Beef Lo Mein is a Chinese takeout favorite. This recipe makes it an easy homemade dinner with tender steak, flavorful sauce, egg noodles, and vegetables.
Just like Chicken Lo Mein, this is a simple Weeknight Meal that the whole family will love. It’s an easy recipe to stir-fry and quicker than ordering take-out.
BEEF LO MEIN
Lo Mein is a stir-fried noodle dish. Thick noodles are combined with your favorite veggies in a savory sauce to make a quick and easy dish. It’s a great recipe for the next time you need a fast, crowd-pleasing dinner. Cook your veggies, noodles and meat in one big pan and have the whole meal ready in no time!
You can serve your noodles and beef as the main course or on the side other go-to Chinese recipes. Make an at home Chinese buffet with easy recipes for Kung Pao Chicken, Orange Chicken, and Beijing Beef.
WHAT TO SERVE WITH BEEF LO MEIN
Spicy Chinese Sichuan Green Beans
Panda Express Super Greens (Copycat)
Chinese Fried Rice (10 Minutes!)
Crab Rangoon
What’s the difference between Lo Mein and Chow Mein?
If you’ve tried our recipe for Chow Mein, you may be wondering what the difference is in these dishes. Both Lo Mein and Chow Mein are made with egg noodles that are stir fried with vegetables in a sauce. However, their texture is the key difference.
Once you parboil the noodles, the preparation for the two dishes changes. For Lo Mein you set the noodles aside while you prepare the veggies and beef. However, with Chow Mein, the key is stir-frying the noodles along with the other ingredients. This cooks the noodles to a nice crispy texture. In Lo Mein you only cook the noodles with the rest of the ingredients long enough for them to soak up the flavors of the sauce, but the noodles remain soft.
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VARIATIONS ON BEEF LO MEIN
- Meat: Instead of making Lo Mein Noodles with beef, try preparing your dish with shrimp, pork, or chicken.
- Broccoli Lo Mein: If you would prefer a vegetarian Lo Mein dish, prepare your Lo Mein Noodles with broccoli florets instead of meat. Cook the broccoli with your other vegetables until just softened, but still nice and crisp. The broccoli will go great with the sauce and make an easy vegetarian alternative to beef or other meats.
- Noodles: Although you can’t just use any noodles for stir-fried dishes, you can exchange the egg noodles for rice noodles. Be sure to steer clear of anything like spaghetti noodles in your Beef Lo Mein.
- Sauce: For more flavors to add to the marinate try adding in hoisin sauce, red pepper flakes, black pepper, or even brown sugar to give the sauce a slightly sweet flavor.
- Vegetables: There are so many different vegetables you can toss in your wok along with the beef, noodles, and other vegetables. Chopped Bell pepper, snow peas, broccoli, or scallions would all make a great additions.
MORE CLASSIC TAKEOUT RECIPES
Easy Sesame Chicken
General Tso’s Chicken
Panda Express Orange Chicken (Copycat)
Easy Mongolian Beef
HOW TO STORE BEEF LO MEIN
- Serve: Once cooked, don’t leave your beef and noodles at room temperature for more than 2 hours.
- Store: Keep your beef and noodles in the fridge for 3 to 4 days. Let the Beef Lo Mein cool to room temperature before storing it in an airtight container and putting it in the fridge.
- Freeze: To keep Beef Lo Mein longer, store it in the freezer for 2-3 months. Let the beef and noodles cool to room temperature, then store them in a freezer bag or other airtight container to keep in the freezer.
Ingredients
- 10 ounces Chinese egg noodles
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 2 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce
- 1 pound flank steak
- 2 tablespoons canola oil
- 1 teaspoon minced ginger
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 3/4 cup water
- 1/4 cup low sodium soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 1 carrot , julienned
- 1/2 cup onion , sliced
- 2 stalks celery
- 1 cup bean sprouts
Instructions
- Cook the egg noodles one minute shy of the directions.
- Drain and toss with sesame oil in a bowl to coat.
- Add vegetable oil and soy sauce to steak and marinade for 15 minutes.
- Heat canola oil in a large skillet or wok over high heat.
- Cook the steak slices in batches for 3-4 minutes on each side until cooked through.
- Remove steak from the pan and add in the ginger and garlic and cook them for 30 seconds until fragrant.
- Add in the water, soy sauce, cornstarch, vegetable oil and oyster sauce into the skillet.
- Add in the carrot, onion and celery and cook for 1-2 minutes before adding back in the steak and egg noodles.
- Add in the bean sprouts, toss all the ingredients together well and serve.
Nutrition
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So easy and so good. Don’t skip any steps, like oiling the noodles after cooking. Also make extra sauce, it’s delicious.
recipe was not clear at all. Had a hard time with it.
the noodles, vegetables and sauce werent divided in the recipe so you didn’t know what oil was for what.
i am so sorry you had a hard time Nancy! What would you suggest so that others don’t have a tough time?
