hello hi everyone! Wesley here. Today we’re diving back into our series on Panda Express Hacks with a shot at their string bean chicken, which we’re gonna deconstruct, and then see if we can’t amp it up a bit with some of my favorite additions drawn from more traditional Chinese wok cooking. For those not familiar, Panda Express’ string bean chicken features (as you might guess) string beans (or green beans, depending on who you ask), sweet white onion, and a bit of chicken breast done in a fairly mild “ginger soy sauce,” (or at least, that’s what they call it). To me of course, ginger and soy sauce are in most Chinese stir fries already, so that sauce could very well be really anything.

So, I’m taking a bit of liberty with my attempt here, and adding a couple of ingredients to bring out a little bit more savory umami and heat, with a couple of ingredients that you’ll likely recognize from some of our more traditional recipes. This is mainly gonna be done with the addition of dark soy sauce, black bean paste, and my favorite combination of heat elements, some Chinese doubanjiang, and spicy chili crisp or “lao gan ma.” Hope you try it.

It will be out on Friday July 16th, 2021, so bookmark the recipe here, and be sure to subscribe and hit the bell on YouTube to get notified when it’s out!

Woo Can Cook is a series where we reproduce fun foods and recipes from my childhood. Some of them are authentically Chinese and/or pan-Asian, but a lot of them are odd Americanized versions that I inherited from my parents and grandparents while growing up in the Bay Area/California.

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