Chicken Lo Mein Recipe (Gluten-Free) - The Yummy Bowl (2024)

FAQs

Is lo mein usually gluten-free? ›

Avoid: soy sauce (unless labeled gluten-free), oyster sauce, hoisin sauce; dumplings, egg roll or wonton wrappers (made of wheat flour); chow mein, lo mein, or other noodles made of wheat.

Most commonly, lo mein involves chicken, beef, pork, turkey, shrimp or tofu. Sauce components: Lo mein sauce is mainly composed of sesame oil, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, garlic, ginger, oyster sauce and a dash of sugar. If you like your noodles to have a little heat, you can sprinkle in some red pepper flakes.

Give your lo mein a quick taste and adjust the seasoning to your liking. Add more salt, soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, or white pepper according to your preference. Plate your lo mein and serve with homemade chili oil or hot sauce on the side!

For the best results, never rinse the pasta after cooking, and add a generous amount of salt to the water before boiling. It tastes bad. The truth is, gluten-free pasta is nearly identical to regular pasta noodles! In fact, in blind taste tests most people we've cooked for tend to prefer the gluten-free noodles.

Know Which Dishes Are Most Likely to Be Safe

The best standby options in Chinese restaurants are chow fun (wide rice noodles) and mei fun (thin rice noodles) with vegetables or chicken, cooked with a white sauce.

The sauce is what makes this dish so addictive. It's a simple umami filled mix of light and dark soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, sugar, and a hint of ginger. It's super easy to make a batch of lo mein sauce and keep it in the fridge so you can easily make lo mein whenever the craving hits.

You want to buy an egg noodle or pasta that's relatively thin and has some tooth. Some common names will be lo mein, chow mein, egg noodles or pancit noodles. Most markets have Japanese yaki soba noodles in the cold case, and those would work perfectly.

The best substitute for lo mein noodles are chow mein noodles because they are both essentially the same thing. In fact, lo mein and chow mein dishes are famously confused for each other and, while they are two separate meals with different preparation methods, the noodles used in both are the same.

Chinese food and soups contain monosodium glutamate (MSG) as the main addictive ingredient. A sensitive individual may suffer from headache, giddiness, sweating, abdominal pain, and urticaria within a few hours of consumption of MSG.

What do they put in Chinese food to make it taste better? ›

Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) is a flavor enhancer that has been widely used for roughly 100 years ( 1 ). In addition to being naturally present in certain foods, it's a common food additive in Chinese recipes, canned vegetables and soups, and other processed goods.

Cornstarch! In his book How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, Mark Bittman recommends mixing 1-2 tablespoons of cornstarch with the same amount of water, and tossing this into the stir fry just when it's almost done. It thickens in seconds, picking up the flavors of everything already in the dish and coating evenly.

Salting pasta water is critical with wheat pasta too, but especially crucial with gluten-free. Unless made from chickpeas, gluten-free pasta can have a fairly basic taste. It's better to liven it up with some salt.

Gluten-free pasta tends to be less forgiving than regular pasta and can go from hard in the center to mushy in a matter of minutes. The cook time on the back of the package isn't always accurate. To cover your bases, set a timer for 2 minutes shy of the time called for. Taste a few noodles at this time.

Both lo mein and chow mein are made with Chinese egg noodles—wheat flour noodles with egg added. The package should say wheat and eggs. Look for or ask for “rice noodle lo mein” or make your own lo mein with rice noodle.

Honestly, no menu item is gluten free at Panda Express, nor is any menu item vegetarian, besides maybe the rice and chow mein. This is due to the vegetables and appetizers all being deep fried in the same oil as the meat entrees.

are chinese egg noodles gluten free? No, Chinese egg noodles, like other egg noodles, are not gluten-free. Egg noodles are made from semolina and durum flour, which are high in gluten. There are a few brands that offer thin gluten-free egg noodles, and Lieber's brand makes gluten-free chow mein egg noodles.

Traditional lo mein noodles are made with wheat, so they are not gluten free. Feel free to sub in rice noodles or your favorite GF spaghetti noodles to make this gluten-free! Why did you use two different types of soy sauce?