This recipe for chicken chop suey turns humble veggies into a family favorite dish!
This simple chop suey combines carrots, celery, and bean sprouts with tender bites of chicken for a budget-friendly favorite. It’s all tossed in the easiest ever sauce and served over rice or noodles!
Making a stir fry is both easy and a great way to sneak in some veggies! I love the flavor of homemade sauces and being able to adjust the sweetness and ensure I can avoid preservatives and MSG!
Serve chicken chop suey with noodles or rice for a dish your family will love all year long! Want to cut carbs? Serve over shredded steamed cabbage or cauliflower rice!
What’s the Difference Between Chop Suey and Chow Mein?
Chop suey is cooked meat and vegetables combined with a sauce and served over prepared rice or noodles. But chow mein cooks meat, vegetables, noodles, and sauce all together. The sauces are fairly similar, although chop suey can sometimes be a little bit spicier.
Ingredients
It’s easy to get all the ingredients for chicken chop suey!
CHICKEN
Chicken breasts are used in this recipe but boneless chicken thighs will work too.
VEGGIES
Carrots, celery, bean sprouts, and garlic are favorites in this recipe! Feel free to add canned water chestnuts, baby corn, sliced mushrooms, and bok choy.
SAUCE
The sauce is incredibly simple but it’s really delicious! Broth, soy sauce, water, sugar, and a dash of sesame oil.
EXTRAS
Get creative and add some extra crunch, color, and nutrition to your chicken chop suey by adding toasted crushed peanuts or some cashew nuts! Green onion never goes amiss. And a dash of red chili oil or sriracha will give chicken chop suey a spicy kick!
How to Make Chicken Chop Suey
Chicken chop suey is super easy to prepare. Here’s a quick overview of the steps!
- PREP Toss chicken with corn starch and set aside. Prepare the vegetables.
- STIR FRY Stir fry chicken & vegetables (per recipe below).
- ADD SAUCE – Add sauce ingredients and cook everything is heated through and the sauce is thickened.
Leftovers
Chicken chop suey makes great leftovers for school or work lunches!
- Keep it in a covered container in the refrigerator. It will last up to 4 days.
- To reheat it, pop it in the microwave or in a pan on the stovetop for a few minutes.
More Homemade Favorites
- Pork Dumplings – so delicious
- Homemade Wonton Soup
- Kung Pao Shrimp – 30-minute meal
- Egg Drop Soup
- Beef and Broccoli – 5 star recipe
- Easy Homemade Chow Mein
- Sweet and Sour Pork – a family favorite
- Easy Mongolian Beef
- Chicken Lo Mein
Did your family love this Chicken Chop Suey? Be sure to leave a rating and a comment below!
Chicken Chop Suey
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil divided
- 8 ounces boneless skinless chicken breasts approximately 1 large or 2 small
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- 1 cup sliced onion
- ⅔ cup diced celery
- ⅔ cup sliced carrot
- 1 clove garlic minced
- 2 cups bean sprouts fresh
Sauce
- 1 ¼ cup chicken broth
- ¼ cup cold water
- 1 ½ tablespoons cornstarch
- 1 ½ tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
Instructions
- Slice chicken breasts into ¼" strips. Toss with cornstarch and set aside preparing the vegetables.
- Heat 1 tablespoon oil over medium-high heat and cook chicken in batches until no pink remains. Remove from the pan and set aside in a bowl to keep warm.
- Heat remaining tablespoon of oil in the same pan and add onion, carrot, celery, and garlic. Cook 4-5 minutes or until softened. Stir in bean sprouts and cook 1 minute more.
- Combine sauce ingredients and add to the vegetable mixture along with the chicken. Simmer for 2-3 minutes, or until chicken is heated through and sauce is thickened.
- Serve with noodles or rice.
Notes
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Chicken, Dinner, Entree, Lunch, Main Course
Cuisine American, Asian© SpendWithPennies.com. Content and photographs are copyright protected. Sharing of this recipe is both encouraged and appreciated. Copying and/or pasting full recipes to any social media is strictly prohibited. Please view my photo use policy here.
Recipe Adapted Manchak. “Beef Chop Suey”. Recipe. Cooking with Class. Beaumont, AB, 2011. 43. Print.
best recipe for chicken chop suey easy to follow easy instructions and its very good yummy
Chop Suey is my favourite part of takeout! This delicious recipe tasted just like my local restaurant’s version. I didn’t make noodles and l left out the sesame oil as l can’t taste it in what we buy. l don’t have a wok anymore and my Ninja non-stick frypan was a good substitute. Thanks for another great easy keeper!
