A dish of Chinese origin that has become very much a part of Filipino cuisine, pancit canton may refer to lo mein or chow mein, depending on who you’re talking to.
As far as I know, chow mein requires that the noodles be stir fried briefly in hot oil before tossing with the rest of the ingredients. It’s a step not necessary when cooking lo mein. In the Philippines, however, with or without that additional step, the dish is called pancit canton.
This recipe supersedes four older chow mein recipes. But to give credit where credit is due, let me reproduce my pancit canton journey here.
I used to think I made great pancit canton until I tried the version of a cousin-in-law, Luigi. He added a copious amount of oyster sauce to the starch-thickened sauce that usually goes with pancit canton. I adapted his style and my family was extremely happy.
Then, some 11 years ago, a reader named Ernest who was only 17 years old at the time, commented that he made his pancit canton sauce with equal amounts of oyster sauce and hoisin sauce. I tried his technique and that was how I have been cooking pancit canton ever since.
Thank you, Luigi and Earnest.
Cooking pancit canton starts with meat which can be pork, beef or chicken. Shrimps are good too. Season the meat, allow to marinate and stir fry.
Next come the vegetables. Stir fry just until softened then scoop out immediately to prevent them from cooking further in the residual heat. That’s the trick to make sure they will be tender but still a little crisp by the time the pancit canton is done.
With the meat and vegetables done, cook the sauce until it thickens and loses its cloudy appearance.
Add the noodles to the sauce and toss to coat every strand.
Dump in the cooked vegetables (I like boiled quail eggs in my pancit canton too) and toss.
Finally, add the cooked pork and toss to distribute evenly.
And your delicious pancit canton is ready to serve. You may optionally have kalamasi halves on the side.
Lovely, isn’t it? And I’ve finally perfected the trick with the starch-thickened sauce so that the noodles don’t clamp as they cool.
Ingredients
- 250 grams skinless pork belly
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons rice wine
- 1 teaspoon minced garlic teaspoon
- 1 small carrot
- 1 bell pepper
- 50 grams chicharo (snap peas)
- 1/4 head white cabbage
- 1 shallot
- 2 tablespoons cooking oil
- salt
- pepper
For the sauce
- 1 and 1/2 cups bone broth
- 2 tablespoons oyster sauce
- 2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
- 1 tablespoon tapioca starch or corn starch (never flour!)
- 1/2 teaspoon sesame seed oil
To complete the dish
- 250 grams egg noodles prepared according to package directions (see notes after the recipe)
- 24 quail eggs boiled and shelled
Instructions
- Cut the pork belly into half inch slices. Cut each slice into strips less than half an inch wide.
- Place the pork belly in a bowl. Add the soy sauce, rice wine and half of the garlic. Mix well. Cover the bowl and let the pork marinate in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
- Peel the carrot and julienne.
- Core and deseed the bell pepper and julienne as well.
- Pinch off the tips of the chicharo and pull of the stringy fiber along the sides.
- Thinly slice the cabbage.
- Peel the shallot and thinly slice.
- Heat the wok and pour in a tablespoon of oil.
- Stir fry the pork in the hot oil until cooked through. Because the pork had been cut into small pieces and because stir frying requires extremely high heat, the pork should be done in less than five minutes. Scoop them out and transfer to a bowl.
- Heat the remaining cooking oil in the wok. Stir fry the carrot, bell pepper, chicharo and cabbage with generous pinches of salt and pepper just until softened, about 15 seconds.
- Add the sliced shallot and remaining garlic to the vegetables in the wok and stir fry for another 15 seconds. Scoop out and spread on a plate to cool them to stop the cooking immediately.
- In a bowl, mix together all the ingredients for the sauce and pour into the wok. Cook, stirring often, until thickened and no longer cloudy in appearance. Don’t worry if it doesn’t look too thick. It shouldn’t be. Slightly thickened is the ideal texture — just thick enough to coat the noodles but not make them stick together as they cool.
- Taste the sauce. Add salt and pepper, if needed (you may need to if your broth is unseasoned or underseasoned).
- Add the noodles to the sauce and toss thoroughly. Cook until heated through.
- Throw in the cooked vegetables and quail eggs. Toss well.
- Add the cooked pork to the noodles and vegetables. Toss to distribute evenly.
- Serve the pancit canton at once.
Cook’s Notes
If you cooked this dish (or made this drink) and you want to share your masterpiece, please use your own photos and write the cooking steps in your own words.
Hello and welcome! I'm a retired lawyer and columnist, wife for 28 years, mom of two, and a passionate cook. What is this blog about? Recipes for dishes 
Cauliflower Mushroom “Fried Rice”
hi how do you cook the pancit canton aristocrat style?
