Updated on December 25th, 2023
This is apparently a Panda Express recipe for their Beijing beef. How accurate this is to the original I don’t know but I decided to give it a try and I would say it turned out pretty good. Before seeing this on the Panda Express website I had no idea it even existed, which makes me assume this is not an authentic part of Chinese cuisine but rather more of a ‘made up’ dish. One thing I found interesting though is the beef is coated with corn starch and then deep fried giving it a nice and crispy texture. The sauce kind of reminded me of sweet and sour sauce only with a little kick from the crushed chili pepper. The addition of onions and red and green bell peppers nearly went perfect in the dish. To leave the vegetables crunchy and the beef crispy I would recommend removing the cook vegetables from the wok before making the sauce and coating the beef with the sauce and adding the vegetables right before serving.
Beijing Beef Recipe
Ingredients
- 1lb steak (sliced into thin strips)
- 6 tablespoons cornstarch (for dusting)
- oil (for frying) Marinade-
Marinade-
- 1 egg
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons water
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch Sauce-
Sauce-
- 4 tablespoons water
- 4 tablespoons sugar
- 3 tablespoons ketchup
- 2 tablespoons vinegar
- ¼ teaspoon crush chili pepper
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch Vegetables-
Vegetables-
- 1 teaspoon garlic (minced)
- 1 medium red bell pepper (diced)
- 1 medium green bell pepper (diced)
- 1 medium white onion (sliced)
Instructions
- Cut beef into thin strips. In a bowl of sealable bag combine all marinade ingredients and mix well. Add beef slices and marinate for 15 minutes.
- While beef is marinating mix all of the sauce ingredients together in a bowl and refrigerate.
- When the beef is done marinating coat the beef slices with 6 tablespoons of cornstarch. Remove any access cornstarch and deep fry (either in a deep fryer or wok) beef slices in batches until floating or golden brown. Drain on paper towels.
- Add a couple tablespoons of oil to the wok and add minced garlic and stir fry for 10 seconds. Add red and green bell peppers and onions and stir fry for 2 minutes. Remove vegetables and set aside.
- Pour sauce into the wok and heat until boiling. In a serving dish add beef and vegetables and coat with the sauce.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
4Amount Per Serving: Calories: 0Total Fat: 0gSaturated Fat: 0gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 0gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 0mgCarbohydrates: 0gFiber: 0gSugar: 0gProtein: 0g
Oh man, your food just always looks SO GOOD!
It looks so good and I’ve read this somewhere else as well that coating it with cornstarch makes it crispier. Must try this although I am not very fond of beef.
Authentic or not, this looks delicious!
HoneyB – Thanks!
Ivy – The crispier the better. I Prefer chicken myself but beef is ok.
Deborah – It really is. Thanks.
Bobby, as usual, your cooking looks amazing!
I just tried this for the first time last week at Panda Express and loved it. Know I can try and make it myself. Thank you so much for this. It looks sooooo good.
This recipe also look great to try thanks Kim
Wow, this looks gorgeous. How many do you reckon this would serve? Think I’ll try it tonight!
I made this last night and it was very good. I tweaked it pretty substantially, but it’s definitely another keeper!
Arika
was very simply and with great taste and flavor.
thanks
I made this and the first sauce tasted too vinegary , went with 1/2 tbls vinegar and added 1/2 tbls soy to the mix, it turned out really well. Also had red,green and yellow bell peppers in addition to the onion, this gave the dish a Thai look. Thank you for posting this…
Just had this for the first time and knew I had to find a recipe for it. Two things I have noted from the picture above, the beef I had today had seasame seeds on it (easy addition) and no green peppers. I will comment on the recipe after I have made it. Thanks.
I have made this recipe, and I’m wondering if anyone else noticed that this recipe does not come out with the same color and taste as in the restaurant. I am considering using hoisin rather than ketchup. Has anyone got any advice? Thanks!!!
Has anyone tried subbing hoisin for ketchup?
OK, I just thought I would let folks know….I was doubling the sauce recipe anyway, and so I used 3 Tbsp Hoisin and 3 Tbsp Ketchup. The difference was wonderful! I may do even more of the ratio next time towards the hoisin,(4/2?) because we like hot and spicy. Just make sure you double all of the other ingredients. I must say, I found this version to be much closer to what I get at my local Panda Express. This version of the recipe shows no soy, but that might be a goood thing to try sometime, (just watch out for going too salty).
I made this recipe last night following ingredients exactly and it tastes nothing like Panda Express Beijing Beef.
Although it was good, it tastes like a sweet and sour.
