Inside: A few veggies, leftover pasta and a sauce made with a handful of pantry staples come together to make this quick and easy Veggie Lo Mein. Get dinner on the table in fifteen minutes or less AND use up leftovers that would otherwise rot in the fridge. #winning
My kids eat a lot of angel hair pasta with freshly grated parmesan cheese. Not the Kraft parmesan in the jar – nope. Only freshly grated from a wedge of parmesan for these kids. So bougie, I know.
As good as I am an estimating portion sizes, there is often leftover pasta, which they refuse to eat because alright, I’ll agree with them (begrudgingly): reheated plain pasta without sauce just isn’t the same.
Depending on the week, that leaves me with A LOT of leftover angel hair pasta in the fridge, and your girl can only eat so much pasta and sauce.
So I started brainstorming what meals I could make with all that leftover spaghetti (that I actually wanted to eat), and I decided to merge a recipe I loved with a few veggies I always have on hand.
And this easy veggie lo mein was born.
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15 Minute Veggie Lo Mein (Easy Dinner? Yes, Please!)
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The original inspiration for this recipe came from Damn Delicious. Her easy lo mein recipe was super yummy and didn’t require fresh ginger (which I can’t be bothered to remember to buy). But I’ve always been a double the sauce kind of girl, so I started adjusting the recipe from the beginning.
And much as peppers and mushrooms are tasty…1) I don’t always have them on hand, 2) chopping the peppers is extra work, and 3) my family always complains when I cook mushrooms.
So I scaled back the veggies to just onions, garlic and spinach to make it as easy as possible. I always have onions in the pantry, minced garlic in the fridge and frozen baby spinach in the freezer.
(Side note: Keeping spinach in the freezer actually eliminates the need to chop it up! You just squeeze the bag and it crumbles easily.)
The only bit of prep work this recipe requires is slicing the onion and mixing up the sauce from basic pantry staples. That’s my kind of easy.
If we have Trader Joe’s orange chicken in the freezer to go with it, even better! This lo mein plus orange chicken sends me right back to the food court Panda Express in college. YUM.
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Ingredients for the sauce include…
Soy Sauce
I tend to get the low sodium soy sauce because the regular kind of just too salty for my taste, but either kind will work.
White Sugar
Some sweetness to balance all the savory.
Sesame Oil
A staple for any Asian dish! Plus, it lasts forever.
Ginger
I always have this on hand for baking all things pumpkin, including Damn Delicious’s Starbucks Pumpkin Scones Copycat Recipe (soooo good!) and my Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins.
On to the recipe!
Easy Leftover Pasta Lo Mein Recipe
Easy Lo Mein with Leftover Pasta
Equipment
- Large Skillet
- Cutting Board
- Chef's Knife
- Measuring Cups & Spoons
- Spaghetti Server or Tongs
- Wooden Cooking Utensil
- Small Bowl for Sauce
Ingredients
- 8 oz. or so Leftover Long Pasta (Like Angel Hair, Spaghetti, or Fettuccine)
- 1 tbsp Olive Oil
- 1 Yellow or Sweet Onion, Sliced
- 2-3 oz Frozen Bag of Fresh Spinach
- 2 tsp Jarred Minced Garlic (about 4 cloves minced)
- 4 tbsp Soy Sauce
- 1 heaping tbsp White Sugar
- 2 tsp Sesame Oil
- 1 tsp Ground Ginger
- Optional Toppings: sesame seeds or scallions (fresh or freeze dried)
Instructions
- Cut onion in quarters and then into thin slices. Crunch up frozen spinach in bag. Mix sauce ingredients – soy sauce, white sugar, sesame oil and ground ginger – together in a small bowl with a whisk or fork and set aside.
- Add olive oil (1 tbsp) to large skillet and turn on medium heat. Let olive oil heat up for about a minute.
- Add onion and spinach to skillet and cook 3-4 minutes, stirring regularly. Add garlic and sauce to the skillet and cook for 30 seconds.
- Add cold leftover pasta to the skillet. Gently break up the cold pasta in the skillet with a spaghetti server or tongs and steadily toss to combine with veggies and sauce until pasta is heated through – about five minutes. Turn off heat, and enjoy!
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