Maybe you should ask the owners of Aristocrat. :wink:
shit that pansit is sucks:evil:
Yeah? Your grammar sucks 100 times more.
love pancit canton!…the real ones though :)
right, instant pancit canton doesn’t count as real pancit canton.
thanks for posting this recipe, mukhang masarap, i’ll cook this for meryenda later.
napatawa ko sa sagot mo kay jB…:)
Connie, I just want you to know that your weblog is one of the few out of millions that’s has a quality contents. (Which I’m sure you’re well aware of it.) It is sad for someone just to get ignorant and get stupid just like “jB”. This person obviously has no idea how much passion, time, and dedication to have such weblog like yours. On behalf of the many that truly appreciate your site, I just want to say thank you for your hard work and effort…
Robert Colinares
Missouri, USA
ate connie!
gamitin ko itong recipe mo ha? ;) i was asked to make pansit by my american co-teachers for tomorrow’s fun food friday at school. tiyak, papatok ito! thank you for sharing this!
joyce, there are even better versions. Here and here.
thank you so much! i’m going to write about this experience. anyway, i used this recipe kasi di ko na nakita ito’ng reply mo, but guess what…parang dinaanan ng Katrina ang dala ko’ng aluminum tray! only the lemon wedges were left! sobrang linamnam and they were so thankful for the treat. medyo nahirapan lang ako kasi di ko nagamit yung aluminum wok ko at nag oxidize. i live close to the beach so i guess that makes our water a bit salty compared to the other areas in the city. but just the same, it was such a hit! i told them it’s my first time to make pancit (they pronounce it as PUHN’-set) and i got the recipe from you! in fact i told them to visit this blog for other recipes ;) bless your soul! walang katapusang thank you!
i’ve never tried cooking any kind of local pancit, meaning canton or bihon because i thought it’s best to just buy from the authentic chinese restos..but am willing to give this a try. ang galing mo kasi mag-encourage…galing mo pa mangbara ng mga sumisingit dito…bilib talaga ako sa iyo!
joyce, i am so happy to read your feedback. :) next time, you might want to try the other variations.
chunky, naku, maladas masarap gawing laruan yang mga asar na walang magawa kundi mang bwisit sa comment threads.
thats great i always used this recipe when we have a pilipino party sabi nila pinoy na pinoy ang luto….
thanks
jesus gutierrez jr
united arab emirates
chef holiday international hotel
Ms. Connie,
Where ca I find your website of your recipes esp. lomi. and pancit canton Tks and more power God Bless.
Lina
Lina, I’ll reproduce the guidelines which you will find on all recipe pages of this site.
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wala bang local noodles ah tsk!tsk! but just okei to me maybe next time i find it
hi,,,i’ll tyr to cok ur recp poh….
hi Connie. I was looking at your improved/better version of Pancit Canton. When i tried going back to it, it was gone. If you can please repost it! thanks!
can you suggest a good brand of pancit canton noodles that i can use?
thanks so much!
i just like to ask jb if he ever know how to cook pancit canton!!!if he thinks he doesn’t like connie’s pancit canton then why not give her some suggestions to make it better???honestly speaking, i find the pancit canton in connie’s picture a little oily, so it is my choice not to put sesame oil…
anyway, you can add shrimps …tastes good with it! (I just put it in a shallow pan, add a pinch of salt, then stir fry it…until it losses its transparency..) THEN, remove the skin and the head,then extract all the juices that you can get and add the juice and the meat while you are cooking your pancit canton…..taste yummy!!!!
ed, never gone. You’re just looking in the wrong place, perhaps. Click here and here.
ms connie, my tita did some experimentng and i did the eating part..hehehe! Guess what? Instead of frying the noodles you can actually bake them! Grabe! We were amazed by the result! No grease, no mess.:) we used the electric oven but i think the toaster will do too.. We had it in the oven for 2 mins. Then viola cooked na sya! Top with the sauce then ready to eat na.. Hmmn… Nagugu2m nanaman ako..hehehe!
belated nga pala po…hehehe! Mwah!
Wow Chexy I’d like to try that too. Thanks!
wow may ganito pala… can i explore your blog Madame Connie?.. I like cooking but i don’t know how to cook.. im sure marami ako matutunan d2..
Tnx.. Mwuah mwuah
Explore to your heart’s content. :)
so thats how you do it… i usually do cooking at home, but i always set aside pancit canton. its because the forst time i try to cook this i think 5 years ago it went bad. after that i really never even tried cooking it again. but this morning because of the request na pancit canton daw ang i serve ko ehh nag search ako sa internet. i found your page… only today i learned na nilalagyan pala ng conrstarch, akala ko kasi basta na lang guisado. believe me, it was a success this morning. thanks a lot..
i am planning to have an Oriental-theme menu for our New Year’s eve celebration. I included Pancit canton in my list. Great you have a recipe in your site. I will use your recipe to cook one. will give you a feedback on this one.
Thanks!
My hubby doesn’t like pansit (thin noodles) but he definitely likes pansit canton. I guess, I can copy your recipe a bit to improve mine. Hihi.
By thin, you mean like bihon and misua? He might change his mind when he tries Pad Thai. Oooh, delicious!
Pancit canton pala ang Lo Mein. The pancit canton I know is the one that comes in the package.
I always order Lo Mein when my family goes to a Chinese restaurant but didn’t even think of making it until now. It looks easy since I can make pancit bihon. The difference I see is the sauce and the cooked meat.
What comes out of the package is egg noodles. Pancit canton, in local parlance, refers to the egg noodles and the cooked dish. :)
Oh, it looks delish. I haven’t tried to cook pansit for my hubby yet. Maybe I’ll try it this weekend :)
Btw, if I’d be substituting brocolli for the greens, should I only put florets or could I add the stems also? And should I blanch it first?
The stems are edible but you have to peel them. Depending on the maturity, the stems can take longer to cook too.
I was searching the web for a simple pancit canton dish when I stumbled on your site. I found this recipe so simple to do than the others. I’m planning to cook this tomorrow for my birthday. I hope it tastes good. More Power to you!
I Love Pancit!!! pansit canton or pancit bijon… when im depressed or lonely , im eating pansit to make my mood good!!! thanks for this site,,, & more power…
Dubai