How Panda Express Perfected Orange Chicken (Ft. Lucas Sin)

This is the iconic orange chicken from Panda Express,

but this isn't your typical Panda Express.

This is actually the test kitchen

where they create new dishes

that are going to be rolled out at Panda stores worldwide.

Today we'll go through the entire process

of how orange chicken is made,

and we're going to get to see some secret

new dishes that they're working on now.

This is Chef Jimmy Wang,

the Executive Director of Product Innovation

at Panda Express.

I've watched every single video of you.

Oh! Demoing orange chicken.

Jimmy Wang.

All right. Unique.

Available on the Internet. Okay.

And here's the thing, I don't believe you.

[Jimmy laughing]

I don't believe the recipes that are out there.

Sure.

'Cause I think that's the home-friendly version.

Sure, okay.

I'm really interested in figuring out

what the actual orange chicken process is,

in the 2,500 locations that you guys have.

This is, Chicken thigh.

Actually, chicken thigh, a little bit of leg.

Fresh, not frozen.

You got white pepper, modified corn starch,

[Host] soybean oil, water. Yeah.

Salt, to help to balance the pH.

The most unique thing about our marinade is this item.

It's called dry egg powder.

The egg itself has protein enzyme.

Sure.

So this enzyme actually being pumped

into the chicken muscle,

is actually gonna help that chicken flavor

to accentuate.

The modified corn starch

is mostly to bind everything together,

and get it nice and tacky,

so that everything can actually stick to it.

[bright tinkling]

The oil, plus the egg powder, plus the water,

is in a sense, macro nutrient-wise,

the consistency of the egg itself.

But when you fry it, [oil sizzling]

I'm assuming that because there's oil inside of the batter,

the oil will help lift the batter up a little bit,

to make it a little bit lighter and crispier, right?

The more separation you get of the batter

from the chicken itself,

the more space there is to absorb that delicious.

Exactly. Orange chicken sauce.

You nailed it! Amazing.

[Jimmy] Put all these dry ingredients

into this little bucket right here first.

[Host] Okay.

Wait, so what is this machine we're looking at here?

It's called a vacuum tumbler.

Basically pressurize the environment.

It's almost like if it was in space, zero gravity.

[Host] Right, right, right.

If you look at a typical muscle,

Yeah.

You have fibers. Yeah.

So right now in between fiber to fiber,

Yeah.

[Host] There's a small gap. Right, right, right.

What we want to use that pressure

is to push the gap to become larger.

[Host] Cool, I see.

So that whatever we marinate is gonna fill in those gaps.

Nobody's gonna do this at home.

But if your manufacturers and your vendors

are doing this regularly,

then you are guaranteed this sort of chicken product

that is thoroughly seasoned, right?

Yes.

It's making sure that every step of the process is the same.

How big would this be in the actual facility?

We're talking about something that can fit

about 4,000 pound to 8,000 pounds.

Of what? Of chicken.

Geez. Cool.

I imagine a small Honda Civic hatchback.

Nuts.

That's the size of the tumbler.

I don't have a driver's license,

so I don't know what that means.

[Jimmy] So now that the vacuum itself is done,

we are gonna let it tumble for about 15 minutes.

Okay. This is so excessive for what we're doing.

But it's cool. Oh!

Oh, this is significantly less exciting to look at

than I thought it was gonna...

I thought it was like a rapid spin.

I know. I know!

[upbeat music]

15 minutes later, the absorption has happened.

So if you can see these lines

between the actual muscles itself,

the little white crevices, white lines,

the marinade has been absorbed into the chicken itself.

I wanted to end roughly about an inch,

and an inch and a half.

And then I don't want my length to be anything

[Host] above one and a half either. Yeah.

So that we can land somewhere this nice thigh square.

In the actual cutting machine,

is actually measuring the chicken

as it sort of fit into the belt.

The chicken's moving forward

and then all of a sudden, three seconds later

there's a

[knife slams] cross blade.

