stir in cabbage until heated through, about 1 minute.
- Stir in Yaki-Soba and soy sauce mixture until well combined, about 2 minutes.
- Serve immediately.
Equipment
Notes
- Prep beforehand. This recipe comes together quickly. Have all the ingredients and sauce ready to go prior to cooking.
- Use reduced sodium soy sauce. Reduced sodium has less sodium and less salt without compromising flavor.
- Cook until al dente. Cook the Yaki-Soba noodles just until al dente as they will continue to cook when stir-fried.
- Rinse noodles with cold water. This will stop the cooking process to tighten the starches and keep the noodles from clumping.
- Reheat on the stovetop. Reheat the leftover noodles in a skillet or wok to prevent soggy noodles and to revive the original crisp texture.
Did you make this recipe?
Tag @damn_delicious on Instagram and hashtag it #damndelicious!
Delicious and easy! I used packaged coleslaw and still tasted amazing. I would probably use a little less ginger next time, but that’s just me.
Make this often! Love it! Can’t remember if it tastes like Panda Express or not, we haven’t eaten there in over a year. I use the “Wel Pac” brand chow mein noodles from Target. They work great! I do cut back on the ginger and garlic just a little.
This was a good tasting replica of Panda Express’s Chowmein. The 1st time I made it, I didn’t have fresh ginger so used ground ginger. It was very tasty! The 2nd time, I made it with the fresh ginger; the ginger overwhelmed the other flavors, and my husband and I did not care for it. Will be making it again tonight, but will go back to using ground ginger. Overall, it’s a very good recipe!
How much ground ginger did you use?
Hi, Can I ask how much ground Ginger you use in the recipe as listed for 4 servings? Thanks, Greg
Can I leave out celery or substitute it with something? Otherwise seems like a great easy recipe, would love to try this!
I haven’t made this recipe yet, but, I’ve always substituted celery with green peppers. My son hates cooked celery!
This recipe is delicious! I doubled it so there would be left overs but the three of us ate all of it!! I added a little Sesame oil and no ginger. Delicious! Can’t wait to make it again! Thank you for sharing!
Omg so good. I’ve been craving Panda’s chow mein for a very long time but with COVID, I didn’t wanna go there. This was so easy, vegan, and tastes a million times better. It’s not near as salty or greasy & has more flavor thanks to the fresh garlic & ginger. It was even better the next day. This is going to be a staple for me as I transition to a vegan diet next year.
This is my favorite copycat version of Panda’s chow mein. Sometimes I add chicken to make it an easy dinner meal. I never can find the noodles called for, so I just use thin spaghetti and it’s still very good and not mushy at all. Thank you!
Put some baking soda in with your noodles and they’ll become more stretchy and chewy
I made this recipe a few days ago and then ended up eating chow mein at the mentioned place of business tonight for dinner. I use the term “eat” loosely because the fast food noodles were inedible after making yours! We’ll never go back to that place! This is way better!
Just made this tonight. With Panda Express inspired Bejing beef. They complimented each other so well. Everyone loved it!!! Thank you for the delicious recipe! 🙂
Excellent..thank you
You can find the yaki soba noodles next to the spring / egg roll skins.
One of my favorite chow mein recipes…I’ve made this many times before and it’s always delicious!
I just made this for my family and it was delicious! Thank you so much. I’m always trying to find good vegan meals that my non vegan family will eat. So good!
The real recipe at Panda Express is 1 bag of chow mein, 1/4 cup basic cooking sauce (soy sauce), 3 tablespoon vegetable oil, 3 table spoon cooking oil, lettuce
Lettuce?
Good taste
This is almost an exact copycat but I add about 1 1/2 tbsp of oyster sauce to give it that salty savoury kick and dark color that Panda Express noodles have (; I also don’t use brown sugar
This was ok, but just kind of tasted like soy sauce on noodles. Was fine for supper and my kids ate it, so that’s a win. I do appreciate it’s simplicity.
Damn delicious lives up to its name with this recipe. I feel it tastes very similar to Panda Express’ chow mein, and it cooks up in no time.
It’s a great easy recipe that we all love! We live in the middle of nowhere and when I get a hankering for take out- this does the job. Hits all the notes- salty sweet savory crunchy yummy. Thanks!!
Oh wow! Thank you! 🙂
Tried your copycat recipe for Panda Express for the first time. I will try it again. Tonight’s results were good but I didn’t achieve a true “copycat” version. The 2 teaspoons of ginger were too much and the result was a definite ginger taste that Panda Express doesn’t have. My noodles didn’t turn out as dark a color as Panda’s. So My version was quite tasty and I wouldn’t be ashamed to serve it to guest, minus too much ginger.
I will try again. Thanks for posting your recipe.
Very yummy!! I replaced the soy sauce for coconut aminos and liquid aminos. And instead of the noodles I spiralized zuchinni. Super yummy!