Our Instant Pot chicken lo mein is the best way to enjoy easy, healthy, and flavorful lo mein. Ready in less than 30-minutes, filled with delicious vegetables, and topped with a homemade sauce, your pressure cooker lo mein is better than take-out and a WHOLE LOTTA YUM!
Instant Pot Lo Mein
While our family may love the opportunity to grab take-out, we don't love the price or the additives. Thankfully, this instant pot chicken lo mein is not only super easy to make, it's faster than take-out and we know exactly what's in it. The only thing missing when making take-out at home is the fortune cookie. 😉
This chicken lo mein Instant Pot recipe is a one-pot dinner that is complete with both protein and veggies. Served on a bed of noodles, it's a dinner all by itself.
However, if you want to start off with an appetizer, we do recommend our egg roll in a bowl or a simple side salad.
Why You'll Love This Recipe
- Our Instant Pot chicken lo mein is a one-pot dish meaning dinner cooks up easily and cleans up just as easily.
- Utilizing the power of your pressure cooker and cooking everything together means your lo mein tastes like it has been marinating for hours.
- Ready in less than 30-minutes, instant pot chicken lo mein is perfect for those nights when dinner has to be quick and delicious.
We love using our instant pot to create authentic Asian-inspired dishes in our home! Be sure to try our Instant Pot egg drop soup, Instant Pot teriyaki chicken drumsticks, and Asian BBQ instant pot beef ribs.
Be sure to download the Instant Pot Cheat Sheets when you join our recipe email list!
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Ingredient Notes
Your instant pot chicken lo mein is going to need a few ingredients, a few minutes of your time, and a few family members to help you enjoy this dish!
- spaghetti - broken in half
- hoisin sauce
- chicken broth
- soy sauce
- toasted sesame oil
- minced ginger
- garlic cloves - minced
- onion - thinly sliced
- mushrooms - thinly sliced
- sliced carrots
- broccoli florets
- sugar snap peas - halved
- chicken thighs - cut into bite-sized strips
Variations
Vegetables - For our recipe, we are using traditional chicken lo mein vegetables. Feel free to swap or substitute veggies as you see fit.
Chicken - If you prefer, chicken breast, either cubed or sliced thinly, can be used in place of thighs.
Equipment
A Pressure Cooker - This is the qt Instant Pot model that we used.
Diet Adaptions
- Vegan - Skip the chicken and add more veggies. Use vegetable broth instead of chicken broth.
- Gluten-Free - As tempting as it may be, do NOT swap gluten-free pasta in this recipe, it doesn't cook the same length of time in an Instant Pot as regular spaghetti noodles.
Step by Step Instructions
While your instant pot chicken lo mein is super simple, you do need to follow the steps and resist the urge to stir. 😉
Prep Ingredients
Thinly slice your vegetables and chicken. Mince the garlic and ginger. Gather the remaining ingredients.
Assemble
In this order add the chicken broth, hoisin sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil, minced ginger, and minced garlic to the Instant Pot.
Give the sauce a gentle stir.
Break the spaghetti noodles in half. Place half of the noodles going one direction and the other half of the noodles going the other direction, making a criss-cross pattern.
Gently press the spaghetti noodles down into the liquid, but do not stir.
Add the chicken, onion, mushrooms, and carrots on top of the chicken and do not stir. (***TIP: The reason you don't want to stir is that mixing all of the ingredients together at this point could cause a burn signal and mess up the dish.)
Pressure Cook
Put the lid on the Instant Pot and Pressure Cook manually for 4 minutes.
Do a Quick Release of the pressure.
Add Remaining Veggies
Open your pressure cooker and add the broccoli florets and sugar snap peas. Combine all of the ingredients together.
Turn the Instant Pot off, put the lid back on the pot and let the dish "rest" for 5 minutes.
Enjoy! Serve as a one pot meal or with a salad or other Asian sides.
Recipe Tips
- After you combine the sauce, refrain from stirring as you layer in the remaining ingredients. We found that any additional stirring would cause a burn notice on our pressure cooker.