And then there will Ooh.

Time to exactly about an inch to inch and a half.

The uniformity of the cut size of the chicken

is so important because if they're different sizes,

they fry to different degrees.

Exactly.

The batter is...

I mean, I cannot emphasize

how complicated this process is

because water and sauciness

and delicious sauce, like we know water

and crisp don't go together.

Right. But you want both

of them to be true at the same time.

Yes. And the way

to do that is to manipulate the ratios

between the starches and the flours.

Yes.

So this version has three starch.

Corn starch, potato starch, and then flour.

I mean, this is for texture primarily.

This is for the wet batter to adhere.

Yes.

We want dual structure.

So one structure is about a ability

to take on more weight on the surface.

Okay. Right?

The other structure is protecting

the moisture of the chicken.

I cannot only imagine how long it took

for you guys to nail Exactly.

Even this step before even

that step for the ratios and rest.

I can tell you that it's so intricate

that even the origin where the starch was produced.

Yeah. To the seasonality

of starch.

What do you mean seasonality of the starch?

So when they harvest, right?

Yeah. Whether is the potato,

whether is the rice, whether it is the corn

that seasonality can't have dampness.

Right?

So there's actually residual moisture over time.

So you, if you don't want to cakey,

you want to be fluffy light.

I mean that's the thing

you have to think about.

What the heck. About when to buy.

You gotta think about when to store.

You gotta think about when to grind.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Nuts!

So for today, we're gonna use all

the hand and little machine.

I'm the machine. You're the hand.

Okay. I mean this is like snow.

It's a little bit slippery. It falls off.

I mean it falls off your hand seamlessly

unless there's any moisture on it,

which I do have from a little bit of that chicken.

[Jimmy] Yes.

The tackiness of that chicken plus even

as light of a dust and as light of a toss

that I'm doing now, it will adhere

in this sort of like perfectly imperfect

sort of even but uneven texture.

This is simulating inside of the factory where

Yes. They dust it off.

Does that kind of look right?

Yeah!

[upbeat energetic music]

This is so time consuming.

[Jimmy laughing]

I have always thought that the biggest problem

with Chinese American food, the reason

why so much of the delicious things

are delicious. Yes.

Is because it is a labor intensive process.

It is.

Unlike a lot of other cuisines,

it just takes a lot of steps.

And the fact that we have to batter chicken

three times, right?

Marinade, dry batter, we batter.

Yes.

[Host] Shaking it off one piece at a time.

Cutting it to this degree. Yeah.

Is is the type of thing

that you ask yourself why Chinese food

hasn't perhaps scaled as quickly as all

these other types of cuisines out there.

So this is primarily flour.

This is primarily flour.

And seasoning. There's onion powder in here for sure.

Just a very simple amount of seasoning.

Not too crazy.

I know you're not gonna tell me, but

my guess is like onion, garlic, maybe white pepper?

I mean it's got that like dry ranch powder kind of.

Anyway, I'm not gonna push you on this.

You're getting there, you're getting there.

[Host] What's the water to battery ratio?

Simple one to one.

And then what we want is that should be

above 35 degree to 41 degree in terms

of temperature batter.

Well it's cold. It's cold.

Yeah. It's cold.

Because we're going to fry at a 380 degree oil.

Okay. So the contrast is

so different. Oh!

It's gonna cause the batter to really puff.

Yes.

So for all you viewers at home,

the thing with frying is in order to create a batter,

you need moisture from within to punch out.

And as that moisture is punching out

and the water is evaporating.

Yes. That creates

an air bubble. Yes.

And that gap when we bite down on

dehydrated crust is crispiness and crunchiness.

Yes. So you want that moisture

to punch out in effect as far

as possible without getting the batter

to fall off the chicken as it's being fried.

So what makes orange chicken good

according to Panda Express?

Flavor profile?

Make sure it's bold.

The texture.

