Your family has a tradition of Asian Takeout Night every Sunday. Your favorite Chinese Restaurant is no longer in business and you are very sad. What to do? Make your own, of course! Kung Pao Chicken has always been my favorite dish for Chinese Takeout.

I know that Chinese Takeout is different for every family. Whether your tradition comes from the East Coast or the West Coast can have a definite impact on what you are used to. All I can do is provide you with some of my favorites and hope you will enjoy them enough to make them yours! Check out some of my favorite Takeout Night recipes here:

Pork Fried Wontons

Hot and Sour Soup

Fried Rice

Scallion Pancake

Pan-Fried Dumplings / Potstickers and Egg Rolls

Spicy Drunken Noodle (This is Thai, not Chinese but so very good!)

Let’s Talk About Kung Pao

One of my all-time favorite Asian Dishes is Kung Pao Chicken. This dish is filled with some spice and umami-filled flavors and ingredients that will satisfy some of those Sunday Night cravings! You will notice some ingredients that you may not have come across before. Some of those ingredients might be Dark Soy, Chinkiang Vinegar, Shaoxing Wine, and Sichuan Pepper.

All these ingredients can be found at your local Asian Market. Most can be substituted for other products if you can’t find them. Dry Sherry could sub for Shaoxing wine; use regular soy for dark soy; use rice vinegar to sub for Chinkiang Vinegar. There really is no substitute for Sichuan Pepper though.

Another sauce that is great on kung pao chicken is doubanjiang sauce. It is a spicy bean sauce that is salty, savory, and packed with umami flavors. This product is very well known in Sichuan cuisine.

What is Sichuan Pepper?

Small red arbol chiles and the berries of the Sichuan Pepper

Sichuan pepper is actually unrelated to the pepper family. They are the berries of the prickly ash tree. When eaten they produce a slight tingling, numbing effect known as Mala in Chinese cuisine. Be adventuresome…give it a try! If you can’t find them at your local Asian Market, no worries. Your Kung Pao will be great!

I hope you enjoy the recipe. Let me know what your favorite Sunday Night craving is in the comments below and as always, thanks for Spending Time in My Kitchen!

The Best Kung Pao for Sunday Takeout Night!

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Recipe by David Frank – Spending Time In My Kitchen

Servings

servings

Prep time

minutes

Cooking time

minutes

Ingredients

6 6 Red dried Arbol chile peppers, cut in half, and take out seeds
4 Tbl 4 Grapeseed or peanut oil
3 3 Chicken breast, cut into bite-size pieces
4 tsp 4 Garlic, minced fine
1 Tbl 1 Fresh ginger, minced fine
4 4 Green onion cut white and light green into 1/2 inch slices.
1 Cup 1 Dry roasted peanuts, unsalted
Kung Pao Sauce
1 tsp 1 Cornstarch
1 Tbl 1 Shaoxing wine
1/4 Cup 1/4 Chicken broth, low sodium
1 tsp 1 Red Chili Bean Paste – doubanjiang (not brown)
1 tsp 1 Sambal Olek, can use instead of doubanjiang (optional)
3 tsp 3 Tamari or soy sauce, low sodium
3 Tbl 3 Chinkiang vinegar
1/2 Tbl 1/2 Dark soy sauce
1 Tbl 1 Sugar
Chicken Marinade
1 tsp 1 Shaoxing wine
2 tsp 2 Tamari or soy sauce, low sodium
1 Tbl 1 Cornstarch
1 1 Egg white
1/4 tsp 1/4 Sugar
Optional Ingredients
2 tsp 2 Sichuan peppercorns, (make a rough grind using a mortar and pestle)
1 tsp 1 Sesame oil
Red bell pepper
Rice Rice As a side dish
Garnish
Ribbons of green onion

Directions

Cook your rice if desired and set the rice aside when complete. Check here for my Fried Rice Recipe
The actual cooking of the dish is going to happen very fast, so you need to have all your ingredients very close by to ensure your dish does not overcook.
Add all the ingredients for the marinade into a bowl and whisk to combine. Add the chicken to the marinade and let sit for a minimum of 30 minutes.
After you have marinated the chicken and just before making your kung pao, drain the marinade from the chicken and set the chicken aside.
Add all the ingredients of the Kung Pao Sauce. Whisk well and set aside.
Cut arbol chiles in half. De-seed them, place them in a small bowl.
Add Sichuan peppercorns (if used) to the chiles and set the bowl aside.
Wipe pan/wok with oil. Turn heat to high. Make sure your pan is hot.
Add additional oil to the bottom of the pan (wok preferable).
Add Sichuan peppercorns and chiles to the pan until fragrant. Less than a minute. Do not burn.
Add chicken and cook for two minutes. Move the chicken around so all sides begin to cook.
Add garlic and ginger and cook until fragrant. Should be another minute.
Add green onion and peanuts. Add bell pepper if desired. Add a couple of drops of sesame oil if desired. Cook for a minute.
Add enough Kung Pao Sauce to cover the chicken. Stir well and cook until the chicken is completely cooked. I prefer my kung pao not to be too saucy. It should only take a couple of minutes at the most. If your chicken is too dry, add more sauce or chicken broth until you obtain the sauce texture you prefer.
NOTE: Do not crowd your pan with chicken. Your dish will steam/braise and will not get the color you want. More likely you will need to cook in batches. You may want to prepare for cooking in two batches and separate your ingredients into two separate bowls so that you will have an equal amount of ingredients for each batch.
Pull the pan off the heat and serve the Kung Pao over rice.
Garnish with some green onion.
Enjoy!