Chow mein noodles

One US cup of chow mein noodles weighs 45 grams (1.6 ounces). Going the other way, 100 grams is about 2.22 cups.

Also called crispy chow mein noodles, crunchy chow mein noodles, fried chow mein noodles, Chinese chow mein noodles, crispy noodles.

Dry pasta and noodles compared: cup weights side by side, the source behind each, and why they differ.

A cup of crispy chow mein noodles weighs 45 g (1.6 oz). USDA and Health Canada agree within 4%, so this entry publishes USDA's figure. Confidence is medium because only two tables measure them.

Chow mein noodles here are the crunchy, deep-fried wheat noodles sold in cans and bags in the US, the ones scattered over chop suey and salads and stirred into no-bake haystack cookies with melted butterscotch or chocolate chips. They are not the soft noodles of a stir-fried chow mein, which are bought fresh or dried and cooked like any other noodle.

USDA SR Legacy "Noodles, chinese, chow mein" (NDB 20113) gives 1 cup = 45 g. Health Canada's Nutrient Value of Some Common Foods lists "Noodles, Chinese, chow mein" at 11 g per 60 mL, 43.4 g a US cup. The two are 3.7% apart, well inside the 10% tolerance for grains and pasta. No America's Test Kitchen or King Arthur figure was found; King Arthur's weight chart has no noodle rows.

By USDA's figures a cup of these noodles carries about 13.8 g of fat, 25.9 g of carbohydrate and 3.8 g of protein, so they are roughly 31% fat by weight, the oil they were fried in. Frying drives the water out and leaves a light, brittle, curled noodle.

The physical check: short, brittle curls lie at every angle and touch at a few points, so a cup holds a lot of air. At 45 g a cup is 0.19 g/mL. That is a little heavier than a cup of dry egg noodles (about 38 g), whose wide, long curls hold even more air, and less than half a cup of penne's weight (95 g). Crushed noodles are another matter: broken pieces fill the gaps between whole ones, so a cup of crushed chow mein noodles weighs noticeably more than a cup of whole ones. Measure them whole, poured in and leveled, unless the recipe says crushed.

Why the two tables can differ a little: the noodles are made by more than one maker, cut to different lengths and fried to different crispness, and a cup of short, broken pieces holds more noodle than a cup of long curls. USDA's 45 g and Health Canada's 43 g both describe the ordinary canned product, measured whole.

Practical guidance: use 45 g per cup of crispy chow mein noodles, 23 g per half cup and about 11 g per quarter cup. At this figure a 5-ounce (142 g) package fills about 3 cups. For haystack cookies, weigh the noodles, so the ratio of noodles to melted chocolate or butterscotch stays the same whatever the brand or how broken the noodles are; for topping a salad, a level cup is close enough. Keep an opened package sealed, since fried noodles lose their crunch in humid air.