Panda Express Facts – There’s just something about the smell of Chinese food that makes my taste buds go wild. I love the smell of fresh garlic and Panda Express spices when we walk past the restaurant. One of my favorite dishes at Panda Express is chicken with oranges, so I made my own to make at home.
The best part for me is that our extended family can eat it whenever we want. Panda Express Orange Chicken is sweet and sour with a hint of spice, and this recipe tastes just like the original. I’ve been perfecting this recipe for quite some time now, and as a result, it always gets rave reviews.
Panda Express Facts
Our neighborhood Walmart has a Panda Express next door. When we go shopping, we always smell the concoction of Asian food filling the air and inevitably one of our kids says, “Can we go to Panda Express?” It’s always tempting to say yes, but most of the time we’re still on track.
Panda Express Announces Return Of Plant Based Orange Chicken
To prepare this recipe, we bought an order of orange chicken alone. When we stopped with a full van, it really confused the lady on the way. We all tried the chicken right away and I saved a piece or two for later.
I noticed different flavors. There was a bit of orange/juice, a taste of sweet rice wine vinegar, salty soy sauce, a bit of garlic, and a spicy kick on the finish. I saved some of the chicken so we can test it at the end. This whole experiment was so much fun! If you have followed me on Facebook; The chicken on the left was an orange Copycat Panda Express chicken and the one on the right was a Panda Express!
If you want to ignore all the useful tips and tricks to make this the best cloned version of Panda Express Orange Chicken. Feel free to skip to the bottom of the post where the recipe is.
Workers Reveal What It’s Really Like To Work At Panda Express
The first thing I did was cut up some chicken and fried it. The original recipe for Panda Express Orange Fried Chicken. This recipe can be made with cornstarch or wheat flour for the topping. My family loves the wheat flour version and this is what I used to make.
We all really love the extra crispy texture of breaded chicken and that’s how I do it for this recipe. If you want a gluten-free recipe, you can use cornstarch instead of wheat flour. After I finished frying a batch, I put it in the oven at 200 degrees to keep it warm, since I fry the chicken in batches.
This orange glaze/sauce is so good, it also tastes great as a dipping sauce. I also like to make a side of fried rice and save some of the sauce to pour over the rice. Very good!
Panda Express Mandarin Teriyaki Sauce Reviews
The good thing about making homemade orange chicken is that you can make this food a little healthier. instead of using batter and frying; Turn it into a stir-fry. Fry the chicken in a pan with just one tablespoon. Oil (uncoated) instead of frying, cook it well. Add the delicious orange sauce to the pan and cook for a few more minutes while tossing the chicken with the sauce.
I think I made a sauce that couldn’t have been much closer unless I had the actual recipe in my hands! In this recipe I added some orange peel which made this sauce even better than Panda Express. When we did the taste test, we could actually taste the orange in a homemade sample, where the Panda Express actually tasted like “juice”, but not real orange.
1. Wok, pan or deep fryer. I like to use a cast iron dutch oven on the stove top for deep frying, but there are some great home fryers on the market that make deep frying easy. If frying on the stove, it is better to use a deep pan that is half full. It is good to have woks for frying as they have concave sides that require less oil for frying.
Imi Hoʻōla Panda Express Fundraiser
2. Orange picker. I like to use fresh juice for this recipe. You can use store bought orange juice, but I suggest making your own.
3. Microplane or zester for orange peel. I always put fresh orange peel in my orange sauce because it tastes amazing. A microplane is just a metal grater with tiny holes in it, and it’s my favorite tool for scraping.
4. Frying pan to keep cooked meat warm. This step isn’t necessary, but I find it helpful if you’re making several batches of chicken at once. Just place the chicken on a baking tray in a preheated oven at 200 degrees. Once all the batches are browned, proceed with the next steps as usual.
The Staggering Amount Of Orange Chicken Panda Express Sells Each Year
If you’ve seen the grocery store version of Panda Express Orange Sauce, don’t buy it if you’re looking for the original. This recipe is so delicious and so much more like the real thing. We bought a bottle a while ago and it went to waste because we don’t like it. It tasted nothing like the real deal.
The sauce doesn’t really take long to make and you can always get extra ingredients for later bottles if you like. This sauce goes great with shrimp, chicken, tofu and more as a topping or dipping sauce.
Panda Express Orange Chicken is our favorite and this recipe is a copycat of the best! We love making this all the time for an easy weeknight dinner! If you love this orange chicken recipe, please rate us 5 stars below in the comments.
Panda Express Logo, Symbol, Meaning, History, Png, Brand
Try something easy with this recipe, like Baked Turkey Egg Rolls, and make some extra orange sauce to dip them in. Baked turkey egg rolls are another easy recipe to make. If you don’t want to add meat to the egg roll, just omit the turkey to make a veggie roll. If you want to make it more like authentic Chinese food, you can fry these egg rolls instead of baking them.
If you want to learn how to make Panda Express Copycat Orange Chicken, look no further! This orange chicken recipe is the best with spicy orange chicken sauce and crispy chicken!
Optional method 1. Fry the chicken in a small amount of oil until the outside of the chicken is golden and the inside is cooked.
How Authentic Is Panda Express?
Optional Method 2. If you don’t want to fry, you can use store bought chicken nuggets. They need to be cooked, so remember this in time.
Optional Method 3. Use grilled nuggets or grilled chicken for a non-fried version of orange chicken. That’s really good!
Amazing recipe and very easy! Delicious, amazing, wonderful, we love it! The chicken came out perfect, nice and moist. The sauce was absolutely perfect! Thanks for a wonderful recipe!
Things You Might Not Know About Panda Express
The recipe was super good, but I reduced the sugar and it was still a little sweet. I pan fry it instead of frying it and it still tastes great (and it’s better for the environment and less bad for your health). I also added some salt and pepper while the fish was pan-fried, which made the chicken even tastier! Thanks for the recipe and I hope the tips are helpful!!
I have tried other orange chicken recipes, but yours is the absolute best!!! I ate Panda Express Orange Chicken every day in my twenties, now I’m gluten free (not by choice) and so is one of my kids, so we can’t eat at Panda without serious consequences. Long story short, I made this recipe gluten free and I love being able to control the heat and amount of citrus flavor (very please!) It’s even amazing the next day! Thank you for posting this!!
I’m glad you liked it! Half of our family is now gluten free and so we now only enjoy Panda Express recipes at home! Panda Express is the largest Chinese fast food restaurant chain in the United States. Known for its Orange Chicken and Chow Mein, the company has more than 1,800 locations and 27,000 employees worldwide.
Giant Panda Fun Facts
In 1973, Chinese immigrant Andrew Cheng and his father Ming-Tsai Cheng used a Small Business Administration loan to open a Chinese restaurant in Pasadena, California. The restaurant, named Panda Inn, was so popular that it expanded to four more locations in Southern California. The first Panda Express, a fast food version of the Panda Inn, opened in 1983 at the Glendale Gallery in Glendale, California.
Husband-and-wife founders Andrew and Peggy Cherang still own and operate their privately held company, Panda.
Panda express orange chicken nutrition facts, panda facts, panda express nutrition facts, panda express health facts, panda express menu nutrition facts, panda express community fundraiser, panda express, panda express franchise cost, panda express online delivery, panda express delivery, panda express gift card, order panda express delivery