- While some vegetables do need to cook for the 4 minutes of pressure cooking, softer vegetables do not. If you include all of the vegetables during the pressure cook stage, the softer ones will end up soggy.
- There may be some liquid left in your instant pot after cooking, but the noodles will continue to cook during the 5-minute rest and absorb the remaining liquid.
- While it may be tempting to use a thinner noodle, such as thin spaghetti or angel hair, those noodles have not been tested and most likely will overcook.
Common Questions
While your instant pot chicken lo mein is a full meal by itself, feel free to serve a side salad, egg roll in a bowl, or egg drop soup alongside.
Stored in an airtight container, your chicken lo mein instant pot recipe will keep for 4-5 days in the fridge, however, the veggies will soften.
The difference between lo mein and chow mein has to do with how the noodles get prepared. Lo mein means tossed or stirred noodles, so they get cooked and then tossed with veggies. Chow mein noodles are pan-fried.
More Instant Pot Chicken Recipes
Are you looking for more Instant Pot chicken recipes?
- Instant Pot teriyaki chicken drumsticks
- Chicken taco soup (Instant Pot)
- Chicken pozole Instant Pot recipe
- White chicken chili Instant Pot recipe
Come connect with us on Instagram! Be sure to tag us (wholelotta.yum) when you make a recipe. You can also find us on Facebook, and Pinterest.
Instant Pot Chicken Lo Mein
Easy chicken lo mein in an Instant Pot makes for a quick and family-friendly one pot main dish meal.
Ingredients
- ½ lb spaghetti, broken in half
- 3 tablespoon hoisin sauce
- 2 cups chicken broth
- 2 tablespoon soy sauce
- 2 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
- 2 tablespoon minced ginger
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- ½ large onion, thinly sliced
- 5-6 mushrooms, thinly sliced
- ½ cup sliced carrots
- 1 cup broccoli florets
- 1 cup sugar snap peas, halved
- 1 lb chicken thighs, cut into bite-sized strips
Instructions
In this order add the chicken broth, hoisin sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil, minced ginger, and minced garlic to the Instant Pot. Give the sauce a gentle stir.
Break the spaghetti noodles in half and place half of the noodles going one direction and the other half of the noodles going the other direction, making a criss-cross pattern. Gently press the spaghetti noodles down into the liquid, but do not stir.
Add the chicken, onion, mushrooms, and carrots on top of the chicken and do not stir. (TIP: The reason you don't want to stir is that mixing all of the ingredients together at this point could cause a burn signal and mess up the dish.)
Put the lid on the Instant Pot and Pressure Cook manually for 4 minutes. Do a Quick Release of the pressure.
Add the broccoli florets and sugar snap peas and combine all of the ingredients together. Turn the Instant Pot off, put the lid back on the pot and let the dish "rest" for 5 minutes.
Enjoy! Serve as a one-pot meal or with a salad or other Asian sides.
Notes
It's easy to adapt the recipe and use a variety of vegetables. The firmer/thicker vegetables should get added to the pot along with the chicken. If you're adding quick-cooking veggies or thin vegetables like matchstick carrots, you'll add them at the end with the broccoli and sugar snap peas.
Many vegetables only take 1 minute to cook in an Instant Pot, like broccoli, you CAN add them with the chicken but it would turn out very soft or mushy instead of being crisp tender.
Chicken breast cubes can be substituted for the chicken thighs.
We recommend using spaghetti noodles for the Instant Pot version since making this recipe with lo mein noodles or angel hair pasta has not been tested.
The noodles were al dente and there liquid in the bottom of the pot, by the time the dish was served, all liquid was absorbed and the noodles were perfect!
include: differences between lo mein and chow mein
Nutrition Information
Yield 6 Serving Size 1Amount Per Serving Calories 294Total Fat 13gSaturated Fat 3gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 9gCholesterol 99mgSodium 884mgCarbohydrates 23gFiber 3gSugar 6gProtein 23g
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