Kung Pao Chicken Recipe
Here’s the recipe you all might have been waiting for – the legendary Kung Pao Chicken! I have wanted to make this for the longest time but have just finally got around to doing so now. Kung Pao chicken first originated in central-western China and has become very popular in the United States. This is the westernized version of kung pao chicken consisting of wok fried chicken pieces, roasted peanuts, scallions and a spicy sauce. For those of you that have been waiting for a Chinese chicken recipe that doesn’t use a deep fryer – this is it. Even though you can deep fry the chicken pieces this time we are frying the chicken in the wok. Some versions of Kung Pao chicken use vegetables such as zucchini or red bell peppers. This recipe doesn’t call for those but you can add them if you wish. Serve on top of white rice.
Ingredients:
1lb boneless-skinless chicken breasts (cut into 1” pieces)
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 teaspoons sesame oil
3 tablespoons green onions (chopped)
3 garlic cloves (minced)
½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
½ teaspoon powdered ginger
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons sugar
1/3 cup dry roasted peanuts
Cooking Instructions:
Step 1: combine chicken and cornstarch in a small bowl and toss to coat. Heat sesame oil in wok over medium heat, add chicken and stir fry 5-7 minutes or until no longer pink inside. Remove chicken from wok.
Step 2: Add green onions, garlic, red pepper flakes and powdered ginger to the wok and stir fry for 15 seconds.
Step 3: Combine vinegar, soy sauce and sugar in a small bowl. Mix well and add the sauce to the wok.
Step 4: Return chicken to the wok and coat with sauce. Stir in roasted peanuts. Heat thoroughly. Top with additional green onions if desired and serve over white rice.
Tags: cooking, recipes, food and drink, recipe
I love anything with chicken and this sounds like a great recipe.
This is a great dish – I love the fiery chilli addition to the balance of flavour.
That Kung Pao chicken looks really tasty!
My husband loves Kung Pao Chicken, the spicier the better. I’m bookmarking this recipe.
Wow, chicken looks delicious…. very interesting recipe:)
This looks better than you could get in any resturaunt!
Kungpao chicken looks awesome!! I would definitely love this. The best part is that the chicken is not deep fried! Bookmarked!
I have got to make your recipe. It looks too good to pass up. My mouth is watering and my stomach is growling now, and it’s 10 o’clock in the morning.
thanks, THANKS A LOT!
Ivy – it really turned out great… one of the best!
recipes2share – the chilli flakes add just the right amount of spice.
Kevin – Give it a try, I’m sure you will enjoy it.
Kathryn – Add even more red pepper flakes if you want super spicy!
Vani – it is great.. I love kung pao chicken!
HoneyB – No resturaunt can beat his kung pao
JZ @ Tasty treats – Yes, frying in the wok gives it great flavor. I hope you enjoy it.
Jill@SimpleDailyRecipes.com – Haha, this recipe is amazing… Let me know if you enjoy it
Wow…This looks amazing…I think I will try making it tonight…Thanks for the recipe…
This was amazing with the Chinese Fried Rice recipe.
Yay, kung pao chicken! thanks for the recipe, Bobby! I’m now staying in Australia and the chinese restaurants here don’t have this dish (as far as I know, I’ve been trying to find it ;p ). I guess I’ll just start fixing it up myself.
Wow, looks so good and so easy, too! I’m going to make it this weekend!
Chicken is so at its best like this, when it has that sticky, kind of crispy coating.
That is seriously mouth-watering stuff.
I love kung pao chicken, but haven’t had it in a long time. It looks delicious!
My husband loves KP chix. But it is never hot enought for him. I am going to give your recipe a try.
So much yum! This looks wonderful, I saved the recipe and surely gonna try it, thanks!
YOu have to try making this recipe. I made it for dinner and my boyfriend and I love it. I used a lot of vegetables (1 celery,1 red pepper,half red pepper and zuchinni ) all my vegetables were nicely cooked. However, for the sauce instead of adding 2tsp of (soy sauce,rice wine vinegar, sugar) I added half a cup. As my final product my Kung Pao chicken had the right amount of spice and sweetness. I think for my first time , it was too good to be true. I plan to cook this again. Thank you for the recipe BObby. =D
I really like this recipe it’s awesome! please try mine I just add a little more spice then the norm.
This looks absolutely delicious.
This recipe was very good. Tried it today with white rice, will have to try with the fried rice recipe sometime!
Thanks everyone! I’m glad you enjoyed the recipe.
Just made this useing Veat (fake Chicken) and it was fabulous and very quick to make! This can be made vegan/gluton free by substituting a couple ingredients
Tried it today, it’s delicious!
Thanks for the recipe!
I made this last night using 2lbs chicken, 1/2 lb yellow bell pepper, green beans, and carrots and 3.5 times the amount of sauce. Very good, went light on crp for my mom though.