Yeah. Right?

We want soft on the inside.

Crispy on the outside.

Yeah. And then

there's a hot sticky glaze.

Orange chicken has to go through

three stages of marination slash battering.

Right. Before it's even

fried, before it's even glazed,

finished, served to the guest, right?

[Jimmy] Yes.

So much of what makes Chinese food delicious

is that labor.

We believe in this vessel, the wok.

Right?

That's the mother of all.

That's where you spend the time.

But the question is how can I make

everything around the wok simpler?

So you can focus your training,

focus your education within

At the wok. In the wok.

Right now we're heating up the wok a little bit.

[Host] So you're looking for 380.

380.

And then after that we're gonna go chill it.

And so this is the first fry happens at the vendor.

Second fry comes in into the restaurant

when it's actually crispy, it's golden brown.

All of those things. Exactly.

So I noticed that our batter is a little hot.

So we're actually gonna put over ice bath

and clean that a little bit more.

Now I actually feel useful.

I actually, I'm actually cooking.

The second that the batter goes in,

it is sealing, right?

Yes. So once it seals

and the starches gelatinize,

and it's not gonna stick to each other.

Yes. The chicken is

not cooked at all. Yes.

Right?

You're basically setting the shape, right?

[Jimmy] Yes!

[upbeat energetic music]

The magic of the starch and not just the flour,

is that it is actually quite crispy already.

Like you can see the separation

of the batter from the chicken itself

at an appropriate amount, right?

These crackles, that's what's gonna catch the sauce.

And that's proof that some of the moisture

is already punching out.

Without that modified starch

and the secret proprietary seasonal starch recipe,

I don't think most orange chickens

will have this degree of crisp at this level of cook.

It feels surprisingly brittle and it sounds grainy.

[chicken cracking]

Alright, I'm gonna send this to a freezer.

We're gonna chill it. Okay.

And then we're gonna see the product

typically after chill.

Was there ever a sandwich?

There was.

Orange chicken sandwich?

We had.

It doesn't exist in any stores right now.

Not right now.

We gotta think about how does this translate to guests

Yeah. Across the country.

And unfortunately, you know,

not everybody's thinking about

a sweet and sour orange chicken sandwich.

Right.

I can imagine a whole host of like issues, right?

That you might have come into throughout

your different testing process.

You would have to come up with new packaging.

You'd have to tell people who come to Panda Express,

who eat with utensils all the time

to now eat with their hands, right?

Yeah. Like you're

introducing all these different cuts.

Yes. And you would have

to roll it out in all of those different places.

To be honest with you, I don't think

chicken sandwich is done yet.

Yeah. I just think

that there's still cut a couple more

iteration before we go ahead. Yeah.

We have distilled white vinegar,

sugar to balance that.

People need to make sure they taste sweet and sour.

Yes. Right?

Why is it white vinegar and not rice vinegar.

We want it as potent as possible.

That acidity, that low pH is so important

to get our taste buds excited.

But that doesn't mean that it has to taste sour.

And so that's a balance with the

The sugar.

The healthy amount of sugar.

Yes.

What we wanted to do is heighten that note

by adding aromatics.

Ginger, garlic, chili.

I hear that Americans get scared

if there's chili in anything at all.

Yeah. But just because

there is chili doesn't mean that overall

it needs to be spicy, right?

Right. The scoville unit

doesn't have to be super, super high.

[Jimmy] Right.

Chili does this wonderful thing,

especially in Chinese food,

that elevates the aromatic profile

and you know in your taste buds

it is activating a different sensory network

because it's a sense of taste.

Yeah. It's a sense of

little bit of pain. Yes.

We have sesame oil, Shaoxing cooking wine.

All of this is into our Panda soy sauce.

Yeah. So I actually

want you to try real quick.

It is not just soy sauce, though.

No, it's not.

There's vinegar in there, right?

No. No?

Soy sauce, sugar.

