Chicken Instant Pot Lo Mein Recipe

Instant Pot lo mein with chicken is a great dinner for the whole family! Soft flavorful noodles with vegetables all in the same bowl for this one pot meal. Make in your Ninja Foodi or pressure cooker.

Ninja Foodi Lo Mein

You can use any electric pressure cooker to make this one. Makes a great Crockpot Express recipe or make in your Ninja Foodi too. If you have a favorite sauce by all means use that. But if you need a little help there’s a light yet flavorful lo mein sauce you can follow below too.

This quick one pot meal had poultry added to it but could use thin strips of beef or left vegetarian too. You can add all sorts of vegetables but the most common are listed below. A light Asian meal we all love at restaurants but now can be made a lot cheaper at home.

Chicken Lo Mein Instant Pot

Just dice up some chicken, whisk together your sauce, and noodles will come out tender in 4 minutes! Including lots of vegetables, this dinner is just the bomb. You’ve gotta’ try it! Have leftovers and just want to use that as the main protein? That works great too.

If you forgot to defrost you can first cook frozen chicken in Instant Pot and then shred. Add that back in as directed below and off you go. Rather use beef? In that case I would slice thin so it cooks quickly. I like to marinate it first in teriyaki sauce. Saute until the outsides are no longer pink and off you go for that.

And you can skip the animal products all together too. It’s super versatile for sure. If you cannot find the “traditional noodles” you can order them online. Besides that I would use spaghetti noodles vs. egg noodles. Break into thirds and increase cook time to 8 minutes, the rest would remain the same.

The most important tip is how to add them, a criss cross pattern after being broken into smaller pieces is best. If they are already short like this you are in luck, but overlapping the least possible is best. We have made a few Asian Instant Pot dinner recipes, like this Instant Pot pulled pork recipe. It has a homemade sauce that is out of this world!

Cooking chicken in a pressure cooker works great. We have done it all. Tips for the best choices are below. Of course you can cook bone in with the skin but the cook time wouldn’t be accurate. For more of an Instant Pot stir fry of sorts you need the meat to be diced into smaller pieces like you see here. Just choose;

Ingredients

• Boneless skinless chicken breasts or chicken thighs, either way cut them into bite size pieces
• Sesame oil is the best
• Garlic minced we love
• Ginger freshly minced
• Wide lo mein noodles are best
• Vegetables – cabbage, carrot, green onion, snow peas
• Soy sauce will add the savory
• Chicken broth or vegetable stock

This will keep your meal under 30 minutes total, and easy to eat once it is done cooking.

Tips

The most important aspect of this is the ratio of pasta to liquid. You need enough for it to get tender and you should submerge it as well as you can. If you do not have enough moisture on them they will stay stiff so breaking them apart into smaller pieces is typically necessary to get the job done right.

What can you use instead of lo mein noodles?

If you absolutely cannot find these, others have found success just using spaghetti noodles, but I would add 4 minutes for this because they are a different texture. Broken into thirds will allow them to absorb the liquid better to get tender.

How do you thicken lo mein sauce?

Cornstarch is used to thicken the sauce a bit. If you cannot have this and need this to be gluten free you can omit. OR arrowroot powder has been a good alternative as well. This last step isn’t entirely necessary but if you want a richer sauce to serve it with you might like it.

You could use regular noodles for this if that is what you have on hand. If so I would increase the timing to 8 minutes since those take a bit longer to get tender.

How to Make Instant Pot Lo Mein with Spaghetti

1. Add sesame oil, chicken, minced garlic and salt and pepper to the inner pot of the Instant Pot. Saute until the chicken is white. Turn pot off.
2. Add in vegetables. Then break Chinese noodles into 3rds, put noodles on top. 
3. Whisk together in a bowl your cornstarch, soy sauce, water, and chicken stock in a bowl. Pour into your pot.
4. Push noodles down if needed so they are as submerged into the liquid as much as possible. Do NOT stir the noodles in with other ingredients.
5. Put the lid on your pressure cooker and turn the pressure valve to sealed.
6. Set to high pressure cook for 4 minutes cooking time. Do a quick release when the time has finished. 

Everything will be cooked perfectly in this short of a time. If you love this easy recipe you’ll love these other easy Ninja Foodi recipes

Serve with broccoli florets on the side and it’s a great meal. Don’t add these in at the same time because it takes longer for noodles to cook than this tender veggie. Use the same instructions below for any brand of pressure cooker. Jump to recipe below.

How to Make Spaghetti Squash Lo Mein

** Another low carb idea you could do with this is to eliminate the noodles all together. Cook the rest of the ingredients and sauce for the 4 minutes as stated. Then cook Instant Pot spaghetti squash, scrape once tender and serve those together.

Is Lo Mein Good Next Day?

Yes you can save this. If you have it with the pasta then you will definitely want to save as much of the sauce tossed with those as you can so they don’t stick. Allow what you have leftover to room temperature. Then transfer to a freezer bag or container with a lid and into the fridge it goes for up to 4 days.

It will get kinda’ a weird texture the longer it sits so 24 hours later is the best time to heat it again and eat it for another meal.

The best way to reheat lo mein

It is to first add a bit of broth, leftover sauce, or a bit of soy sauce / teriyaki to the top. Toss with the noodles to add moisture and unstick them from one another. Microwave for 45 seconds, stir, and then for another 45 or so until it is warmed to your liking. Enjoy as is or with a bed of rice on the side. I hate wasting food so I love making a second “free meal” when I can.

Other easy Asian Instant Pot recipes you’ll love

• Our Instant Pot sesame chicken has a fantastic homemade sauce to it and goes well with this dish
• Instant Pot teriyaki ribs comes out fork tender and falls off the bone cooked this way.
• This Instant Pot General Tsos chicken looks yummy too, on our menu for this week.
• Find other easy Instant Pot chicken recipes here too!