Vegetable Lo Mein
Hello friends. Mr. Yum here again with another “Matt’s Meals” post.
As some of you may know, I have been going to respiratory school for the past two years and have been extremely busy. Since graduation, I have found that I have more time to do what I love more often….Cook. I enjoy making dishes for my lovely wife, but I also enjoy taking the dishes to my dad’s house and cooking my entourage of Asian inspired dishes that he loves as well.
Today I have taken it upon myself to break out of the “meat mold” and to make a vegetable dish that my wife and other meatless enthusiasts will enjoy.
Lo Mein (cantonese lou minh) or “stirred noodles” is a dish that encompasses all the things I love. Noodles, soy sauce, and vegetables. I am easy to please as long as there’s noodles.
I found this recipe on YouTube while I was trying to work on my wok skills and find easy recipes from an obvious trained professional.
I modified this slightly, which I will address in the recipe, but I do mean slightly. This is definitely NOT my original recipe, but eventually I will most likely hone it down into something that’s more my own….but not today.
First things first, cook the noodles.
Cook the noodles in lightly salted water until the noodles are “al dente” or just slightly chewy and not squishy. That is how I like them, but it may vary on your taste.
Rinse the noodles under cold water to prevent them from further cooking, and add the vegetable oil to coat the noodles. This flavors them a bit, and also keeps them separated as they will wait on the side until we are ready to add them back to the dish.
Next we prepare the sauce.
Cut the green onions as you see fit, or as in the video. I prefer the video style as it’s more authentic and awesome. Peel the ginger and grate it until it’s about 1 tbs. The guy in the video is way better at cutting and preparing than I am, so if you are like me just cut how you need to.
The Soy sauce, sugar, dark soy sauce, cooking wine, oyster sauce, sesame oil, and white pepper are all added to the ginger and green onion. I used 2 tsp of dark soy sauce instead of 1 tsp and my dark soy sauce wasn’t mushroom flavored as explained in the video, still tasted awesome.
The veggies
The veggies that you use really depend on what you prefer, and it really doesn’t matter as long as you like what you use. I used the standard carrot and celery but added a little white onion and replaced the napa cabbage with some purple and white kale that I got fresh from the farmers market. It really didn’t make any difference as I prefer kale to cabbage. I also didn’t use the bamboo shoots or bean sprouts as I don’t care for them, and I left out the broccoli and snow peas as well. Mostly because I only eat raw broccoli and didn’t have any snow peas.
Cut the vegetables as you see fit once again (not all of us have ninja cutting skills like the guy in the video).
Boiling the noodles again for a few seconds right before you cook them is a good idea but I didn’t do that either as I immediately cooked the mixture after cooking the noodles.
The cooking
The best part!
In a wok that has been heated until smoking add the vegetable oil. Once coated, turn the fire off and add the garlic. Once the garlic is fragrant turn the heat back on and add the vegetables.
Cook the veggies for about 30-45 seconds on high heat and add the noodles.
Toss the noodles for another minute or two and add the sauce in small amounts.
Make sure to sample the noodles for the amount of sauce that you prefer, add more if needed.
Maintain cooking for another few minutes until the desired consistency of the vegetables and noodles are achieved.
NOTE: Not everyone has a commercial wok and heating surface that the guy in the video does, so cooking times and consistencies may vary depending on what you use to cook the dish. A wok and a gas stove with a power burner are preferred, but I just use a little longer cooking time with my wok on electric stove setup.
Vegetable Lo Mein
Ingredients
- Noodles. Use any you wish but actual Lo Mein noodles are preferred. I used Soba noodles.
- 1 Tbsp Vegetable oil to coat noodles
- 1 Tbsp Vegetable oil to cook vegetables to coat wok or pan. You can add more to start, but reduce to 1 tbsp to cook veggies.
- ---------------------------------------------------------
- Vegetables: what I used, use what you want. Preferred ratio for veggies/noodle mix is 3:1 noodles to veggies.
- 1-2 Cloves Garlic
- 1 Tbsp Ginger
- 1/2 cup Celery
- 1/2 cup Carrot
- 2 Tbs green onion
- 1/2 cup Purple Kale
- 1/2 cup White Kale
- 1/2 white onion
- ------------------------------
- Sauce
- Light Soy Sauce - 10 tsp
- Dark Soy Sauce - 2 tsp
- White Sugar - 5-6 tsp
- Cooking Wine - 6 tsp
- Oyster Sauce - 5 tsp
- White Pepper - 1 tsp to taste
Instructions
- In a wok that has been heated until smoking add the vegetable oil. Once coated, turn the fire off and add the garlic.
- Once the garlic is fragrant turn the heat back on and add the vegetables.
- Cook the veggies for about 30-45 seconds on high heat and add the noodles.
- Toss the noodles for another minute or two and add the sauce in small amounts.
- Make sure to sample the noodles for the amount of sauce that you prefer, add more if needed.
