Name: General Tso Chicken Chow Mein
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 30 min
Cuisine: Chinese
Ingredients: 250 g (0.55 lb) chicken thigh, cut into bite sized pieces; 2 slices ginger, finely diced; 1 tbsp oyster sauce; 1 tsp chicken powder; 1 tsp Yum Yum umami seasoning (or MSG); 1 egg; 2 tbsp cornstarch; 14 to 16 dried chillies; 4 garlic cloves, finely diced; 2 tbsp oil; 1 packet chow mein noodles; 1 tbsp dark caramel; 2 tbsp soy sauce; 1 tbsp oyster sauce; 1 tsp Yum Yum umami seasoning (or MSG); 1 tsp sugar; 2 green spring onions, cut into 2 to 3 cm lengths; 2 tbsp sesame oil; Oil, for frying

Jump to Recipe·Print Recipe·Leave a Review

General Tso chicken chow mein is what happens when the best takeout chicken lands in a wok full of noodles.

Table of Contents

Most people meet General Tso chicken as heavy battered pieces sitting under a sweet glaze next to a scoop of rice. This is the wok version. The chicken gets a light egg and cornstarch coating, a fast fry until it is just golden, then it goes back into a wok of chow mein noodles with a fistful of dried chillies, garlic, dark caramel and oyster sauce.

Thirty minutes, one wok, two burners worth of noise. The trick is that the chicken and the noodles are cooked separately and only meet at the very end, so the coating stays intact instead of dissolving into the sauce. Every strand comes out mahogany brown, slippery with sesame oil, and the chillies scent the oil without setting fire to the plate. It feeds two hungry people or three polite ones.

What is General Tso chicken chow mein

General Tso chicken is an American Chinese restaurant staple: bite sized chicken, fried, then tossed through a savoury and slightly sweet sauce with a scatter of whole dried red chillies. Chow mein just means stir fried egg noodles. Put the two together and you get takeout flavour with the texture of a proper noodle plate, which beats either half on its own.

This build is closer to a Cantonese noodle house plate than a saucy restaurant dish. There is no thick cornflour gravy pooling at the bottom of the bowl. The sauce is only enough to coat, the noodles carry the colour, and the chicken keeps a light crust because it never sits in liquid. If you like Panda Express chow mien, this is the same idea with noodles doing the heavy lifting.

General Tso chicken chow mein plated on a Chinese patterned plate with dried chillies and spring onion

Where General Tso chicken comes from:

The dish is named after Zuo Zongtang, a Qing dynasty general from Hunan, but he never ate anything like it. A Hunanese chef working in Taiwan in the 1950s created the original, which was salty, sour and genuinely hot with very little sugar in it.

New York restaurants adopted it in the 1970s and sweetened it hard for an American palate, and that sweeter red glazed version is the one most of the world knows. The noodle version is a home cook invention, the sort of thing that happens when there is leftover fried chicken and a packet of chow mein in the fridge. It is not traditional and it is not pretending to be.

How to make it

Four moves. Marinate the chicken thigh with ginger, oyster sauce and seasoning, then bind it with egg and cornstarch. Fry it in hot oil until light gold and drain it well. Build the noodle base in a clean wok with dried chillies and garlic, add the noodles, then colour them with dark caramel and soy.

Bring the chicken back at the very end with the oyster sauce, sugar and umami seasoning, finish with spring onion and sesame oil, and serve it while the wok is still hot. Nothing here needs a thermometer. It needs a hot pan and a bit of confidence with the toss.

Ingredients

Chicken

Chicken thigh: Stays juicy, tender and forgiving. Breast dries out in the fryer and turns chalky once it hits the sauce, so thigh is the right call here.
Ginger: Finely diced so it disappears into the coating. It cuts the richness of the fried chicken and keeps the marinade from tasting flat.
Oyster sauce: Savoury depth and a touch of sweetness in the marinade. It also helps the coating brown faster in the oil.
Chicken powder: Concentrated savouriness. A teaspoon does more for the chicken than a tablespoon of salt would.
Yum Yum umami seasoning: Straight MSG by another name and the reason takeout tastes like takeout. Plain MSG works exactly the same way.
Egg: Binds the cornstarch to the meat so the coating clings through the fry and the toss.
Cornstarch: The crust. Two tablespoons gives a thin shell that crisps quickly and softens just enough once it meets the noodles.

