Panda Express has added a new variant of its beloved Orange Chicken to its menu for a limited time. The fast-food restaurant has revamped its most popular dish with a spicy new twist, giving birth to the now-viral Hot Orange Chicken. The company's latest offering will be available nationwide till June 23.
Panda Express adds new Hot Orange Chicken to its menu
The new Hot Orange Chicken is basically Panda Express' original Orange Chicken with an added sweet heat of “six scoops of crushed chillis and a ladle full of dried chillis.” The chillis used in the dish are the same ones used in the company's famed Kung Pao Chicken. The dish is best described as “sweet and tangy” with a heat level that “gradually builds,” per KTLA.
Panda Express' Culinary Innovation Manager Adrian Lok shared a behind-the-scenes video of how the spicy dish is cooked on Instagram. “I really love orange chicken, but I always wished it could be a little bit spicier,” Lok says in the video, adding, “Normally, our orange chicken recipe has one teaspoon of crushed chilli. Let’s amp it up today by adding six.”
Netizens say Hot Orange Chicken is ‘not spicy enough’
Shortly after Panda Express unveiled the dish, spicy food lovers rushed to grab one for themselves, but they were seemingly left disappointed as it wasn't “hot enough for them.” One Reddit user shared a picture of his order of Hot Orange Chicken with rice, along with the caption, “The new Hot Orange Chicken at Panda Express just came out today and after having a couple of bites it was really not that spicy at all,it just has a spicy flavor due to the dried chilies cooked into it.”
{{/usCountry}}Shortly after Panda Express unveiled the dish, spicy food lovers rushed to grab one for themselves, but they were seemingly left disappointed as it wasn't “hot enough for them.” One Reddit user shared a picture of his order of Hot Orange Chicken with rice, along with the caption, “The new Hot Orange Chicken at Panda Express just came out today and after having a couple of bites it was really not that spicy at all,it just has a spicy flavor due to the dried chilies cooked into it.”
{{/usCountry}}Several others who tried the new dish agreed with the user's opinion. One Redditor replied, “Tried it today. It was not spicy enough. Barely any different than the regular version.” One more user said, “These chains are never gonna serve anything that’s actually spicy.” Yet another said, “They have to cater to the masses. Many in America, black pepper is too spicy.”