Are you ready for the easiest of easy stir-fry dinners? This super easy Lo Mein recipe is the perfect no-brainer dinner for when you can’t be bothered to even think about cooking. It’s also a great option for beginners who are still building their skills and confidence in the kitchen. This super simplified Lo Mein recipe is designed to be the best mix of easy, convenient, and satisfying. It has fresh crisp and colorful vegetables, comforting tender noodles, and an easy savory sauce that will remind you of your favorite takeout!
What Is Lo Mein?
Lo Mein is a Chinese stir fry dish with noodles, the name translating to “stirred noodles” in Cantonese. The stir fry contains tender egg noodles, a light savory sauce, and often vegetables, meat, or seafood. The Lo Mein recipe below is closer to what you’d find in a Chinese American takeout restaurant but simplified even further for easy home prep.
Ingredients for Lo Mein
It doesn’t get any faster or easier than this simple lo mein recipe, which is a great option when you’re trying to use up leftover meat or vegetables in your fridge. Here’s what you’ll need to make your own homemade lo mein:
- Noodles: Traditionally, lo mein is made with long egg noodles, but regular spaghetti noodles may be easier to find, and you may even already have some in your pantry!
- Soy Sauce: Soy sauce is the savory, salty base for the delicious lo mein sauce.
- Sesame Oil: Toasted sesame oil gives the lo mein sauce a rich, nutty flavor.
- Sugar: Sugar helps balance the saltiness of the soy sauce and adds complexity to the dish.
- Cooking Oil: A neutral cooking oil is used to stir fry the vegetables and add that delicious stir-fry mouthfeel.
- Mixed Vegetables: Raid your fridge for whatever leftover vegetables you can find! You can use just about any vegetable in this dish, but avoid high water content vegetables like tomatoes, cucumber, or lettuce (other greens are great). You can also hit up the salad bar at your grocery store to get several colorful vegetables in small quantities!
What else can I add?
I chose an easy mix of mushrooms, bell peppers, cabbage, and green onion for my lo mein, but there are so many other great things you can add! Here are a few more ingredients that will go great in lo mein:
- Vegetables: spinach, snow peas, bean sprouts, shredded carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, or red onion.
- Proteins: cubed tofu, chicken, shrimp, scrambled eggs. (Sauté these in the skillet until cooked before adding the vegetables.)
- Make it Spicy: Add 1 Tbsp sriracha or chili garlic sauce to the lo mein sauce for a spicy kick
- Toppings: chopped peanuts, sesame seeds, fresh green onion
*Note: I strongly suggest including either green onion or red onion in your vegetable mix, since the lo mein sauce does not contain any garlic. Having an aromatic in the mix really helps round out the flavor of the lo mein.
What kind of noodles Are Best for Lo Mein
Traditionally lo mein noodles are wheat and egg pasta, so if you can find that or something close to it, that would be a win. If you can make it to an Asian market you can definitely get some awesome noodles for a very low price.
The most budget-friendly and easily accessible option is to use just regular spaghetti noodles. There’s no shame in that game. I had a little more room in my budget this time around, so I went for some udon noodles that I found in the International aisle (see the package in the step by step photos). I like these noodles because they’re a bit softer than spaghetti and they tend to soak up that salty lo mein sauce a little better, but they did increase the total cost of this dish by a good 30%.
What to Serve with Lo Mein
This noodle stirfry is pretty filling on its own, but if you want to complete your takeout fake-out, try pairing it with some Scrambled Eggs with Rice, Vegetable Fried Rice, Soy Glazed Eggplant, Egg Drop Soup, or Vegetable Egg Rolls.
Easy Lo Mein
Servings 2Ingredients
Instructions
- Cook the noodles according to the package directions, then drain in colander. While the noodles are cooking, stir together the soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, sugar, and water.
- Heat the cooking oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Once the oil is very hot and shimmering (it should not be smoking), add the vegetables and stir fry for only about one minute, or just until the edges of the softer vegetables just begin to wilt.
- Add the cooked and drained noodles and the prepared sauce. Continue to stir and cook until the pasta has absorbed most of the sauce and no more liquid pools on the bottom of the skillet (about 2 minutes). The vegetables will soften further during this time. Serve immediately.
See how we calculate recipe costs here.
Notes
Nutrition
Have you tried this recipe?Mention @budgetbytes or tag #budgetbytes on Instagram!Because there’s nothing better than a plate full of noodles!
How to Make Easy Lo Mein – Step by Step Photos
These are the noodles I used, which have an awesome texture and soak up the sauce nicely, but did make this dish quite a bit more expensive than it *needs* to be. Regular spaghetti noodles work just fine when you’re on a stricter budget. If you have an Asian market nearby, you can most definitely get good noodles for a very low cost. Whichever noodles you choose, cook them according to the package directions, and then drain them in a colander.
While the noodles are cooking, make the super simplified lo mein sauce. Stir together 3 Tbsp soy sauce, 1 tsp toasted sesame oil, 1 tsp sugar, and 1 tsp water. If you want to make it spicy, you can add 1 Tbsp sriracha or chili garlic sauce. NOTE: make sure to get *toasted* sesame oil, not regular sesame oil. The toasted variety has a much stronger, nuttier flavor. You can tell the difference by the color. Toasted sesame oil is a dark brown color, untoasted is a light straw color. Here is more information on the difference between the two.