Pic:
http://i303.photobucket.com/albums/nn149/FireStorm005/P1010363.jpg
I would love to prepare this dish for my husband who loves chinese cuisine. Thanks for sharing.
How many servings does this recipe accomodate? Thank you.
Michael – I would say about 3-4.
Can this be made the day before?
Judy – In my opinion no. You could do the prep work before hand but if you completely cooked it before hand the chicken would more than likely get soggy.
We make this all the time, and we love it! Best kung pao recipe I’ve come across.
Whoa, this is powerful stuff. Thanks for the recipe (bookmarked).
Very tasty! Quite similar to PF Chang’s Kung Pao Chicken – the closest we’ve found. We made one batch with chicken and one with shrimp, and they were both great. We had to put in more sesame oil to stir fry the meat, and we ended up doubling the sauce as hubby and I are both “sauce fans”, but it was a great recipe as is.
We will definitely be making this again! THANK YOU for a great recipe.
In the united kingdom we call it Kung Po, and it uses cashew nuts instead of peanuts but this looks a delicious recipe
Five Stars! I have many Chinese cookbooks and this is a great dish. Simple and not too “saucy” Thank you so much.
Excellent!! I have many Chinese cookbooks with recipes for Kung Pao Chicken. This one is perfect!. Not too “saucy” and simple and quick to make.
This was great!!! I made it tonight and my hubby and I loved it! Thanks for sharing such a perfect recipe. Spicy, but not too much!
Hi.
I stumbled on this recipe a good few months ago, probably early autumn last year. I copied it to a text file but forgot to add the link, so I’m really glad to have found your blog again.
I just want to say this is our favourite meal to make! We often have all the ingriedients in, and we make it usually once a week/fortnight.
I have to say thankyou so much for this recipe. It really has become one of our staple dinners, along with things like shepards pie and spag bol! It’s quick, easy, and so damn tasty!
Mmmm, I`m so making this! Just the photos have me literally drooling on my keyboard!
I have ultra-munchies and that looks insanely awesome.
Like the earlier poster said this isn’t a dish that is very common in Australia so the first time that I tasted it was on a train in China. Thanks for the recipe hopefully I’ll be able to recreate that experience (I think I’d get some strange looks if I went and ate it on the train).
We tried this with Tender Bits and it turned out very well. I recommend anyone try this recipe.
Very tasty and quick. Added extra flakes for more heat. Yummy!
i just cooked this recipe and lovely as it was, its not like the picture! Is the one pictured above deep fried? I cant see how u can get the coating like that without deep frying it?
i loved the flavour, tho kung po in the uk is usually quite sweet and sour. Yours looks very sticky, am i doing something wrong!?
Neil – You are right the chicken in the picture is deep fried. All you can really do is add alot more oil to the wok. Enough to almost cover the chicken. This will give somewhat of a deep fried effect.
Also, it may appear to be sticky, but its not.
Great thanks. Ive got hold of a deep fryer so im gonna give it a go! Also gonna try an increase the quantities so i can make more sauce..cant wait
Made this last night, got rave reviews! Incredible recipe!!!
You dear person, thank you so much for not making this with green bell pepper. I live in Augusta, GA, and I am so sick and tired of these idiots who serve KPC with bell peppers instead of the dried red (hot) peppers!!!!
I’m going to make this tonight, will report on the outcome after dinner
I love it man!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
One word….AWESOME!!!!
Good with cashews instead of the peanuts
)
My family loves this recipe..don’t seem to make enough so I guess I need to double the ingredients.
And, I included mushrooms and bell peppers (yeah…I’m in the South; TEXAS)!
Hey I tried out your recipe and it was delicious! But I had one problem – I couldnt get the cornstarch to stick to the chicken well. Does the chicken have to be dry? I had it defrosted in the fridge for 10 hours, but it was a little bit icy on the inside.
Any help is appreciated
wayne – sounds to me the problem was not allowing the chicken to fully thaw. Try allowing the chicken to fully thaw next time.
I followed this recipe, exactly. Just had my fill..it looked wonderful, it tasted quite good..Chinese food in Trinidad and Tobago is a lot more spicy though..
This is a wonderful recipe.. i’m cooking this 2day for my husband… he loves kung pao chicken @ pf changs…
My family loves it! Absolutely a wonderful dish!!! I have made it several times now, it’s easy and yummy.
I tried this recipe of yours and it was AWESOME! most delicious chicken an amateur like me has prepared! one drawback though, it was soooo hot for me… I was steaming from the ears. Maybe it had something to do with the red pepper flakes accidentally spilling all over the chicken…. i rate this dish 5 stars!!!!
This is more like General Tsao’s Chicken than Kung Pao Chicken, but it’s still good.
