Panda Express Beijing Beef is an awesome copycat of the original with crispy strips of marinated beef, bell peppers and sliced onions, tossed in the wok with a tangy sweet and spicy sauce.
Panda Express Beijing Beef is the beef answer to the insanely popular Panda Express Orange Chicken everyone craves so much. My favorite part of Beijing Beef though is the added hint of spice that always was lacking for me in the slightly too sweet orange chicken recipe.Turns out the idea was a hit, Panda Express Beijing Beef is a totally popular pick. The breading keeps a crunch to the outside even though it is covered in the sweet, spicy, sticky sauce and the red bell peppers and onions provide a soft, deliciously sweet counterpart to the spicy beef.
Keeping track of all the Panda Express copycat recipes here on the blog? I have a whole page dedicated to Panda Express Recipes… every single one in fact: Panda Express Recipes Index
Looking for more Chinese Food in general?
- Cheesecake Factory Mandarin Cashew Chicken
- PF Chang’s Orange Peel Chicken
- California Pizza Kitchen’s Kung Pao Chicken Spaghetti
- General Tso’s Chicken
- Easy Mongolian Beef
- Many more Chinese food options…
This dish may seem like it has a LONG list of ingredients, but that is because it is a multi-step recipe. If this is more in-depth or time intensive than you would like you can make some quick adjustments to help get dinner on the table sooner.
- Buy presliced (but not seasoned) fajita beef meat from your butcher. It will NOT be as thin as I recommend but it is a quick swap if you’re in a rush.
- Mix up your Panda Express Beijing Beef sauce the weekend before and keep it in the fridge. Most of the prep time is in combining these ingredients.
- Skip the egg batter altogether and just toss the beef in cornstarch. Your beef will not have as much crust, but it will still be plenty crispy and delicious.
- Grab some from Panda 😉 ok, ok, this one is a joke.
Tools Used in the Making of this Panda Express Beijing Beef Recipe:
Soy Sauce: Nothing much to say here except Kikkoman has the best flavor overall and I always recommend reduced sodium.
Wok: Great for high heat, quick cooking. This wok is a great addition to your kitchen if you love cooking Chinese food or stir fries in general.
Large Frying Pan: I use this Cuisinart for most of my non cast iron cooking unless I am going with a stainless steel option, then I choose my All Clad.
Oyster Sauce: This is a unique flavor and ingredient. If you avoid seafood and want another option I recommend Vegetarian Oyster Sauce (made from mushrooms) but I don’t recommend you swap this out for something else altogether.
Hoisin Sauce: Considered to be like an Asian BBQ sauce, this is a unique flavor I would not leave out of the dish.
Sweet Chili Sauce: Adds that sweet, glaze to the dish that you’ll have trouble replicating without quite a lot of work, this is at the heart of the dish. If you’re in a pinch use the Trader Joe’s brand, add a bit more than written of the crushed red peppers since the Trader Joe’s variety is not spicy at all.
Panda Express Beijing Beef
Ingredients
- 1 pound flank steak
- 1 cup canola oil
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 1 yellow onion sliced
- 1 pieces red bell pepper cut into 1"
- 1/4 cup cornstarch divided
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 3 egg whites beaten
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 3 tablespoons ketchup
- 6 tablespoons Hoisin sauce
- 1 tablespoon low sodium soy sauce
- 2 teaspoons oyster sauce
- 4 teaspoons sweet chili sauce
- 1 teaspoons crushed red peppers
- 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
Instructions
- Cut the flank steak against the grain into thin 1/4 inch slices.
In a medium sized bowl add the beef, egg, salt and 1 teaspoon cornstarch and let marinate for 30 minutes to an hour.
- To make the Beijing Beef Sauce, in a small bowl whisk together the 1/2 cup water, 1/4 cup sugar, ketchup, hoisin, soy sauce, oyster sauce, sweet chili sauce, crushed red peppers and apple cider vinegar.
- After the beef has finishing marinating add 2 tablespoons cornstarch to a bowl, add the marinated beef (discard the extra marinade).
- Heat a small saucepan with the oil on medium-high (I use a small saucepan so that I can get a deep fry on this without using a lot of oil. So I fry in small batches, if you don't mind using more oil, go for a bigger pot and you can fry these up much faster).
- With the last two tablespoons of cornstarch toss the beef one last time and shake off any excess cornstarch.
Fry the slices, in batches, until golden brown (2-3 minutes).
- Heat a large pan on high heat and use two tablespoons of the oil you just fried the beef in.
