Last night, our kitchen magically morphed into healthy Panda Express:
I remember the exact day Panda Express showed up at our local shopping mall. I was in 7th grade—the age where girls ditch their parents, get glammed up in more makeup than kabuki performers, and hang out at the mall every single weekend, feeling incredibly cool and grown up.
After Panda Express moved in, you suddenly couldn’t set foot in the building without being hit by the addictive aroma of their orange sesame sauce. It called to us as we perused the displays of glitter eyeliner at Sephora. (Why did I ever think sparkly neon green eyeliner was a good look for me?) It beckoned to us while we debated the pink pleather pants from Wet Seal. (Sadly, I did end up buying a pair.) And then, as we purchased our much-too-short shorts at Abercrombie and Fitch, the orange sesame aroma practically screamed to us. (Perhaps it was simply trying to be heard over A&F’s ridiculously-loud music.)
Finally, we’d give in to temptation, devouring every sweet orange bite.
Last night we thought it’d be fun to make a Panda-inspired dinner, complete with chopsticks and Chinese takeout containers from Michaels. At first I thought to make tofu. But… cauliflower just seemed way more fun! For the cauliflower, I used: this cauliflower recipe.
(If you’d prefer, you can make “popcorn cauliflower” by combining 1/2 cup any type of flour with 1/2 cup water, dipping cauliflower florets into this mixture, baking 20 minutes at 425F, then pouring the sauce on top and baking another few minutes.)
To recreate Panda Express’s “secret” sauce, I first looked at the ingredients in their bottled sauce and many copycat recipes online. Then I gathered some basic ingredients common in all of the recipes (vinegar, garlic, ginger…) and played around with the proportions until the sauce tasted just as good as better than the one from Panda Express. What follows is some really, really good sauce.
You’ll want to put it on everything!
Healthy Panda Express Orange Sauce
- 1/2 cup vegetable broth (120g)
- 2 tbsp cornstarch or arrowroot (30g)
- 3-4 tbsp orange marmalade (45-60g)
- 2 tbsp minced garlic (30g)
- 1/2 tsp powdered ginger
- 2 tbsp + 2 tsp rice vinegar (45g)
- 2 stevia packets, or 2 tbsp sugar (Liquid sweetener will work; just use a bit more cornstarch for thickening.)
- 2 tbsp soy sauce or gf tamari (30g)
- optional: 1 tsp sesame oil
- optional: green onions for garnish, crushed red chilis for a spicy variation
Whisk broth and cornstarch or arrowroot until dissolved. Now turn on the heat to low-medium and add all other ingredients. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Once it’s thickened, remove from heat. Makes 300g (about 1 1/4 cup). Serve over whatever you wish: rice, veggies, soba, tofu, etc. As noted above, here are the directions if you wish to make chicken-style cauliflower (it works with tofu as well): combine 1/2 cup any type of flour with 1/2 cup water, dip florets of one head cauliflower into this mixture, bake 20 minutes at 425F, then pour the sauce on top and bake another few minutes.
View Orange Sauce Nutrition Facts
LINK OF THE DAY:
OMG I cannot WAIT to make this. I’ve been sick all week and not cooking much but this HAS to be made in the next week! And I was reading this thinking awww but it’s probably tofu 🙁 and it WASN”T! Genius!
My favorite chinese foods are not vegan or healthy but I love the Mongolian beef at my hometown restaurant in Jackson, MI and I love the Orange Chicken and Beijing Beef from Panda Express. But there are NO good Chinese restaurants here in Antigua, Guatemala. We tried to go to one and knew we were in trouble when the meal started out with two slices of white bread and two packets of ketchup. It was an experience…
Too funny!
What a neat areitlc. I had no inkling.
I made this sauce for dinner tonight and it was amazing! I served it with tofu, bell pepper, broccoli, and noodles. 🙂
I tried this this afternoon and it had a funny taste to it and I couldn’t figure out why… I tried the orange marmalade on it’s own and it was awful. Back to the store I went to buy another kind of marmalade, and round two was DELICIOUS!