I want to try this recipe, but I am allergic it fish. Is there a good substitute for oyster sauce?
Hi there, there are many replacement options for the sauce. They would be Soy sauce, Hoisin sauce, Worcestershire sauce with soy sauce, Teriyaki sauce and/or Mushroom sauce.
hope this helps !!
Leanna, there are vegetarian “oyster sauce” varieties out there. The one that I prefer is Lee Kum Kee. It is available in most Asian markets and I’m sure online as well.
The recipe was good. I would like to suggest to put the ingredients for the marinade separate from the sauce as their are 2 sets of measurements for low sodium soy sauce.
So, who knew that bean sprouts are hard to find when you live in the middle of rural western Maryland!? Do you have a suggestion for what I could use instead? Bok choy or Napa cabbage maybe? I’d love that fresh crunch, but am a bit unsure what to use…
I havent tested it with anything else but those sound like they could work!
Stacy, try thin slice cabbage. Also, try to get your local Walmart to get them in or go to a Chinese restaurant and ask if you might purchase some from them!
OMG! This meal was FABULOUS! A little background: My son, age 24, has never had Chinese food. He has a severe (anaphylactic) allergy to sesame seed. We’d pretty much decided he’d never be able to taste it…until now! I started with your Sesame Chicken recipe, and I substituted the sesame oil for perilla oil. You had to see the look on his face when he tasted it! (We’ve had to rename it Tempura Chicken, just so he doesn’t get skeeved out.) I was thrilled to finally be able to feed him something that tasted exactly the same as takeout! Not wanting to be a one-trick-pony, I then moved on to the beef lo mein, which I just made 30 minutes ago. SUCCESS #2! Absolutely delicious! We’re now discussing all the other things he hasn’t had the chance to eat, so thank you! I’m only an intermediate cook and I found your directions succinct and easy to follow. You have made my YEAR with your recipes! Thank you again~
That’s amazing to hear! Thank you!!!
Wow, I couldn’t be happier to see how these recipes have been a positive influence for your family’s life. I am so enamored with the love you’re putting into cooking for your family, it makes my heart want to burst. Thank you!
Really simple and delicious beef lo mein. This is my first attempt with beef and with lo mein noodles but the results are fantastic because the directions are so easy to follow. I’m getting better at cooking with a wok and this recipe is now in my rotation. Now I’m looking at all your other recipes and the website for more ideas. Thanks!
Great job, Dan! I look forward to seeing you around the site.
In the ingredients you have celery and in the instructions there is no mention of celery. It says to add cabbage. In the marinade you say to add 2 T soy sauce with sesame oil. In the instructions 37 you say to add water soy sauce, cornstarch, vegetable oil and oyster sauce into the skillet. I already used the soy sauce. I am not an amateur home cook, but your directions are not good!
Wow, I really needed another pot of coffee before posting this one. Thank you for letting me know of all of the issues.
You have some errors in your recipe for Beef Lo Mein. Cabbage is not listed in your recipe ingredients and a little confusing to follow. It was good though.
Thank you for informing me. I’ve adjusted the recipe card to read correctly now.
Question?
Cabbage or celery?
Or both?
Cabbage not in ingredients list?
You could actually use either but I ended up using celery. I’ve adjusted the recipe card to read correctly now. Thanks!
On the list of ingredients, y’all left off the amount/type of cabbage.
I ended up using celery so I’ve edited it to read correctly now.
Sounds delish, Sabrina, But in your directions, you mention cabbage, yet in your list of ingredients, there is no cabbage. Could you please clarify this?
Thank you!
I decided to use celery instead of cabbage. Thanks for letting me know that needed to be corrected.
Hi,
Thanks for the recipe which looks great…
In instruction 8 you wrote: “Add in the carrot, onion and CABBAGE and cook for 1-2 minutes…”
The cabbage wasn’t mentioned amongst the ingredients — while the celery stokes ingredient wasn’t mentioned in the Instructions…
I believe it was just a typo error…
Kindly clarify…
Thanks again,
Uri Barlev in Tel Aviv, Israel
It definitely was an error. So sorry about that. I’ve edited it now so hopefully you decide to try it.
You have the very best website I have ever come across. Best of all, you have THE VERY BEST RECIPES! Super easy to follow as well as being really good!!!
Thank you so much, Deena.
The ingredients do not include cabbage but the directions do so if included, what kind of cabbage?
I decided to use celery instead of the cabbage. Sorry about the confusion.
Thanks for posting and sharing with us. We love your Chinese dishes, and we plan to make this soon. Hope your holidays were good. Myself, Family, and everyone appreciates Sabrina and all that she does with Dinner-Then-Dessert.
Thank you so much!
#8 states add in cabbage, but it is not listed in the ingredients, how much cabbage and what type of cabbage
recipe looks delicious, will be trying it
I ended up using celery for this recipe. I hope you enjoy it!
This looks delicious, but the cabbage isn’t addressed in the recipe.
Please correct! Thank you.
It’s been corrected, thank you!