I love a great noodle stir fry, and this one has so much flavour! We don’t need to marinade the beef for this recipe - just a little sprinkling of garlic salt and black pepper, to compliment the flavour of the meat. The rest of the flavour (besides the noodles and vegetables), comes from the chow mein sauce, which is made from store-cupboard ingredients. So let’s take a look.
For The Chow Mein Sauce:
Chinese rice wine - this is made from fermented glutinous rice and has a slightly sweet flavour. You can use white rice wine, or Shaoxing rice wine (which is amber in colour and slightly richer). If you don’t have rice wine, you can replace with sherry or mirin - but use ¾ of the amount of mirin as it’s a fair bit sweeter, and we already have sweetness in the kecap manis.Kecap manis - this is a sweet soy sauce with a syrupy consistency that adds a lovely sweet and savoury flavour to sauces.Chow mein noodles - these are wheat-based noodles, often made with egg, but not always. They’re usually quite thin and pale in appearance. I buy the dried ones online, as they’re difficult to find any of my local supermarkets. You can use fine egg noodles instead, but I find them a little more eggy. If I can’t find chow mein noodles, I tend to replace with ramen noodles (from ramen noodle packets, but with the flavour sachet discarded).
👩🍳PRO TIP Place the steak in the freezer for 30-40 minutes to firm up a little. This will make it much easier to slice the steak into thin strips. I like to sprinkle with some sesame seeds, chilli flakes and chopped spring onions (scallions) before serving. Check out more tips in the recipe card below for scaling the recipe up and down and a few ingredient swap ideas. I’d love to know if you make it too! Drop me a comment below if you do 😊 Stay updated with new recipes!Subscribe to the newsletter to hear when I post a new recipe. I’m also on YouTube (new videos every week) and Instagram (behind-the-scenes stories & beautiful food photos). Some of the links in this post may be affiliate links – which means if you buy the product I get a small commission (at no extra cost to you). If you do buy, then thank you! That’s what helps us to keep Kitchen Sanctuary running. The nutritional information provided is approximate and can vary depending on several factors. For more information please see our Terms & Conditions.