Sure. Probably water and salt.

Maybe?

You're not gonna tell me, right?

[Jimmy laughing]

And then now-

Whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Yes.

Where's the orange?

There's orange in there.

Okay, this is a combined orange sauce.

[Jimmy] Yeah, this is everything combined already.

I'm sorry I cut you out. I just realized.

Was wondering if I was being bamboozled?

I mean, look at this beautiful color.

It's in between honey and maple syrup.

Yes. In both color

and in viscosity.

So I want you to try it cold.

Sure. And then later on

let's try it when it's active.

Cool.

Sweet, sour. Yep.

Savory is at the end.

Yep. Aromatic base.

Yep. Really yummy.

Orange is like at the back.

I feel like because it's cold,

I cannot taste everything that's inside of it.

Exactly.

So you're working right now on something

that might come out next fall.

Was there anything you're working on

recently that you're like, Huh,

we're gonna have to take this back to the drawing board?

Yeah. There's an item we love.

We actually launched once.

It's called Szechuan Hot Chicken.

Combining the Szechuan flavor with sort of

the Tennessee style hot chicken.

We were a little ahead of ourselves.

We decided that we can introduce a new platform

because chicken strip is something

that we currently don't have on the menu.

Okay. Right?

So when we introduce two new variables

Yeah. Into the system,

we kind of didn't get the result that we're hoping for.

Guests wanted to use a fork,

they want bite-sized product.

They want- How do you know that?

[Jimmy laughing]

Like do they say, Hey, this is too big for my mouth?

We did, we actually done tremendous amount of survey.

So we want to take some learning from it

so that the next time when we do it again,

it's gonna be the better version.

So later on you're actually gonna try

the improved version.

Oh, cool. Yeah.

I'm excited.

All the chicken now has taken

the right amount of time to chill.

Right? Yeah.

And at this floating, there are frozen blocks.

Okay. Right?

The store received the product like this.

Yeah. So right now

you can see there's a little bit of shiny crystals.

[Host] Yeah.

[Jimmy] That's the moisture migration

we're talking about.

So freezing actually helps it, right?

Exactly.

It's like how British chefs freeze

their potato chips before they fry it.

Yes. It helps

dehydrate it over time. Exactly.

Great, so this is just gonna

become even more crispy, okay.

[Host] So let's drop it into this two basket.

We're gonna drop it in two parts.

[Host] All of it.

So outside is getting crisp.

Inside is getting moist in steam.

And then eventually we get

to the color that we like.

We call it GBD, golden, brown, delicious.

[Host] [laughing] Oh, cool.

And then that's when we take it off

and then we'll toss it in the wok.

If it's a little too hot, you can use the tong.

Sure, sure, sure. Let me know. Okay.

Can you hear that? Yeah, crispy.

Yeah! And you can see

the dark meat, you can see the fibers.

It is also much lighter now.

Yes. Because we've put in

all that work to dehydrate the crust

so that it's lighter.

The batter is fully stuck onto the chicken.

There's no crazy gap where the chicken

might slip out or something like this.

The pre dusts that we talked

about earlier. Makes a big difference.

Yes.

I am gonna pour in a little bit of oil

seized on the surface.

Alright, so this is the fun part.

You can see there's a buildup

of caramelization all around the wok.

And we like to look at the sauce consistency

to ensure that it's that velvety

long stringing texture.

And then so now you can see those

mini, mini little bubbles, right?

[Host] Yeah.

The sugar is caramelized.

You can smell the aroma.

Now we've gonna add the chicken in.

Okay. Okay.

[Host] Yes.

And this lasts no more than 30 minutes

inside of a standard Panda Express.

Sell them really, really fast.

[Host] Cool.

[Jimmy] Okay, now we have our orange chicken.

I mean, that's super sexy looking.

Like, the gloss is crazy.

It is so even.

It's on every single piece.

The shine from the oil that you've added.

