This is a shameless copycat recipe. I love copycat recipes - my favorite foods that I can't get all the time from my favorite restaurants, made so I can cook them at home! For those of you who live in the vicinity of a Panda Express, this recipe doesn't need a drop of explanation. I'm pretty sure this is one of their most popular entrees, at least at our house anyway! For those of you that don't, Panda Express Orange Chicken is a sweet, spicy, crunchy, covered-in-sticky-sauce chicken dish. We always buy a big container of it every time we go...it's definitely our favorite and there's usually not any left over! Serve it with rice and stir-fried veggies and you're good to go!

Chinese food can be a little intimidating to cook, mostly because there are usually lots of ingredients and it's time consuming. I usually make several kinds of Chinese food at the same time so that makes it even harder. Everything always seems to happen so fast and you're scrambling to get things ready to go in. I've found that the key to making it is to prep all the ingredients. Separate them into bowls and have them arranged in the order they'll go in. Yeah, it'll make a few extra dishes, but that's all right with me if it keeps my sanity intact.

I also simplified this recipe a lot from the original I found (somewhere online, just searching for a copycat recipe), and tweaked the sauce to taste more like Panda Express'. When I make this and my other recipe that calls for breaded chicken, General Tso's Chicken, I make all the chicken at once, with the Orange Chicken breading, fry it all at once, and then separate it into two bowls for the two different kinds of chicken. Sorry there's no picture, I meant to take one last night but we always eat it too fast. I hope you all enjoy this recipe, we certainly do!

"Panda Express" Orange Chicken

2 lbs. chicken, cut into bite-sized pieces
1 egg
Salt
Fresh ground pepper
1 T. oil
1/2 c. cornstarch
1/4 c. flour
Oil for frying

1 T. gingerroot, minced (or 1 t. dry ground ginger)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 t. crushed red pepper (adjust to taste, this is pretty spicy for me and fairly mild for Luke)
1/4 c. green onion, chopped
1 T. rice or white wine vinegar
1/4 c. water, mixed with 1 T. cornstarch
1/2 t. sesame oil

Sauce: (Mix together in a bowl)
5 T. soy sauce
5 T. sugar
5 T. rice or white wine vinegar
Zest of 1 orange
Juice of 2 oranges



Coat chicken in egg, salt and pepper and 1 T. oil; mix well. Stir cornstarch and flour into the chicken. Heat oil in a wok (about an inch deep in a wok) over medium heat, and add chicken in batches, frying until crisp and browned on the outside. (I usually cut open a piece from the first batch to make sure it's cooking through.) Remove chicken as it finishes, and put in a bowl lined with paper towels to drain. Clean out the wok; add 1 T. oil and heat over medium-high heat. Add gingerroot, garlic, onions, crushed red pepper, and rice wine vinegar, stir until the onions begin to soften and garlic turns golden. Add the orange sauce and bring to a boil. Stir in the 1/4 cup of water mixed with the cornstarch, and heat until it starts to thicken. Add the chicken to the sauce and cook until the sauce is thick.

Downloadable recipe!

Luke and I love Chinese food, especially when I make it myself. These are a few of my favorite recipes, including ones I just tried last night - Wonton soup. I usually either make two chicken dishes with a vegetable stir-fry and rice, or do the soup and one other chicken dish. Eventually I'll post another recipe for a Panda Express Orange Chicken clone, but I'm still working on making it taste just like Panda Express.



First up, a really old recipe of mine that I make all the time. It was adapted from a family friend's recipe that cooked in the oven. I wanted something that was a little bit faster and that tasted more like the sweet Sesame Chicken from a local restaurant back in Delaware. So here you have it, my Sesame Chicken:

Sesame Chicken
1 lb. chicken, cut into bite-sized pieces
Sesame oil for frying
2-3 cloves minced garlic
1 T. sesame seeds

Sauce (Note that I NEVER measure when I make this, so these are approximate. Taste the sauce as you go along to get it right!):
1/4 c. honey
2 T. white wine vinegar or rice wine vinegar
1-2 T. soy sauce
1/2 t. dry ground ginger
1/2-1 t. Szechuan sauce (to taste, it's a Chinese hot sauce)
2 T. cornstarch


Mix up the sauce and taste as you go along. It should be sweet with a tiny bite. Heat around 2-3 T. sesame oil in a medium skillet. Cook the garlic for around 1 minute then add the sesame seeds. Cook until the garlic starts to brown, then add the chicken and toss to distribute the garlic and sesame seeds. Cook until the chicken is completely opaque, then add the sauce mixture to the chicken. Continue cooking until sauce has thickened, around 3 minutes. Serve over rice.

This next recipe is one of Luke's favorites. It's supposed to be a little spicier than I make it so you can add dried chili pepper or fresh chilies to the sauce.

General Tso's Chicken
Combine for Sauce:
1/3 c. soy sauce
1/3 c. rice vinegar
1/3 c. water mixed with 2 t. cornstarch
2 t. sesame oil
2 cloves of minced garlic
3/4-1 t. dry ground ginger

Beat 2 eggs with 2 T. cornstarch and coat 1 lb. bite-sized cut chicken in the mixture. Fry the chicken pieces in a wok with vegetable oil, removing pieces as the chicken finishes cooking. Drain most of the oil and add the sauce to the pan and cook down until thick, adding the chicken back towards the end to glaze.

Wonton Soup is one of my favorite things to order from a Chinese restaurant but the places out here (at least the takeout places) don't have it! So I found this recipe (I have NO idea where it came from, possibly a really old issue of Everyday Food?) and tried it out last night. I have to say, this is probably even better than what you get in the restaurants!

Wonton Soup
24 Wonton wrappers
1/2 c. finely chopped napa or Savoy cabbage
coarse salt
6 oz. ground pork, not all lean
3 scallions, finely chopped
1 T. finely chopped peeled fresh ginger
1 t. soy sauce
1 t. toasted sesame oil

Toss cabbage with salt. Let stand 10 minutes, then wrap in paper towels and squeeze out excess liquid. Return cabbage to bowl and add other ingredients. Mix well with a fork.

Work with one wrapper at a time, keep the rest covered in the package. Spoon one rounded teaspoon of filling in center. Wet the edges of the wrapper and fold in half in a triangle, press edges firmly to seal. Moisten one tip on the long side and bring tips together, overlapping. Press to seal. Fold top corner back. Place wontons on a oiled plate, cover with a damp towel to keep moist.


Soup:
2 c. chicken broth
4 c. water
coarse salt
3 scallions, thinly sliced
2-3 t. rice vinegar
1/2 t. toasted sesame oil

Combine chicken broth, water and 1 t. salt in a large pot; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and add wontons. Simmer until wontons are just cooked, 4-6 minutes. Add scallions, vinegar and oil, season with salt to taste.

Downloadable Sesame Chicken Recipe

Downloadable General Tso's Chicken Recipe

Downloadable Wonton Soup Recipe (with a bonus, potstickers!)