Chow mein

Chow mein noodles: Fresh egg noodles are best. They are already par cooked, so they only need heat and sauce, not boiling.
Dried chillies: Fourteen to sixteen of them, left whole. Whole chillies perfume the oil and look the part without making the dish punishing.
Garlic: Four cloves, finely diced, in with the chillies. It burns in seconds at wok temperature, so it goes in with cold oil and moves constantly.
Dark caramel: This is what makes the noodles that deep brown colour. It is not the same thing as dark soy and you want it for colour more than flavour.
Soy sauce: The salt backbone. Two tablespoons is enough for a packet of noodles.
Oyster sauce: Goes in at the end with the chicken for gloss and body.
Sugar: One teaspoon. It balances the salt and helps the noodles catch colour against the hot steel.
Spring onions: Cut into finger length pieces so they stay crisp and green instead of wilting away.
Sesame oil: Off heat at the end. Cooked hard it goes bitter, added last it smells like the inside of a good noodle shop.
Oil for frying: Neutral and plenty of it. Shallow frying works if you keep the pieces moving.

Steps

Add the diced chicken thigh to a large bowl with the finely diced ginger.
Add the oyster sauce, chicken powder and Yum Yum umami seasoning.

Diced chicken thigh in a steel bowl with ginger being added for General Tso chicken chow mein

Oyster sauce and chicken powder poured over diced chicken thigh in a bowl

Crack in the egg and add the cornstarch.
Mix hard until every piece is evenly coated and the bowl looks glossy rather than wet. Leave it for ten minutes while the oil heats.

Egg cracked into seasoned chicken thigh with cornstarch for a chow mein batter

Hand mixing chicken thigh with egg and cornstarch until evenly coated

Heat oil in a wok over high heat. Add the chicken one piece at a time so it does not clump into a single raft, and fry until lightly golden and cooked through. It does not need to be shatteringly crisp because it gets tossed through noodles.
Lift the chicken out with a spider, drain it well and set it aside.

Golden fried chicken pieces draining in a wok spider strainer

In a clean wok, add fresh oil and the dried chillies over medium heat until the chillies darken a shade and the oil smells sweet.
Add the garlic and stir fry until fragrant, keeping everything moving so the garlic does not catch.

Dried red chillies frying in hot oil in a carbon steel wok

Diced garlic added to dried chillies in a wok until fragrant

Add the chow mein noodles and turn the heat to maximum. Toss to loosen the strands and coat them in the chilli oil.
Add the dark caramel and soy sauce, then keep tossing until the colour is even and there are no pale patches left.

Fresh chow mein noodles added to a wok of chillies and garlic

Return the chicken to the wok along with the oyster sauce, remaining umami seasoning and sugar. Toss over maximum heat until everything is combined and the noodles are glossy.
Add the spring onions, finish with the sesame oil, give it one last toss and serve immediately.

Fried chicken tossed back through sauced chow mein noodles in a wok

Finished General Tso chicken chow mein with spring onion and sesame oil ready to serve

Overhead shot of General Tso chicken chow mein tossed with glossy sauce and dried chillies

Easy General Tso chicken chow mein tips

Fry the chicken in batches

Adding all the chicken at once drops the oil temperature and the coating goes soggy before it can set. Two batches of 125g each holds the heat far better than one batch of 250g. Drop the pieces in one at a time for the first few seconds so they seal separately instead of welding together.

Get the wok genuinely hot before the noodles go in

The noodles want maximum heat and a dry surface. If the wok is only warm they steam, release starch and stick to the steel in a grey layer. Heat the empty wok until a bead of water skates across it and evaporates in about two seconds, then add the oil.

Dark caramel is not optional

It is what gives the noodles that deep restaurant brown, and soy sauce alone will never get you there. Add too much soy chasing the colour and the plate turns salty long before it turns dark. One tablespoon of dark caramel does the colour work, two of soy do the seasoning.

Leave the chillies whole

Whole dried chillies release aroma into the oil but very little capsaicin. Break or chop them and the seeds spill, which takes the heat from pleasant to aggressive in one move. If you want it hotter, snap two or three and leave the rest intact. The same rule applies in kung pao chicken noodles.

Serving suggestions and storage

What to serve alongside

This is a full plate on its own, so it only needs something green and sharp next to it. Garlic bok choy or blanched Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce cuts through the fried chicken nicely. If you are feeding a table, a plate of crispy sesame chicken makes a good second dish because the flavours sit close together without repeating.

Storing leftovers

Cool it fast and get it into the fridge within two hours, in a shallow container so it drops temperature quickly. It keeps for three days. The chicken will lose its crust overnight, which is normal, and the noodles will absorb most of the remaining sauce.