Not from the wok cooking, but at the end of the sauce.

I mean that this is typical.

Yeah. Iconic,

legendary orange chicken.

The chili I don't think it's...

I think this is zero spicy for me.

Yeah. It's a nice

little like red pop of color.

The orange is so subtle.

It's just a sort of the essence of fruitiness.

I mean, this follows a very long tradition

in different parts of regional China.

Yep. Where

you fry something to coat it in a sauce.

And the fry itself is not only to make it crispy,

but it's also to give it structure

to soak in a delicious sauce.

Thank you for showing us this. Right.

What are some other things that you have in development?

I heard that we might be able to taste something today.

Yeah. The menu team...

Charsiu. Szechuan.

Dynamite.

They're actually gonna walk you through

a couple items that we're doing some evaluation on.

We have some...

Our version of charsiu.

Charsiu pork.

Yes.

You don't have any pork on the menu right now.

We don't have any pork on the menu right now.

Interesting. And we love

American bacon.

Yeah.

So how can we combine this idea?

The thick cut American bacon.

Yeah. With charsiu flavor.

Back in the test kitchen.

Chef Chad, what are we looking at?

So we are looking at our version of charsiu.

[Host] Speaking my language, Cantonese.

So Cantonese. Right.

We are really pushing this idea

of charsiu barbecue and just kind of

doing a gut check, seeing how well it does.

Do Americans relate to it? Do they like it?

Come on.

How could you not?

[Chad laughing]

Other than the charsiu reference.

This glaze in this caramelization

also reminds me of the ribs

that Chinese takeout restaurants have.

[Chad] Sure.

Pork belly charsiu in Hong Kong

is called [speaking Cantonese],

which means Dragging on the floor.

Because the belly drags on the floor

when the pig is walking.

[Chad laughing]

And so it's called floor dragging charsiu.

Yum.

Chad is secretly making the Panda Express menu

a little bit Filipino because this

does remind me a lot of tocino.

Which is from my limited understanding,

kind of almost a Filipino take on charsiu.

Sweet, savory, char.

Like, actually burnt sugar on the outside.

Burnt enough, caramelized enough

that it almost has a bit of crunch.

Yum.

What are you gonna show me now?

I am gonna show you our dish called

Szechuan hot chicken.

Okay.

So we developed really unique sauce.

It's got brown sugar, soy sauce powder,

onion, garlic. Right.

Little honey powder, vinegar powder,

red chili and red szechuan.

We offer fried chicken at our restaurants.

Yeah. So why not have

a unique sauce on our portion.

[Host] Cool.

[Adrian] We got inspired by Southern Fried Chicken

on a sliced chicken breast.

Oh, yum.

My first thought is that

it is way less spicy than I thought

it was gonna be.

Getting some numbing.

But the Szechuan peppercorns were

not activated in heat, right?

The thing I like about Szechuan peppercorn

when it's finished is that it gives it

like citrus floral note.

The thing I'm always looking for

is like the length of flavor.

I think this has a decent length of flavor.

For it to be truly mala,

I would want to be a little bit more attacked.

Yeah. And like

I wouldn't want to feel with my previous bite

as I'm taking my next bite.

Sure. So in my opinion,

it could be amped up, but you know,

I'm just one guy.

So can you walk me through what the process

for RnD-ing a new product would look like?

Timeline wise, who you have to involve, all of that stuff.

So we have research, which is from our brand team.

Then after that we develop initial concept.

Right without the product,

then we're going to the prototyping,

and which is coming up with the first version ever.

Then we're going to the science,

which is actually thinking about

where we can produce it.

We gather together as an entire team,

we do evaluation, and then

from that evaluation we take it

to what we call the operation testing.

We wanna see how the operators will execute.

Yeah.

And then finally we're going to

what we call the market test,

which is actually plug it into different markets

of America to see how the guests react to the product.

And then if it passes certain tests,

it doesn't pass certain tests, you go back

to the prototype and you keep doing it and doing it.