So happy you enjoyed it, Kele!
This came together so quickly! delicious, my favorite Chinese takeout closed and was looking for a close substitute…this was it!
what kind of noodles do I use for this recipe?
You can use any noodles you prefer. But I love to serve it over egg noodles or even ramen noodles!
I made this last night for dinner, it was outstanding! I swapped mushrooms for the carrots but otherwise followed the recipe to the tea super super good! thank you so much for sharing!
My family loves this !!!
Very good recipe – going in the rotation. We’ve got a well seasoned wok and can get a lot of flavor. Made recipe exact accept for about 14 oz of chicken (one breast from freezer), canned bean sprouts and chopped a can of water chestnuts. I kept the leftover couple ounces of broth in can and used to deglaze a bit between batches of ingredients. I stir fry those 3 minute donuts of noodles for a bit and add a little bit of sauce. Sprouts and chestnuts went in after vegetables cook a couple minutes. I would not reduce water. Keep a fork in sauce bowl to remix cornstarch before adding and had sauce reduced in about a minute for me. I just remembered throwing in some garlic chili sauce.
This was fast and really good. I followed the recipe but since I didn’t have fresh bean sprouts, I added one can of bean sprouts and also one can of sliced water chestnuts. The sauce was good and thickened up just fine. Made this for our New Year’s Eve dinner, along with eggrolls, orange chicken and fried rice. Thank you for the recipe.
Made exactly as recipe described. A great start but it needs more! Just a little on the bland side. I am sure that next time it will be better as I add some of the suggested additions like water chestnut, cashew, Gr. Onion etc. Looking forward to trying this again!
How much difference to recipe would using shredded cabbage instead of bean sprouts make ?which I rarely have !
I think it’d be great, you might like to add it a minute or two earlier.
Can I sub canned bean sprouts for fresh
I haven’t tried it so I can’t say for sure, but I don’t see why not! If you try it I would love to hear how it turns out Kris!
Made this tonight….best ever. Better than take out.
So glad you enjoyed it, Elletea!
We just had this for Saturday evening dinner with egg rolls. It was delicious. I omitted one thing: the water. Family gives this a thumbs up for adding it routinely to our monthly meals. Thanks for a really good recipe.
You’re welcome Connie! So happy to hear that your family loves this chicken chop suey.
I loved this and it was easy. Will make my own from now on.
I think this would’ve come out good except way too much liquid. I’d suggest adding sauce until it’s the right consistency. Recipe says cook 2-3 minutes or until sauce is thick. We cooked 10-15 minutes and never got thick. It was like soup. It also required way more oil to cook chicken.
Our take, good ingredients, wrong proportions.
I can say that you’re F-ing CUTE.
Also, the recipe is SPOT ON!
I can eat Chinese everyday so I know. I made chop suey before but your recipe is TOP NOTCH.
Thank you for sharing.
Very bland. I’ve tried dozens of recipes, and I can never get the taste to resemble the flavour of a Chinese takeout.
Sorry to hear that you didn’t enjoy this dish as much as we do Christopher. Thanks for giving it a whirl.
Great taste, but too much liquid, next time I would cut out the water.
What is the purpose of coating your chicken with corn starch before putting in stir fry
Great question Marica! It’s a technique called velveting. Meat (beef or chicken) is marinated in a combination of egg white, cornstarch, oil, and often other additives like vinegar. Cornstarch is a natural tenderizer and also can help thicken the sauce. It is used in this recipe as well as many of my stir fry recipes and even Mongolian Beef!
OMG! I have never been compelled to write a review before but this is the best. I doubled it to feed my family with three teenagers and it was a huge success! One some doesn’t like soy sauce based recipes so this hit the spot. I did add broccoli to the veggies and some of us added soy sauce at the table. Just had leftovers for lunch and I’m still impressed!
Thank you for commenting Misty! So happy to hear that you love this dish!
Holly, without a side by side comparison, and that isn’t worth my time, I still don’t see a difference except for the sauce. Bouncing back and forth between the two on my phone makes my head spin, but I did notice one said rice noodles, the other said both noodles are egg noodles.
I can’t say for sure as I’m not sure what recipe you are comparing. The sauce in this recipe is slightly different than the sauce in our chow mein recipe.