Reheating without turning it to mush

Skip the microwave if you can. A hot wok with a teaspoon of oil brings it back in about two minutes, and a splash of water added at the end steams the noodles loose again. Toss constantly so the noodles heat evenly instead of frying hard on one side.

Variations

Turn the heat up

Snap three or four of the dried chillies before they hit the oil, or add half a teaspoon of chilli flakes with the garlic. A spoon of chilli oil stirred in at the end adds heat without changing the balance of the sauce, since the salt and sugar stay where they are.

Change the protein

Prawns work well and need only about ninety seconds in the oil. Sliced beef is excellent if you treat it first, and the velveting chicken method keeps it tender through the second cook in the wok. Firm tofu, pressed and coated the same way, holds up better than you would expect.

Change the noodle

Fresh hokkien noodles give a thicker, chewier plate and take the dark caramel colour beautifully. Flat rice noodles work too, though they tear more easily under a hard toss, so use a gentler hand. Instant noodles, cooked one minute under the packet time, are a genuinely good weeknight shortcut.

A lighter version

Skip the deep fry, coat the chicken in just cornstarch and pan sear it in two tablespoons of oil. You lose some of the crust but keep the flavour, and the plate sits much lighter. It is the same trick that makes orange chicken work at home without a fryer full of oil.

Common mistakes to avoid

Crowding the wok

Too much in the pan at once means steam instead of sear, and steam is the enemy of every part of this dish. If your burner is weak, cook the noodles in two batches and combine them at the end. A crowded wok is the single most common reason home chow mein comes out pale and wet.

Burning the garlic

Garlic goes from fragrant to bitter in about ten seconds on maximum heat. Add it with the chillies over medium heat, not maximum, and only crank the burner once the noodles are in. Burnt garlic cannot be rescued and will taint the whole plate.

Using fridge cold noodles

Cold noodles clump and tear when they hit the wok, and they cool the pan at the worst moment. Let them sit out for twenty minutes, or rinse the block briefly under warm water and shake it dry. Loosen the strands with your fingers before they go anywhere near the heat.

Adding the sesame oil early

Sesame oil has a low smoke point and turns acrid when it is cooked hard. It goes in off the heat, or with the burner already off, as a finishing aroma. Add it at the start and you lose the smell entirely and gain a faint bitterness.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use chicken breast instead of thigh?

You can, but cut the pieces slightly larger and pull them from the oil the moment they turn gold. Breast has almost no intramuscular fat, so it goes from cooked to dry in under a minute in hot oil. Thigh gives you a much wider margin for error and more flavour for the same money.

What is dark caramel and can I substitute it?

Dark caramel, sometimes sold as caramel sauce or thick caramel colouring in Asian grocers, is a heavily reduced sugar syrup used for colour rather than sweetness. Dark soy sauce is the closest substitute, though it is saltier, so use the same volume and pull back the regular soy by a tablespoon. Without either the noodles will taste right and look pale.

Do I have to use MSG or Yum Yum seasoning?

No, and the dish still works without it. You will need slightly more oyster sauce and chicken powder to reach the same savoury depth. MSG is what gives restaurant noodles their roundness, and half a teaspoon does the job of a lot of salt.

Can I make General Tso chicken chow mein ahead of time?

You can prep everything ahead: marinate the chicken up to a day early, dice the garlic and cut the spring onions, and mix the sauces in a bowl. The cooking itself has to happen at the last minute because fried chicken and hot noodles both lose their texture on standing. Prep takes fifteen minutes, service takes eight.

Why did my noodles stick to the wok?

Either the wok was not hot enough when the noodles went in, or it is not seasoned well. Get the pan smoking, add the oil and swirl it up the sides, then add the noodles and leave them for five seconds before the first toss. A carbon steel wok with a decent patina will release noodles that a stainless pan never will.

How spicy is it with fourteen chillies?

Milder than the number suggests. Left whole, dried chillies give aroma and a background warmth rather than real burn, because the heat lives in the seeds and the membrane. Most people find it a gentle two out of five, and you can push it much higher by breaking a few open.

Get the wok hot, keep the chicken moving and serve it straight from the pan. If you make it, tell us how it went, and if you want more plates like this one try our honey chicken chow mein noodles next.

LET'S COOK RESTAURANT - QUALITY FOOD AT HOME!

If you like this yaki udon stir-fry recipe make sure you leave a rating and comment down below. I'd love to hear what you think about these stir-fried udon noodles. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube to stay up to date with new recipes and follow my cooking journey!