Chicken is cooked with Chinese cabbage, celery, onions, bean sprouts, and water chestnuts in a brown gravy for a restaurant Style Chicken Chow Mein with crispy noodles.
IS IT CHOW MEIN OR CHOP SUEY
Some folks call this chop suey. I think it is more like chow mein with crispy noodles from Chinese takeout.
I make this dish at least once a month. I love to serve it with jasmine rice in addition to crispy chow mein noodles, but white rice works too.
Chow Mein is fairly versatile too. You can substitute or add just about any vegetable or protein. This is just a base recipe and I would encourage you to add your own spin to this.
Any recipe of mine is usually just a good starting point. They tend to be a representation of how I like the recipe I have featured.
Like a famous chef once said, “There are no food police.” It’s your kitchen, it’s your choice. This is also good with chow mein noodles, ya know, those ones that are really bad for you, highly processed, deep-fried and sold in a can or bag.
You can even fry up some rice noodles yourself, the white ones that puff up to like 100 times their original size the second they hit the hot oil.
I use those mostly for garnish though since I always seem to have a few areas that miss the oil and are like eating gravel.
We now cut wonton or egg roll wrappers into short thin strips and fry those up until they are brown and crunchy – no more canned anything for us and no more gravel pieces in our Asian inspired foods.
I use the ones from the regular grocery store, the thicker heavier ones. Not the spring roll wrappers you find in Asian markets, those are just too fragile.
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Chicken Chow Mein
Ingredients
- 1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
- 24 ounces boneless skinless Chicken breasts sliced thinly, more or less can be used
- 4 Tablespoons Soy Sauce
- 1/4 teaspoon White pepper
- 1 teaspoon Garlic Powder
- 1 teaspoon Sesame Oil
- 3 to 4 cloves garlic finely diced
- 1 large Onion yellow, white, or red, cut into 1-inch chunks
- 1 can sliced water chestnuts drained
- 1 head Napa Cabbage sliced into 1-inch strips
- 7 to 8 stalks Celery sliced into 1/2 inch slices
- 1 small can condensed chicken broth
- 1 pound Fresh Bean Sprouts optional
- 3 tablespoons Cornstarch
- 2 Tablespoons Molasses not black strap, white or brown sugar can be substituted for a different flavor
Instructions
- Place chicken in a small bowl. Add 1 tablespoons of soy sauce, 1 teaspoon sesame oil, 1/4 teaspoon white pepper, and 1 teaspoon of garlic powder. Mix together and allow to sit for 15 minutes, or longer.
- In a large skillet, add enough olive oil to lightly coat the pan. Heat over high heat until very hot. Add chicken and cook just until you see no pink. Remove from skillet and set aside.
- In the same skillet, add another coating of oil if needed. Heat skillet over medium-high heat. Add 2 tablespoons soy sauce, garlic, and onions. Sauté garlic and onions for 1 minute.
- Add water chestnuts, 2 tablespoons molasses. 2 more tablespoons soy sauce, and chicken broth, undiluted and reduce heat to medium.
- Place a large sauce pot on the stove. Pour everything from skillet into a sauce pot. Set heat to medium.
- Add celery and cabbage. Cook for 5 to 10 minutes or until cabbage has slightly wilted. Reduce heat to medium-low.
- Simmer for 15 to 30 minutes. Taste, add more soy sauce or molasses to adjust to your tastes.
- In a separate container, add cornstarch to ¼ cup of water. Set aside.
- Add bean sprouts and reserved chicken, with any liquid that has accumulated to chow mein.
- Bring chow mein to a boil, add cornstarch mixture to chow mein. Stir constantly until chow mein becomes thick. Immediately turn off heat.
- Serve hot over jasmine rice or crispy chow mein noodles.