We made this tonight with a few substitutions (rice vinegar a splash of wine instead of rice wine vinegar, diced onion instead of green onion, fresh ginger instead of powdered, and cashews instead of peanut for the allergy-ridden) and it was pretty good! We added some veggie oil to help get the chicken crispy enough and we’ll probably tone down the spice next time, but the sauce came together surprisingly well – it wasn’t runny at all. Even our botched recipe was pretty delicious!
im from croatia and i love your recipe… I searched for this recipe for a long time and finally i found it…Thank you so much!
I want to say I cooked this tonight , and boy did my Fiance and daughter love it!! I did not use peanuts at all in this recipe..however it was just as good I want to thank you for sharing this recipe !!!!
THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I MADE THIS, AND IT’S EASY AND DELICIOUS– VERY VERY GOOD .I TRIPLED THE SAUCE BECAUSE IT WAS MORE SAUCE— I LEFT OUT THE PEANUTS — DON’T LIKE PEANUTS IN MY CHICKEN GOOD JOB…
OMG THIS RECIPE IS AWESOME!!! Helped me sooo much to make the most delicious kung-pao! However, I had to use olive oil and red wine vinegar because I didn’t have the sesame oil or the rice vinegar but still came out great!! Wonderful recipe!!
We don’t eat rice so I added some stir fry veggies rave reviews!!!!!
This is probably a stupid question, but do you remove some of the oil from the wok as well when u remove the chicken, before adding the onions and peper flakes..or does all that oil get added to the sauce?
dave – if you are just using the 2 teaspoons of sesame oil, you wouldn’t need to remove any. If you are adding more for more of a deep fry on the chicken, yes I would recommend removing some.
I just wanted to say thanks for the recipe. I have tried to make kung pao packets several times. This turned out fantastic. I definitely hit a home run with the family.
Great recipe. I made this last night, the only thing I changed was I doubled the sauce…its just so good! Also, to me it was very spicy, I’ll add less pepper flakes next time. Thanks for this recipe.
This was good, but my chicken did not look like yours did. Yours looks dipped in batter and fried, not just rolled in cornstarch. Maybe I did it wrong??
Stefanie- nope, the chicken in the photo is just rolled in cornstarch.
Oh my gosh!!!I am so glad I found this recipe.
Thank you so much. My family just loved this. It is definitely a keeper for us.
I made this with my boyfriend and it turned out great! We added a lot more cornstarch to get a nice coating on the chicken (based on our experience with other Chinese recipes) and ended up using more Sesame oil in the pan also. We did not have to deep fry ours to get nicely cooked chicken, but if you want it as pictured and restaurant style, you’re going to need more like half a cup of cornstarch.
I have no idea why everyone is raving about this being such a wonderful recipe. It just didn’t work for me. First of all, there was nowhere near enough cornstarch to coat the chicken. Secondly, there’s no way that look (in the last picture) can be achieved without deep frying it, so that should be at least mentioned in the directions. Lastly, I have no idea why, but in the final result you couldn’t taste any of the flavors that went into it
There was no sweetness, and only a little bit of spicyness. It was the worst result we’ve had with making asian chicken. Very disappointing 
in answer to Andrea on April 8th 2012: My daughter Andrea says Kung Pao chicken isn’t suppose to be very sweet. Andrea loves it and eats it all the time. She says at the place she gets her Kung Pao Chicken it has more of a hot taste rather than sweet taste. She is going to try this recipe for the first time.
Wonderful recipe thanks ! I did make a few changes to start of i marinated the chicken with soy sauce, garlic, rice vinegar, sesame oil an fresh ginger about 2 tbs it marinated all evening about 7 hours o so then when i was ready to cook it i iured the tablespoon of sesame oil ( by the way i divided the 2 tablespoons of sesame oil, one for marinating and one for stir frying) also i used 2 tablespoons of cornstarch and for sauce added about 1 1/2 or so of water hubby and i like a lot of sauce! Then added braggs to create that soy sauce flavor without half of the sodium 2 more tbs of rice vinegar and added 2/3 of a cup of peanuts , by the way i added brown sugar to marinade 2 tbs and finally served with jasmine rice it
was amazing and saucy best kung pao chicken it tasted like a great take out
This recipe is awwwsome. I’ve made it several times so far and we love it!!
I made this with slight changes. It turned out amazing!
Thank you so much for this recipe! It looks delicious. I will try it tonight.
Hi from the UBP. I think this is wonderful–recipes from our favorite restaurants–thank you so much. Love PF Change!
Just did this. Super easy totally recommend it for a weeknight meal! I misplaced my sesame oil so instead I used about 3 tablespoons of canola oil(using a regular frying pan not a wok) and added a teaspoon of toasted sesame seeds in the last 2 min of stir frying the chicken. It still has the sesame taste needed. Very delicious recipe!