This is the only Kopy Kat recipe on the net for Beijing beef used on a few other sites.
I think I’ll follow Melissas advice and tweak it again.
A fantastic recipe. My wife and I made this last night and I’m thinking I would like to do it again tonight! We added more red chili pepper than the recipe called for – we like heat! Thanks for this recipe. It’s the first one I’ve tried from your site, but it certainly will not be the last.
I make this regularly but always with thinly sliced venison. I skip the vinegar and chili peppers and use tabasco sauce. We like extra sauce
so I triple it.
My family loves it! Thank you.
I made this yesterday and LOVED it. While I can’t say if it tasted like the last time I ate at Panda Express, I followed Melissa’s advice and used Hoisin sauce. It was a nice combination of heat and sweet. I will make this again.
I also added a little more crushed pepper for extra kick, but delicious as always.
I had this at panda express a few weeks ago and I LOVED it I definetly am going to try and make this
This was a great starting point to try some variation with. Here’s a good subtle change – use APPLE CIDER vinegar, seems to round out with the sweet elements better that just white. Also, if you like heat a chopped Thai chili or two adds a lot of good kick that red pepper doesn’t. I made this last night with those alterations (also less ketchup and some hoisin as some have mentioned) and it was dynamite good.
My husband found this recipe, so we tried it with extra sauce , we had to add more water while the sauce was heating up . still turned out okay. I will try the hoison next time, it needed a little more heat . I also used seasoned vinegar it was all we had. You could use this on pork or chicken We absolutely loved it. I think when I marinate the meat next time I will put in some fresh ginger, 1or2 teaspoons.
I made this last night with fried rice, but the fried rice didn’t come out as well as the beijing beef. Maybe I cooked my peas and carrots to long? In all this was easy and very delicious. Thanks
Wow, I made this just now for dinner, turned out excellent, so yummy!! Looks spot on like Beijing beef and the was pretty close.
consistency
I used 3TB of ketchup and 3TB of Hoisin
( the hoisin is key to the flavoring.)
Even if you don’t like your food spicy, I recommend you add AT LEAST a Tablespoon of Tabasco or other spice(to balance out the sweetness) to the sauce.
Over all it was pretty close at the end. The sauce recipe still needs a bit more work. Maybe ginger root would have done the trick here?
Also throwing the cooked breaded beef into the sauce mixture pan while hot was a perfect way to evenly coat the beef.
I tried this recipe on 8/9/09,It was great, but i new going in that i was going to have to use hoisen sauce, so i did. It taste just like the origanal. I made it with chicken and beef. If you make this recipe and it does’t taste like Panda Expresses, then you do not know what you are doing, so get out of the kitchen.
WOW!!!! this is one amazing recipe. Took the advise of a previous post and used 3 parts ketchup to 1 part hoisin sauce. This recipe came out almost identical to Panda Express. When I made the sauce it tasted very pungent and I didn’t have much hope in the recipe, but once I heated the sauce up and tossed it with the beef and vegetables WOW this dish just came to life.
THIS IS A MUST TRY RECIPE…..ONE OF MY FAVORITES!
The meat is amazing, and I bought the sauce at my local Panda. Their sauce with this meat making recipe is close to Pandas! They sell the bejing sauce.
you know you can get this but altered at any chinese restaraunt, the meat usually isnt crispy usually but its called peking beef.
peking pronounced peching means beijing.
Thank you for this accurate recipe. I was disappointed that the panda express website left out several ingredients..I was suspicious that there was no frying of beef or dusting of flour or cornstarch in pandas recipe. I am glad I ran into your recipe.
Tried this recipe last week and it was great. It’s a shame beef is so expensive in Germany. Otherwise I would cook it every week 😉
SO GOOD. THE BEEF IS AWESOMe!!! I WILL EAT EVERDAY.
This is very good. I use half the vinegar as others suggested. I also use all Hoisin sauce instead of ketchup. I would only like to know an easy way to starch the meat. This seems to be the time waster for me but maybe I’m doing it wrong. Any suggestions to make this step easier?
Robert- You could just coat with meat with cornstarch. Just shake the steak with cornstarch and allow it to sit for awhile, then deep fry.
Tried this tonight – I agree with other posts, it doesn’t taste exactly like the Beijing Beef but was still delicious. I used elk meat instead of beef and it turned out great. Definitely a repeat.
I try this recipe and it turns good my hubby really like it….:-) tryit now guys…..
The breading base is right, but the sauce was not exact as far as I can taste.
I did try the hoisin suggestions and thought they were either farther off and I happen to like hoisin sauce dishes and as a dip.