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Beijing Beef, Panda Express Style
Beijing beef is one of the most popular beef recipes at Panda Express and many readers had emailed and asked me about Panda Express Beijing beef recipe.
To develop this recipe, I specifically went to Panda Express and tried out the dish. After careful examination of the ingredients used, and tasting the sauce carefully, I think I have gotten down the copycat recipe of Beijing Beef.
So here is the yummy copycat Panda Express Beijing beef recipe. This recipe tastes better and fresher than the ones at Panda Express!
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How to Make Beijing Beef
As with most recipes served at Panda Express, the protein is coated in batter and deep-fried. To create a truly amazing Beijing sauce, I adjusted the recipe and ingredients a few times to get to the right balance of flavors.
Beijing Beef Sauce
The list of ingredients in the Beijing sauce is long, but be rest assured, after you taste it, you would want to make it again and again. It’s actually quite addictive and good.
The good news is that you can make the sauce in a big batch and keep in the fridge and whenever you are craving it, you can make this Beijing Beef, or Beijing Chicken. It’s totally up to you!
What Is Beijing Style Sauce?
Beijing sauce contains fermented products in order to create a delightful blend of sour, sweet, and savory taste. The flavor is super versatile and can be used even as a dipping sauce.
How Many Calories per Serving?
This recipe is only 296 calories per serving.
What Dishes to Serve with This Recipe?
For a wholesome meal and easy weeknight dinner, I recommend the following recipes.
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Panda Express Beijing Beef Copycat
Ingredients
- 8 oz (230g) flank steak (sirloin or beef flap, cut against the grain into 1/4 inch (5mm) slices)
- 2 tablespoons oil
- 2 cloves garlic (minced)
- 1/2 medium-sized yellow onion (sliced)
- 1/2 medium-sized red bell pepper (cut into pieces)
- cornstarch (to dust beef for deep-frying)
- salt and sugar to taste
Marinade:
- 1 egg (beaten)
- 1/2 teaspoon corn starch
- 1 dash ground white pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
Beijing Sauce:
- 4 tablespoons water
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 1/2 tablespoons ketchup
- 3 tablespoons hoisin sauce
- 2 teaspoons light soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon oyster sauce
- 2 teaspoons sweet chili sauce
- 1-2 teaspoons crushed chili peppers
- 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
Instructions
- Prepare the Marinade in a bowl and mix well. Marinate the beef for 15 minutes.
- In a separate bowl, mix all the Beijing Sauce ingredients. Set aside.
- Place cornstarch in a bag/bowl. Toss marinated beef in cornstarch, coat well, and set aside in the refrigerator.
- Heat up enough oil over high heat. Coat beef slices with cornstarch again, making sure the beef slices are well coated. Shake off the excess cornstarch from beef slices. Prepare to deep-fry beef (in small batches). Drop in the beef slices and deep-fry for 1-2 minutes, or until light golden brown. Dish out, drained on paper towel and set aside.
- In a wok, heat up the oil over high heat. Stir-fry the onion and bell pepper until fragrant and slightly charred, add in the garlic and continue to stir-fry for 10 seconds. Remove from wok.
- Heat up wok over medium-high heat, pour in the Beijing Sauce seasoning. Bring it to a simmer or until it thickens. You may adjust salt, soy sauce, water, etc., to taste.
- Toss in the deep-fried beef and stir-fried onion, bell pepper, and garlic. Stir well for 1 minute, or until the beef is completely cooked and absorbed the sauce. Dish out and serve with hot steamed rice.
Notes
Nutrition
Notice: Nutrition is auto-calculated, using Spoonacular, for your convenience. Where relevant, we recommend using your own nutrition calculations.
Is there a way to avoid deep frying? If we pan fry, do we need the marinade and cornstarch dusting?
Hi! Making this tonight and have tomato paste. Would you think it would be too tomato-tasting to sub for the ketchup?
Thanks!
Beijing beef is my favorite at Panda Express. I just made this and it is the bomb!!! Great recipe.. Thanks..