These are the vegetables I grabbed from the salad bar. You’ll need about 3 cups total, whether you’re using up leftovers in your fridge or you hit the salad bar like I did. Make sure to include some sort of onion to help round out the flavor in the stir-fry.
Heat 2 Tbsp high heat cooking oil (of your choice) in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Don’t skimp on the oil here because this really helps give the flavor and mouthfeel that you get from takeout.
Once the oil is very hot and shimmering, add the vegetables and stir fry them very briefly, like only one minute. Just until the edges of the softer vegetables begin to wilt. The vegetables will cook more after you add the noodles.
Add the cooked and drained noodles and the prepared lo mein sauce.
Continue to stir and cook until the noodles absorb the sauce and no more liquid pools on the bottom of the skillet (only about 2 minutes more). And that’s it! Your easy Lo Mein is DONE. Dig in my friend.
You had a similar stir fry recipe that I cannot find anymore. It had cashews and a slightly spicy sauce. Can you point me in the right direction?
Hi Gina! Just shoot us an email at support@budgetbytes.com and we’ll get that for you :)
This recipe is my go-to for using up veggies at the end of the week! I make it regularly and it’s never failed me.
My husband and I batch cook, so we make enough to last usually a few days. To make 6 servings I quadruple the sauce recipe, and add chicken for protein. My standard veggie additions are red pepper, onion, broccoli, and carrot.
Oh and I use angel hair pasta- it’s certainly not authentic but it’s cheap and always in my pantry. Tastes delicious, especially the next day when the sauce has had hours to soak in!
I’ve already made this twice in a week because I had all the ingredients and even my picky toddler ate it! I used regular spaghetti noodles since that is what I had, along with peppers, carrots, and broccoli – plus a teaspoon of chili garlic sauce (which gave it quite a kick!)
Yummy and simple! This was a great way to use up my odds and ends in the fridge. I made it heartier by doubling the veggies and adding fried tofu. Upped the umami by adding fresh garlic and a tsp. of BTB no-chix paste.
P.S. I absolutely love Budget Bytes! Thanks for all of the inspiration and delicious easy recipes.
This made about 5 delicious servings which my partner and I gobbled up. Leftovers were just as amazing. The sauce wasn’t quite enough, so I would suggest doubling it or adding extra soy sauce or sesame oil. We used stir-fry noodles so that was probably why. Next on our menu, yakisoba and ramen upgraded : )
Great idea!
Sometimes I cook extra spaghetti or rice for a “planned over meal” and keep it in the fridge for a day or two. Just swooping up some precut veggies on the way home would make this a 10 minute meal!
Thanks, and thanks for the “pizza toppings” hint, too.
This is a super fun and easy recipe. I do think it’s way better with a lot more sauce! The first time I tried this I felt I really wanted more flavor, so the second time I did the recommended 3 tbsp of soy plus 3 tbsp of teriyaki sauce, as well as some chili paste. Much better and bigger flavor!
Just made this tonight! I used thin spaghetti, mushrooms, sliced yellow onion, and some sliced cherry peppers from the fridge. I doubled the sauce and it came out perfectly!! Thanks for a great recipe!
Love the idea of using veggies from the salad bar, I can’t believe I’ve never thought of this before! Thank you for another vegan friendly quick, easy dinner!
Made it. Totes loved it. Will deffo make again. Thanks Beth! Instead of grabbing a carrot and head of cabbage I just grabbed a bag of coleslaw mix. So it saved the prep time too and what was leftover got made into ‘slaw. Win! :P
Great idea! I also use the salad bar idea for fried rice. It’s almost the same recipe; just use rice instead of noodles!
I LOVE this salad bar idea! Cooking for a single problem is so difficult because I rarely need or want an entire container of mushrooms. Can’t believe I’ve never heard of it before. Thanks for sharing, I’ll definitely be trying this out!
I made this tonight and it was so good! The perfect quick meal to make for myself after work when all I really wanted was to stop at McDonalds. I used coconut oil and I think it gave it a nice extra bit of flavor. I’ll be making this again for sure!
I’ve been following you for quite a while now and love how you find ways to use ingredients. Often chopped salad blends are on sale BOGO and I really like the combinations of veggies. Any chance you could find some neat ways to use them for dinners? I have tossed them into a soup (.dressing packets are thrown away)…but I’m sure you could really get creative!!! Thanks……
Interesting idea!! I’ll have to see what I can come up with. Thanks for that inspiration!
With salad bar veggies at about $7 a lb or more in my town, this isn’t the cheapest option, but definitely the fastest and easiest. The real economy comes if you won’t use up a whole bell pepper (6-10 oz for $1.79-3.99) or only want a couple of mushrooms. Fortunately in my supermarket I can get mushrooms, snowpeas, and a few other things in bulk, costing only pennies for the quantities I need. I often use the salad bar to get a handful of olives or diced ham, etc–I use it all the time for spring greens that are closer to $10 when packaged in 3 oz bags and what I will actually use before slime sets in will cost me $1 or less. The same for a handful of grape tomatoes. When time is as valuable as what actually comes out of your wallet, the salad bar is more than worth it.
Thanks, Beth, for another winner!