Soy Sauce Chow Mein 豉油皇炒麵 (Cantonese: see yau wong chau meen) is a very popular Cantonese dish. People eat it for breakfast or lunch with congee, Chinese donuts and steamed rice rolls. I remember as a kid when we visited Hong Kong, street vendors would sell these noodles from a cart. You would eat it out of a plastic bag with chop sticks. It was so interesting to me but for fear of getting food poisoning, my mom never let me try 😞.
The term, “see yau wong” literally translates to “soy sauce king”. Which really means that it’s an enhanced soy sauce. In other words, it's a sweet soy sauce. In Cantonese cooking, we often use this sweet soy sauce for seafood, especially prawns and lobster. I think making a bed of Soy Sauce Chow Mein 豉油皇炒麵 and then adding a stir-fried ginger and green onion lobster on top of it would be a very delicious way of serving lobster.
Soy Sauce Chow Mein 豉油皇炒麵 is a very simple dish, but generally it should have some key ingredients, besides the soy sauce. In Hong Kong, yellow chives are a must. In Guangzhou, garlic chives seem to be more popular. But both styles will use bean sprouts, shallots and green onions. Yellow chives are basically garlic chives grown without sunlight. They are used in smaller quantities like a herb and garlic chives are eaten as a vegetable. Yellow chives here in Vancouver are very expensive! They’re usually between $12 to $15 per pound. So I can really only afford to eat it sparingly anyways!
In my Soy Sauce Chow Mein 豉油皇炒麵, I’ll show you how to make it authentically. A wok that can be used with high heat will definitely help you get the “wok hei” you need to get the genuine Cantonese flavour. If you don’t have one yet, you can check out the one I got from Amazon here. It’s one of the best pieces of kitchen equipment I have and one of the cheapest ones too!
Joyce Chen , Classic Series Carbon Steel Wok Set, 4-Piece, 14-Inch, Charcoal
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Looking for more popular Hong Kong recipes? Check out my section here.
Soy Sauce Chow Mein 豉油皇炒麵
Ingredients
- 300 g Egg noodles
- 100 g Bean sprouts
- 50 g Chinese chives (yellow chives)
- 2 stalks Green onions
- 2 Red chilis
- 1 Shallot
- 1 ½ tbsp Light soy sauce
- 1 tbsp Dark soy sauce
- 1 tbsp Oyster sauce
- 2 tsp Sugar
- ¼ tsp White pepper powder
- 3 tbsp Oil
Instructions
- Remove the tops and bottoms of the bean sprouts. Use only the middle section
You can also use the whole bean sprout but it’s not how most restaurants serve it - Slice chilis and shallots into thin slices
- Cut Chinese chives into 5 cm pieces
- Cut green onions into 5 cm pieces. Put the white parts with the shallots and green parts with Chinese chives
you can put some of the red chilies with the Chinese chives which gets put into the wok last so that you’ll have some bright red colour in your finished dish 
- Prepare egg noodles as per the instructions on the packaging
- Dry egg noodles in a colander
- Combine 1 ½ tbsp light soy sauce, 1 tbsp dark soy sauce, 1 tbsp oyster sauce, 2 tsp sugar and ¼ tsp white pepper powder in a bowl, mix well and set aside
- Heat wok to high heat. Add 1 tbsp oil
- Fry shallots, white parts of green onions and chilis until aromatic and remove from wok
- Add bean sprouts and fry for 30 seconds and remove from wok
- Add 2 tbsp oil to wok
- Add egg noodles to the wok
- Pour the sauce into the wok
- Toss the noodles with chopsticks or tongs to separate the noodles and help coat the noodles with the sauce for approx. 3 minutes
- Add the shallots, chilis and beansprouts back into the wok and toss with the noodles for 1 minute
- Add green onions and Chinese chives. Toss again for 30 seconds and turn off heat
- Serve
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