- Maintain cooking for another few minutes until the desired consistency of the vegetables and noodles are achieved.
Notes
This looks delicious! Thank you for linking up to Creative K Kid’s Tasty Tuesdays. I have pinned your post (or recipe) to the Tasty Tuesdays Pinterest Board.
Thanks so much!
I love Lomein! Thank you for linking up to Creative K Kid’s Tasty Tuesdays. I have pinned your post (or recipe) to the Tasty Tuesdays Pinterest Board.
We eat lots of Asian food in our house & this is definitely something that would be a huge hit with us!
This looks really tasty.I would love to try this.
This looks so good! And since noodles are involved, I know my toddler will eat it. WIn-win!
Perfect!
Your veggie lo mein looks really good. I want it for dinner now.
Thanks! If you make it, I hope you enjoy.
I am loving all the vegetables!
I love lo mein! It’s been a while since I had it, so your post made me want to have it again soon!
See, its a good think you stopped by today, right? 🙂
Nom nom! I could eat Asian cuisine every day of the week. I should just move. LOL
Mr. yum says that all the time!
I love cooking with a wok. This looks really tasty.
If you give it a try, please let us know.
I love good lo mein, but I’ve never tried making it myself! I might be able to pull this off, despite my mediocre kitchen skills.
It is a lot easier than it seems.
YUM! We have a wok and never use it!
I say – dust that baby off!!
That looks very delicious. I eat mostly raw now, but I remember how much I loved eating Chinese foods
Thats amazing. I am so amazed by those who eat raw.
I am grateful for the lo mein education! I had no idea everything that went into this dish. By the way, my spouse’s new favorite is vegetable chow fun, without the vegetables! We all joke that this new dish is called blank!
Mitch
Thats hilarious Mitch!
I love lo mein! This looks easy enough to make at home. Yum!
Super easy! Even I can do it and I am not a fan of making oriental dishes at all!
I love Lo Mein but I have never made it at home. I might have to try it.
I hope you do Pam!
This looks really delicious. I am pinning now 🙂 I love trying new recipes and this one looks pretty easy and really yummy.
Thank you so much for the pin!
Although I eat meat, 9 times out of 10 I choose to eat vegetarian. This looks so good, and I pinned it!
I am very much like that. I prefer a mostly vegetable platter with a little protein of some sort.
This recipe looks easy enough for ME And I am not a good cook at all. LOL. Thanks for sharing. Checking out he video now
It is one of the simpler ones. I quite enjoy it.
I like that you can adapt it to the veggies you like. This looks really good.
Yes, that works very well in our house!
Sounds delish! I have to do all our cooking of asian dishes since my hubs can’t have anything with regular soy sauce (has Celiac and can’t have gluten). I didn’t realize that you cook the noodles first like any other pasta.
I love me some lo mein! Thank you for the recipe- I will have to do a gluten-free version soon!
I would love to see your recipe/creation!
You never fail to amazing me with your cooking! I wish I could truly get a sample one day…I love the presentation and now I am craving noodles!
I am sure the Mr. would thank you!
Delicious recipe! This looks so yummy!
Thank you!
Beautiful dish, I can’t wait to try the recipe. Pinning to Pinterest!
Thank you very much for the pin!
i wonder if regular spaghettinoodles would work. My kids would love lo mein, my husband doesn’t though so we’ll have to have this on a night he’s not home
You could just about use any sort of round or flat noodle.
I’d certainly like to give this a try! Sounds awesome.
I hope you do Krystal and let me know how it works out for you!
This looks 100x better than the fast food places. I LOVE LOVE LOVE lo mein!
it tastes so much better too. doesnt have that greasy taste.
This looks awesome! I love lo mein, but have never made it. We’ll have to try this.
I hope you do someday!
I have to admit, I’ve always been intimidated by Lome in dishes because they seemed so labor intensive! I don’t think this recipe is too much at all though.
They can be if you are like my husband and are one of those people that make a mountain out of a molehill. He tends to make things much more difficult than they are. This recipe is actually super simple, even I can do it. And I am not really one for cooking oriental foods.
We love lo mein in our house but we just can’t get it to turn out right. I think we need to get ourselves a Wok 😉
I think that would help you out a great deal!
I would love for my hubby to make this for us. We don’t eat much Asian food in our house but this is definitely something that would be a huge hit with me…but not sure about the rest
I don’t eat much either but this one might be my new fave.
My husband loves ANY dish that has noodles so I know he’ll be all over this recipe! It looks delicious, and so easy to make too!
My husband is the same 😉 Oh, and rice.
I love Lo mein, and that looks so good! Thanks for linking up to the Bloggers Brags Pinterest Party. I have pinned it to the Bloggers Brags Pinterest Board.
That’s one of my favorite dishes… to order. That looks so good!
I agree with that. Not my think to cook. Thats why I leave it to the Mr.
This lo mein recipe seems really nice I made a lo mein for my family tonight and would like to try this recipe