Panda Express · Fast Food
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Taiwanese popcorn chicken is a night market item: small pieces of marinated dark meat fried in a coarse sweet potato starch coating and thrown with fried basil at the end. Panda Express keeps the shape of that and changes the seasoning, using a dry blend of tamarind, tomato, garlic and onion, with fried kale standing in for the basil. Dark meat is the part that matters. Panda's other chicken entrees run on breast, and thigh carries more fat, so it holds up under a coating engineered to be craggy and loud rather than smooth. The house-made Chili Crisp Aioli comes on the side rather than over the top, which leaves the coating crisp until it's dipped. It's the first thing Panda Express has built to be eaten walking rather than off a plate, though it can also be ordered as the entree on any Plate, Bowl or Family Meal. It went into test markets in 2026, among them Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Nashville, Orlando, Phoenix and Reno, with a collectible pail designed by Frankie Gaw.
