Easy Beef Lo Mein is a quick and simple, budget-friendly weeknight dinner that the whole family will love!
Tender strips of beef and noodles that come together in a delicious savory sauce that is 100% pork-free, dairy-free, and made without oyster sauce.
It’s a flavorful and filling Chinese-American style beef dinner that you can make at home in less time than it normally takes to get your takeout delivery.
And you can add your own stir-fry vegetables if you want to!
And, since this recipe skips the traditional shellfish-based ingredients and pork of the classic dish, this recipe is kosher!
Chinese food is delicious.
And the homemade version of this lo mein recipe is quick and easy to make!
You can even have it ready in less time than it normally takes to have it delivered to your door!
And no tips!
If you keep kosher, you can save a lot of money by making this flavorful dish it at home instead of eating it out!
Plus you can use up veggies in your fridge (even those that are starting to wilt) and add your own stir-fry!
Also, beef has health benefits!
A little about Chinese-American Food
Chinese-American cuisine is a style of Chinese cuisine that was developed by Chinese Americans. These dishes significantly differ from traditional Chinese dishes because Chinese-American dishes were adapted to suit American tastes.
Chinese immigrants arrived in the United States in large numbers in the mid-19th century in order to escape the economic difficulties in China, hoping to find work during the California Gold Rush and on the Central Pacific Railroad.
They mostly settled together in ghettos, individually known as Chinatown, and—since there were laws preventing them from owning their own land—they opened their own businesses, such as laundry services and restaurants.
Initially, the family-owned businesses catered to miners and railroad workers, and restaurants were set up in places where Chinese food was unknown. Food was based on the requests of the customers, and recipes were created to suit American tastes using whatever ingredients were available.
One major difference between traditional Chinese cuisine and Chinese-American cuisine is in the use of vegetables. Chinese-American recipes will use raw or uncooked ingredients and those not native to China. Traditional Chinese cuisine, on the other hand, rarely contains raw or uncooked ingredients and often uses Asian leaf vegetables.
While the new dishes were not traditional Chinese, these restaurants were responsible for the development of the ever-popular Chinese-American cuisine.
The little history of kosher Chinese-American Food
It is well known that Jews (especially those with ties to New York) love Chinese food. You can find at least one and, more often than not, several kosher Chinese restaurants in predominantly Jewish neighborhoods.
Jews as a group were probably first introduced to Chinese food in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where immigrants of various cultures settled in their own neighborhoods in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
By the early 1900s, approximately one million Jews from Eastern Europe and half a million Italians from Southern Italy shared the Lower East Side of Manhattan with only approximately 7,000 Cantonese Chinese, most of whom had moved from California.
Due to anti-Chinese laws and acts, which prevented them from competing with whites, many Chinese opened restaurants.
Jews who didn’t keep kosher would visit Chinese restaurants on Sundays.
But Jews who kept kosher weren’t introduced to the delicious dishes until decades later when Sol Bernstein—a Jewish kosher deli owner—found a solution.
Sol used Cantonese Chinese recipes and substituted kosher veal, beef, and chicken livers for the pork and was the first to begin selling the kosher Chinese food (or deli-Chinese) at his deli Schmulka Bernstein’s named after his father.
When the deli became popular because of the food, Sol felt that the name should reflect a more high-end Manhattan destination and called it “Bernstein-on-Essex.”
While the waiters were ethnically Chinese, they wore the traditional white deli coats that everyone else did, but they also wore black yarmulkas and this became the deli’s trademark.
Sol continued to sell deli while he incorporated Chinese foods into the menu and did very well. The restaurant continued to do well until his death in 1992 and then the deli was sold.
Later, a similar deli opened on Coney Avenue in Brooklyn, called Essex on Coney. Their food was delicious and we had the Bar Mitzvah dinners for two of my sons catered from there.
If you love Chinese-American food and keep kosher or just don’t eat pork, but don’t have a suitable restaurant or takeout near you, or if you just don’t want to pay the high prices they charge, then you should totally try these other easy homemade kosher Chinese-American recipes!
- Kosher Beef and Broccoli
- Kosher Chicken and Broccoli
- Kosher Mongolian Chicken
- Kosher Mongolian Beef
- Kosher Corned Beef & Cabbage Egg Rolls
- Kosher Chicken Lo Mein
- Kosher Pepper Steak
- Kosher General Tso’s Chicken
- Kosher Chicken Fried Rice
- Vegetarian Fried Rice
- Kosher Chicken Chow Mein
- Kosher Beef Chow Mein
- Kosher Egg Drop Soup
Easy Beef Lo Mein (Without Oyster Sauce)
Easy and delicious homemade beef and noodle dish made without pork, dairy, or oyster sauce. And it's kosher!
Ingredients
- 12 ounces lo mein noodles or spaghetti
- 1 - 1 1/2 pounds kosher soft meat such as rib eye, entrecote, or flank steak sliced into thin strips
- 1/2 cup soy sauce
- 1/2 cup water*
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 4 teaspoons beef bullion or chicken consommé powder*
- 2 tablespoons sesame or vegetable oil
- 1 cup bean sprouts (optional)
Instructions
- Cook lo mein or spaghetti according to instructions on package and rinse well to remove starches.
- In a pan (large enough to hold all of the noodles) on medium heat, mix water, bullion powder, 1/2 cup soy sauce, and brown sugar.
- Add beef strips and mix occasionally until strips are cooked through.
- Add in noodles and bean sprouts if desired and mix well.
- Cook on medium heat until the noodles have had a chance to absorb mixture (approximately 10 minutes).
- Add oil and mix well.
Notes
* or 1/2 cup beef bullion instead of water and powder
>>To ensure this dish is kosher, make sure that not only the beef is kosher but that there is no question about any of the other ingredients as well<<
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
4Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 276Total Fat: 12gSaturated Fat: 2gUnsaturated Fat: 10gCholesterol: 22mgSodium: 2081mgCarbohydrates: 28gFiber: 2gSugar: 11gProtein: 15g