Healthier Instant Pot Lo Mein
Now that you have the low-down on cooking noodles in the Instant Pot, Instant Pot Lo Mein is about to be your next go-to. There’s no draining, nothing hard at all involved with throwing together this pressure cooker Asian dish.
If you’re not familiar with the dish, Chinese lo mein is a noodle dish that is like a stir-fry. If you get lo mein Chinese takeout, you normally get a lot of oil. This Instant Pot lo mein version does not require you to cook in oil. I like to think of this dish as a healthy lo mein meal.
I love how soft the veggies come out, all the flavors sealed in from the Instant Pot. Because some vegetables cook too quickly, you only need to use longer cooking veggies such as mushrooms, cabbage, and bok choy.
How to Make Instant Pot Lo Mein
To make pressure cooker lo mein, you want to turn on your Instant Pot to sauté mode. Once hot, add in sesame oil and your garlic and brown it (not to burn) to a light brown.
Turn off the instant pot and add in the noodles. Make sure you evenly lay the noodles across the bottom of your inner pot. On top of the noodles, place your vegetables.
Take a medium mixing bowl and mix together with a whisk, the chicken broth (or vegetable broth), soy sauce, ginger, oyster sauce, rice wine, and brown sugar.
You can taste test the sauce and add in more brown sugar or more soy sauce, depending on how you like it. Add the sauce into the pot.
Close the lid on your pressure cooker or Instant Pot, set the valve to sealing, and set to manual high pressure for 5 minutes.
Right when the timer goes off do a quick release. Note: DO NOT do natural release, or else everything will be soggy and overcooked.
Remove the lid and you’ll see that the noodles look watery. Don’t worry. You just need to stir them a bit and everything will even out and the water will evaporate.
Get ready to serve your Instant Pot lo mein in a big bowl and enjoy!
Instant Pot Lo Mein Beef
If you want to add beef, follow the instructions for my Instant Pot beef and broccoli (just the beef part) and cook with the additional ingredients (without the gravy).
Instant Pot lo mein with beef should start like this:
- Turn Instant Pot on sauté mode. Start off by seasoning the beef.
- Once inner pot is hot, drizzle avocado oil in the inner pot then brown the meat for a couple of minutes in batches to prevent overcrowding. Move the browned meat to a separate plate.
- Cook the garlic in sesame oil and continue the lo mein recipe from here.
Instant Pot Lo Mein with Chicken
To make Instant Pot lo mein with chicken, do the same steps as above, but with cut-up chicken breast.
Cooking with Instant Pot Pressure Cookers
Getting the hang of your pressure cooker or Instant Pot doesn’t take long. I suggest the Instant Pot Duo Evo Plus or Instant Pot Duo. For more pressure cookers or Instant Pot products, check out our reviews and guides. For more recipes, check out our recipes page. Happy cooking!
Instant Pot Lo Mein (Healthy)
Notes
DO NOT do natural release, or else everything will be soggy and overcooked.
Ingredients
- 1 garlic clove minced
- 1 tbsp of sesame oil
- 8 oz of spaghetti pasta broken in half
- 1 cup of snow peas trimmed
- 1 cup of broccoli florets
- Optional: Desired amount of Bok Choy
- 2 carrots peeled and sliced into matchsticks
- 1 1/2 cups of chicken broth
- 1 tsp of grated ginger
- 2 tbsp of low sodium soy sauce
- 1 tbsp of oyster sauce
- 1 tbsp of rice wine
- 1 tbsp of light brown sugar
Instructions
- To make pressure cooker lo mein, you want to turn on your Instant Pot to sauté mode. Once hot, add in sesame oil and your garlic and brown it (not to burn) to a light brown.
- Turn off the instant pot and add in the noodles. Make sure you evenly lay the noodles across the bottom of your inner pot.
- On top of the noodles, place your vegetables.
- Take a medium mixing bowl and mix together with a whisk, the chicken broth (or vegetable broth), soy sauce, ginger, oyster sauce, rice wine, and brown sugar. You can taste test the sauce and add in more brown sugar or more soy sauce, depending on how you like it. Add the sauce into the pot.
- Close the lid on your pressure cooker or Instant Pot, set the valve to sealing, and set to manual high pressure for 5 minutes.
- Right when the timer goes off do a quick release. Note: DO NOT do natural release, or else everything will be soggy and overcooked.
- Remove the lid and you’ll see that the noodles look watery. Don’t worry. You just need to stir them a bit and everything will even out and the water will evaporate.
- Get ready to serve your Instant Pot lo mein in a big bowl and enjoy!