Add the onion and bell pepper and cook for 2-3 minutes, until it just starts caramelizing on the edges.
- Add the garlic in and continue to cook a few more seconds until fragrant.
- Remove the veggies and put them with the beef on a plate.
Add the Beijing Beef sauce to the large pan and cook on high until it thickens, about 3-5 minutes.
- Add the beef and vegetables into the sauce and toss to combine.
- Serve immediately.
Making this tonight! But could you air fry this instead of frying it in oil?
I’ve not tested it using an air fryer. If you decide to try, I’d love to know how it turns out. Thanks.
Nope , not at all like Panda Express. It had a great texture, but the flavor was not spicy and not sweet like the Panda Express Beijing beef. I spent money on buying sauces that I probably did not even need.
Just made this tonight for some friends and it came out great!!! 🙂 I loved it. Used a meat thermometer to make sure I didn’t over cook the meat. Thank you for the great recipe. Everyone finished all the food.
Do you fry it twice??
I didn’t.
Just how beaten do the egg whites need to be? Just a little? Soft peaks? Am I overthinking this haha? This is my family’s favorite Panda dish! Can’t wait to make it!
Just until they’re beaten. No need to overthink, haha! Enjoy!
Though I think the recipe is very tasty, this is not even close to Panda’s Beijing beef. I will definitely keep the SAUCE recipe as its delicious however, the entire process was way too much bother for what we got out of it. Next time, I’ll just go to Panda, lol
My Panda Express no longer sells this item, so I was so happy to find this recipe! I finally made it, and it was delicious! My husband and I REALLY enjoyed it! It is better than the Beijing Beef I get from Panda Express! I didn’t make any changes to the recipe. Thank you so much for sharing it!!
Did you know no matter what the dish is they will make it if it’s not on the row to buy you can request they make it and they usually do! It’s in their panda promise 🙂
plus you’re not eating the oil, very little remains on the meat so you’re consuming all those calories ?
Beijing Beef is one of my favorite PE dishes, and this did not disappoint! I used a deep fryer so was able to cook all the beef in one batch. My only ingredient change was to substitute top round for the flank steak — flank’s ridiculously expensive in my area — and that worked just fine. I’ll definitely make this again!
Thanks for the suggestion! So glad you enjoyed it.
Panda Express Beijing Beef does NOT contain oyster sauce.
So…. this stuff is AMAZING!…better then Panda Express
Thanks so much, Evelynmaria!
The calorie count for this seems way off. 1 cup of oil contains 16 tablespoons, each which is about 120 calories, totaling to 1920 calories of oil in the whole recipe. The calories of oil in each serving (480) is more than the amount of calories listed here for all of the ingredients in one serving.
I am not a nutrition site and the calculations are automatically done based on the ingredients. If you are concerned about the amounts, feel free to use another online calculator to ensure the numbers work for you.
The beef is only going to absorb a small amount of oil. Unless you’re planning to pour the remaining oil over the finished dish — or drink it — why would you expect the nutrition information to reflect the full cup?
I enjoyed this a lot, we had it for dinner tonight. Next time I will forgo deep frying the beef and simply stir fry it, plenty of flavor in the wonderful sauce. Thank you.
I absolutely love panda express Beijing beef and this recipe did not disappoint my kids and husband loved it so did I. This recipe is definitely a keeper? Thanks for sharing Sabrina!!!
Yay!! Thanks for letting me know, Latoyia.
I made this today and it’s really delicious! I used 1-2tbs rice vinegar, cut back on the sugar by half and it added just the right amount of acidity/sweetness. Thank you for the wonderful recipe!
You’re welcome, Clare.
I made this today for my clients! It was outstanding. I’m a Personal Chef and needed some new inspo. This did the trick. can’t wait to go your recipe index. The only thing I changed was the cut of meat. I used flap meat.Thank you so much!
Aww that’s awesome! I used to be a PC. Glad I could help the menu planning process!
This took a lot of time and effort and was totally worth it. I’ve been looking for a recipe to duplicate the sauce from my favorite dish at a Chinese restaurant at the other end of the lake for a while now, and this nailed it. You’ve saved me many a long drive. Thank you!
I’m so happy you loved it! Thanks for the 5 star rating.
So so good! I used rice vinegar instead of apple cider vinegar and it came out perfectly. I had just added Panda Express’ Beijing Beef into my cart in a food delivery app when I decided to search for recipes, and I am so happy I did! Saved myself some money and added a new recipe into the dinner rotation today. Thank you!
That’s incredible! I’m so glad you decided it give it a try too!