Thanks great that you love the Beijing Beef recipe.
I have been searching for this recipe. Had it tonight and the family loved it!! Thanks Rasa:)
Wow you are fast!
My hubby and I have Chinese every Thursday night so we have tried a lot of recipes! This is by far the best one we have tried! We didn’t have black vinegar I mis-read the ingredients and added a bit of black pepper LOL I am looking forward to trying it again with the vinegar!
Thanks for trying the recipe Abby!
I made this tonight for my son who is home from college for winter break. He said it was so good he may not go back!
Donna – that’s too funny I am so glad that your son loves this Beijing Beef recipe. Thank you! :)
Is this recipe similar to Beijing beef at panda express,and is this recipe in your cookbook? I also really love General Tso’s chicken, is it in your cookbook? Thank you!!
Similar to the ones in Panda Express. I have General Tso’s chicken here:
Are Beijing beef and General Tso’s chicken in your cookbook?
No.
:o) I love this dish and have looked at every version of it I could find,and I must say that your recipe is by the best by far!!! Thank you!!!
Thanks Lennis.
:o) Thank you for what you do!! I just received your cookbook in the mail yesterday,and love it!!
Thanks Lennis.
I made this for dinner tonight and it was very good! I’ve never had the Panda Express version, but my son said it tasted a lot like it, except mine wasn’t as crispy. I had the same problem as Jesse, I think. Although I tried coating each piece in cornstarch, it was so time consuming because it was sticky. Awesome recipe, though…. Thank you! I love coming to your website for Asian recipes.
Thanks and glad that you enjoyed the recipes here. :)
Hi Jesse, if you really like it really crispy, just omit the eggs marinade and dust beef with cornstarch only. Deep-fry until crispy. Make the sauce and do a quick stir-fried beef with the sauce. If you still want to use to egg marinade, make sure u coat the beef slices with cornstarch and make sure its dry before you deep-fry them. You can freeze the beef prior to frying if you wish. Hope this helps!
I’ve never had the Panda Express version but just made this and it came out great.
My beef wasn’t that crispy, how dry should it be when frying? Mine was quite wet still, so the corn starch was more of a sauce consistency than a dry coating.
The recipe looks tasty, Rasa, I’ll try making it when I pick up some steak from the butcher. Thank you.
@Jesse – here’s a few general ideas to help keep things less soggy when frying. Disclaimer though, these are general frying tips and I have not tried them with this recipe.
1. Use egg whites instead of whole eggs. The yolks are loaded with fat and that fat will react with the pot you’re using which will reduce how crispy your food will get.
2. Try limiting how long you marinate the beef for. Maybe try marinating it for no more than about 2 minutes–much longer than that and the wet and dry ingredients will form a paste which becomes almost impossible to get a perfect fry on.
3. You can try adding a little club soda (even beer) to the batter. The fizzyness (bubbles) will help create a better crunch during frying.
Or you could try using baking soda and some kind of acid. Have you ever seen what happens to baking soda when it reacts with acid? It fizzes over. You could use cornstarch and maybe a small amount of baking soda and then add some kind of acid to your wet marinade (lemon juice, any kind of vinegar, buttermilk, etc.).
4. Not sure if this will change much as far as the recipe goes, but you could try going straight from the batter to the oil. The problem with dusting cornstarch over the web marinated steak is that you’re going to create a crust around the marinated beef which blocks the hot oil from frying the wet marinate. An alternate option would be to coat the beef in cornstarch, shake off excess (important), dredge in web marinade, then into frying oil.
5. Instead of removing beef to a paper towel which will allow the beef to stay soggy, try removing them to a cookie sheet with a cross-wire cookie rack. This will allow air to circulate around the meat, thus drying all sides.
Hope that helps. I’ll give it a try next time I stop by the butcher.
Thanks Jeff for such a long comment and try to help answer my reader’s questions. MUCH appreciated. :)
Could you use arrowroot powder instead of cornstarch in this recipe?
I believe so, but not very sure about the texture using arrow root.