Panda Express Chow Mein Copycat
This post may contain affiliate links. Please see our privacy policy for details.
Tastes just like Panda Express except it takes just minutes to whip up and tastes a million times better!
I love recreating take-out recipes at home. You know exactly what’s going into your dish, and the homemade version is ALWAYS better without a doubt. And this Panda Express copycat is no exception. Best of all, you can make this in less than 20 minutes! How easy is that?
I kid you not. This is one of the easiest recipes I have ever made. It requires such few ingredients and this recipe is practically foolproof. And there really is no comparison to Panda Express because it’s just that much better. We didn’t even have a main dish to pair this with but we still devoured this on its own like there was no tomorrow!
TOOLS FOR THIS RECIPE
WHAT IS YAKI-SOBA?
Yaki-Soba is ramen-style noodles and can be found in the refrigerated aisle of your local grocery store.
Panda Express Chow Mein Copycat
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; 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.
Notes
Did you make this recipe?
Tag @damn_delicious on Instagram and hashtag it #damndelicious!
Easy and SO delicious! One of the rare times my whole family gave a thumbs up. I added some shredded chicken.
I watched them make chow mein and saw them put a scoop of something in that l could not make out. I asked what it was. They said “wine”. Unknown what kind of wine. Just an input here.
Made this tonight with the chicken peanut lettuce wraps – absolutely delicious! The whole family enjoy our Asian inspired dinner tonight. Thanks for the recipes!
So happy to hear it! Thanks for sharing.
This is my new favorite recipe site!!! Oh my gosh. You are amazing. Your videos really did me in. I want to cook everything on your site!
I use the low main noodles you can get in the Asian section of HEB and it’s just amazing. It is an outstanding dish especially with the sweet and sour glazed pork chops except I use that recipe wih chicken and it turns out amazing! I’ve made this dish multiple times for my family and friends and my boyfriends family and they all just love it!
Thank you so much, Aspen! Happy you liked it.
Great recipe & family loved it!
I have a crazy busy household with a teen + tween in 2 different sports, so training/practice 6 days and packed weekend for games. I have no time to chop & used 4C frozen stir fry veggies. Boiled noodles, doubled sauce and dinner served within 30 min!! Love it!
I will be making double the recipe over the weekend, as kids asked to eat this for lunch at school. Can’t get any better for our budget, thank you again!
That’s amazing! So happy this works out so well for you.
Panda Express does not use Ginger in their recipe or pepper. Just noodles, cooking wine, celery and cabbage with soy sauce then sesame oil at the very end before serving. It’s that simple.
No. Garlic or brown sugar either
I know nothing about Panda Express but have been looking for a good chow mein sauce for ages.
I had condiments & noodles in the pantry and went to the fridge for whatever vegs needed to be used up…thought of adding shrimp from the freezer but didn’t want to waste them on yet another disappointing recipe.
This was incredible! There was so little sauce but it was all that was needed. I put in a grocery order tonight and just can’t wait to try it with all the different ingredients I ordered. Yes, I signed up for your recipes because this winner was “damn delicious”!
So happy to hear it!
This was very tasty! I used udon instead of yakisoba and ground ginger. I think i added a bit too much ground ginger so be careful on the ginger, maybe add it to taste. I cooked it in sesame oil and I think that really made the dish, highly recommend using it. This was very easy and especially filling if you use udon
Great substitutions! Glad you liked it.
Made exactly as stated, very tasty. Similar to Panda Express, but not exactly. Their noodles are more chewy and larger maybe? I was even able to find the exact refrigerated yakisoba noodles by maruchan. However, I like a noodle with more tooth. These noodles I felt were too thin and springy. I simmered for 1 minute and drained well and still they had no texture. What other more “substantial” noodle would be a good substitute? Not udon, as too big! Would a dried noodle be better so you can control the texture? A Shanghai noodle perhaps? Thanks!
Shanghai noodle sounds amazing!
Delicious pasta, I loved the recipe, it looks very tasty.
Just made this today, delicious, thanks!
So says the partner:
“Just use SPAGHETTI”. I only had linguini, and thought I could adjust the amounts. YIKES! Albeit delicious, this made a LOT of noodles, which is no problem for us! 3 stalks of celery became the entire bunch of celery.
On the other hand? I cooked a LOT of Asian inspired dishes the week I made this. Another winner kiddo! :))
Wow. That was incredible. I cannot thank you enough for sharing it. We had some Ram-Yun noodles we thought it would be fun to use up, so I looked up how to doctor up ramen and came across this recipe. It’s funny because I’ve actually made this before, but I used powdered ginger instead of fresh and thought it tasted alright. Today while I was at the store I decided to buy some fresh ginger and see how it tasted. Oh man. I cannot stress enough how important it is to use FRESH GINGER. It completely changed the dish! Absolutely incredible! I want to eat it every day forever! We also added green beans and white mushrooms for fun and it was great. Really such an amazing dish.
I have been having a hard time getting the refrigerated noodles to break up before adding to the dish, or maybe I haven’t been breaking them up correctly. What technique do you use to make them separated strands of noodles, rather than a clump still in the shape of the package?
The noodles are loosened up in step #2:
In a large pot of boiling water, add Yaki-Soba until loosened, about 1-2 minutes; drain well.
Followed recipe exactly. I wouldn’t consider this Panda Express chow mein at all. It does have a slight hint that reminds of it but if I was given this without knowing I would not associate it with Panda Express.
Tried this and it was a little to ginger-y. I found a 1 pound bag of yakisoba in a little Saigon store. I’ll try it again but with less brown sugar and ginger.
How about replace 1 tablespoon brown sugar by 1/2 tablespoon of honey? Instead of using packages refrigerated Yaki-Soba, should i use spaghetti squash or fried eggs noodles for this panda express chow mein copycat?
Yes and yes! 🙂
Okay I made this today from the online recipe and it was delicious, I have to say that I cut the ginger in half because I am not a huge ginger fan. I also purchased and received your book in the mail yesterday and I was noticing in the book the brown sugar, soy sauce, garlic cloves, grated ginger, and white pepper amounts are doubled for this recipe . So my question is, it it a typo on this recipe or in the book?
Carla, it is not a typo actually. Either of the measurements will work. It’s just that some of the recipes in the cookbook have been tweaked a bit after further recipe testing but I prefer less garlic, ginger and sugar personally! It all depends on personal preference. Hope that helps!
I can’t wait to try your recipe! If I can’t find the noodles that this recipe calls for I will use Barilla Pronto half-cut spaghetti. I used them for a teriyaki chicken & noodles recipe I found online and discovered that the taste and texture of these noodles are exactly, in my opinion, like lo mein noodles.
Delicious! Your sauce made this chow mein. I added 2 chopped carrots and green onions, I like more veggies. I also browned the veggies including cabbage, most chow mein a have a bit if browning on the veggies .
Thank you