Oh you are so creative and talented 😀
I made this and loved the flavor,but I think you made a typo in your recipe. 2 teaspoons of corn starch is plenty. 2 tablespoons is WAY too much – I had to keep adding more broth and it diluted the flavor. I am also puzzled how you kept yours so light in color? The soy sauce turned mine dark brown ? I can deal with the color for the flavor! I used fresh ginger and it was really good and also added red pepper flakes for a little heat. The broiled cauliflower was a perfect idea ! Love love loved it! I also added some crimini mushrooms to the cauliflower to broil and they turned out great also! Any ideas on how to keep it so light in color or did you photoshop yours to a lighter color?
Are you sure you measured correctly? I used 2 tbsp cornstarch and it was fine, maybe a tiny bit thick, but I think 2 teaspoons would be much too thin. Mine was also around the color of Katie’s. Maybe it depends on the brand of your orange marmalade? I used low sodium soy sauce, but I think that’s the same color as regular.
Anyway, Katie, this was really good. My oldest son was licking the bowl! 🙂
Katie, I will be putting a picture up on my blog soon!
Hmmm… that’s weird! I definitely used 2 tbsp and it was fine. Now I wish I could ask everyone who made it :-?.
And color-wise, I brightened the entire photo and changed the white balance a little (I usually have to make my photos less blue). But I didn’t do anything to the color of the actual sauce. (Looking back, I think that second photo is really overexposed and ugly! So don’t judge anything by that one. It doesn’t do the recipe justice.)
EDIT: I do see another commenter above you said hers was very thick, so I’ve changed the recipe to be one tbsp cornstarch. Maybe my cornstarch is losing its power… I’m not sure how old it is, but I’m off to check that now, and I’ll have to make the recipe again to figure it out. Sorry for the confusion!
Not sure why wordpress just logged me out, but the above is from me ;).
This is the one I pinned on pinterest! can’t wait to make this and also win that food processor!
WOW, I can’t even believe how good this was, even my 4 year old daughter asked for not just seconds but thirds! I never would have thought that just water and flour would make a batter that would turn out ok in the oven but it totally did. I tried both whole wheat flour and white flour and I really couldn’t tell a difference in the taste but I liked how the whole wheat ones looked better because they were darker and made it look even more like chicken and less like cauliflower. I really can’t get over how they looked fried!
I’m curious how you coated your cauliflower, for my first batch I hand dipped each peice and it took a while and the ones I did first ended up sitting in a small pool of batter. For the second batch I just dumped them all in the bowl and stired it around until they were all coated and then picked them out and put them on the cookie sheet, that seemed to work out better. What method did you use?
I actually baked the cauliflower first. As it was roasting, I made up the sauce. Then I just mixed the two.
Katie, I would like to ask you to marry me. I made this tonight and it was beyond delicious. I will admit, I was skeptical that cauliflower could take the place of my delicious chickeny love, but you made it happen. So amazingly yummy. Thank you!
🙂 🙂
I made this today for lunch and it was very good! My only caution would be for others to make sure they cut their cauliflower pieces small enough. I like cauliflower so I left mine in pretty large florets and they were a little soggy, while smaller pieces that broke off were a much better texture/crispiness.
I’ve been a vegetarian for the last 3 years, and fried chicken with orange/sweet sauce is one of the few things I still really miss. Thanks for posting this Katie!
I unfortunately found this sauce much too sweet! I think next time I would leave out the sugar completely. Otherwise it was good and I liked how easy it was. I added an extra T cornstarch because mine wasn’t thickening properly.
I made this for dinner and it was amazing! I know want to try other marmalades and see how it does. I have a lime marmalade in my fridge that is crying to be tried and I know where to buy a ginger one. Oh, the possibilities!