Yes. How long

does that take?

Usually.

So depends on the metric that we need to hit.

I would say typically from a conceptual

all the way to the product deliverable,

it could be up to about 13 months.

All right.

So here we're making dynamite sweet and sour chicken.

Making it swicy, 'cause that's what the Gen Zs love.

Ooh!

Swicy is sweet plus spicy.

Yes. And so the idea

is that a trend forecaster or somebody

from the trend scene would've said

Swicy is in.

And then you answer with product.

This chicken looks different from

the orange chicken chicken.

It is.

So it is a breaded chicken product

and it's white meat. Oh, yeah.

It is a partnership with Buldak,

extremely spicy.

You had promised that this was going to be

the spiciest thing Panda's ever served.

Wow. Look at that color.

[chicken crunches]

Oh, my God.

If orange chicken is one,

how many chili peppers is this?

[Lolita] I would say it's probably like 8 to 10.

This is Buldak level spice for sure.

When you work with another brand like Buldak

through the RnD process, when do you involve them?

They definitely wanted to make sure

that the spice delivered.

Yeah. As something expected.

We have them come in, taste it,

make sure that the mark on the spice.

I think that cragliness is really, really nice.

I think it's really delicious.

It's great and it looks awesome.

And it's hot, but it is

good.

It's painful.

[Host sighs]

I feel like I may have wrecked my palate

for the next dish. [Lolita laughing]

But we should try the next thing.

[Lolita] Next we are making something not as spicy.

Yeah. We're making

crispy sesame shrimp and beef.

It's our take on, you know, the surf and turf.

We have this what is inspired by a mouth watering sauce.

Oh, cool.

Like [speaking Cantonese].

[speaking Cantonese] sauce.

[Lolita] So it's got a lot of those aromatics.

The garlic, the sesame.

Okay. Little black vinegar,

a little tomato for some savoriness.

Tomato?

That looks good.

I like the shrimp.

This reminds me of like a super

Chinese American kung pao shrimp.

It's called a sweet chili type of thing.

I'm not entirely convinced that this dish

would add anything to me because

I love the honey walnut and I love the Beijing beef.

I'm interested in seeing what like

the product positioning of this dish is

and if it sells well because it is combined,

but the colors look great.

I love the high number of vegetables in it

and I think the fry on the shrimp is

really, really wonderful.

It's exciting to hear that your reference points

for new products are oftentimes Chinese

and American.

Yeah. The last time

we saw each other, last time,

probably like seven, eight years ago,

you're beginning this quest of convincing people

that it's okay to be Chinese American.

Yes. But you don't really

need to have that conversation

of whether Panda Express is authentic

Chinese food anymore and establish the fact

that American Chinese food is a regional Chinese food.

Yes.

That happens to exist outside of the borders of China.

Yes. So is that battle

mostly won?

For the past seven, eight years,

even up to 10 years, they find comfort

to enjoy [speaking Chinese].

Right?

Enjoying this cuisine of American Chinese cuisine.

Yeah.

Now that we're stabilized,

we're a little bit more established

and people can sort of have the same

expectation of what American Chinese is.

[Host] Yeah.

Now we get to play a little bit more.

Sure. We get to maybe sketch

outside of box a little bit.

Sure. Every once in a while.

Yeah. Just so that people

can see a variation.

Let me tell you this,

I learned a couple of things today.

I learned about the importance of

the layered batter to create that sort of texture.

Chicken that's crispy,

that's not fried all the way is incredible.

Second, I learned a little bit about

flavor profile and flavor positioning.

The flavor profile of that sweet and sour

is just the beginning with the layered aromatics

and that lasting savoriness.

It's also blueprint for a lot

of the new development of dishes at Panda Express.

To see a cuisine that is that complex

distributed to 2,500 locations worldwide

with the amount of attention to detail

plus the cultural mission.

Huge privilege to see.