P.F. Chang's General Tso Chicken Recipe (2024)

P.F. Chang's General Tso Chicken Recipe

If P.F. Chang's's General Tso Chicken is one of Your Favorite Dishes, You will LOVE making it at Home with our Easy Recipe.

P.F. Chang's General Tso Chicken Recipe (1)


Photo by jensteele

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General Tso Chicken – Everyone’s Favorite “American” Chinese Dish

If you ask for General Tso Chicken outside the major cities in China (where the influx of American tourists have made it necessary to include on most menues) the waiter will probably look at you like you are crazy.

Why? Because General Tso Chicken is not a traditional Chinese dish. It was invented in American Chinese restaurants for Americans. And not only is the dish almost completely unknown in China, but the General that the dish may or may not be named after is such a minor character in Chinese history that most Chinese have never heard of him.

Imagine if one of your guests, out of the blue, were to asked you to make some Hagood Chicken for them and you get some idea of the confusion your waiter is feeling. (Johnson Hagood was a Brigadier General in the South Carolina State Militia during the American Civil War – and as far as I know there is no chicken dish named after him. Yet.)

If P.F. Chang's's General Tso Chicken is one of Your Favorite Dishes, You will LOVE making it at Home with our Easy Recipe.

Ingredients

Sauce

  • 1/2 cup Cornstarch
  • 1/4 cup Water
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon minced fresh Garlic
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon minced fresh Ginger
  • 3/4 cup Sugar
  • 1/2 cup Soy Sauce
  • 1/4 cup White Vinegar
  • 1/4 cup dry Sherry or White Wine
  • 1 can condensed Chicken Broth

Meat

  1. 3 pounds boneless, skinless Chicken, cut into chunks
  2. 1/4 cup Soy Sauce
  3. 8 small dried Red Chiles, stems and seeds removed
  4. 1 Egg, beaten
  5. 1 cup Cornstarch
  6. 2 quarts Vegetable Oil for deep-frying, plus 1 tablespoon for stir-frying
  7. 2 cups sliced Scallions (green onions)
  8. Fried Rice or Steamed Rice, for serving

Instructions

Sauce

  • Put everything in a quart jar with a lid and shake it up, then put in the fridge. Just shake it up again when you are ready to use it.

Meat

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the chicken, soy sauce, and hot peppers. Stir in the egg. Add the cornstarch and mix until all the chicken pieces are well coated. (It will look awful at this point.)
  2. Heat the deep-frying oil to 350°F in a large pot. Cover a large platter with a few layers of paper towels.
  3. Set aside the chiles. Deep-fry 7 or 8 chicken pieces at a time until crispy. Drain on paper towels. Repeat until all the chicken chunks are fried.
  4. Place 1 tablespoon oil in a wok and heat until very hot. Add the scallions and chiles and stir-fry for about 30 seconds. Shake the sauce to recombine, then pour it into the wok. Cook until thick. If it gets too thick, add water until it’s the right consistency. Add the chicken to the sauce and cook until everything is hot and bubbly. Serve with fried or steamed rice.

P.F. Chang's General Tso Chicken Recipe (2)

America’s love affair with Chinese food dates back more than a century. Today, such dishes as General Tso’s Chicken, Sweet and Sour Pork, and Egg Rolls are as common as hamburgers and spaghetti. Probably at this moment, a drawer in your kitchen is stuffed with Chinese takeout menus, soy sauce packets and wooden chopsticks, right?

But what if you didn’t have to eat your favorites out of a container?

In The Chinese Takeout Cookbook, Chinese food blogger and cooking instructor Diana Kuan brings Chinatown to your home with this amazing collection of more than eighty popular Chinese takeout recipes—appetizers, main courses, noodle and rice dishes, and desserts—all easy-to-prepare and MSG-free.

Photo of P.F. Chang's General Tso Chicken Home Recipe is by jensteele and is used by permission under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) License. Photos may be "representative" of the recipe and not the actual finished dish. All photo licenses listed were correct at the time of the posting of the page. Recipe is our adaption of several recipes previously found frequently on the web - researched with help from the Wayback Machine. Additional Information Courtesy of Wikipedia and is used by permission.

P.F. Chang's General Tso Chicken Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is similar to General Tso Chicken at PF Chang's? ›

They have “Chang's Spicy Chicken” on the menu, which is basically their version of general tso's.

Is General Changs the same as General Tso? ›

Some experts think the dish has roots in ancient China; others think it has roots in 1970's New York. General Chang's Chicken is essentially the same dish with a less popular name. I've read that Tso and Chang were ancient rivals.

What does General Tso Chicken contain? ›

General Tso's (pronounced tsow) chicken is a Chinese-American dish that features deep-fried chicken tossed in an irresistibly sticky glaze made with garlic, sugar, soy sauce, and chiles. The dish is named after 19th-century military leader Tso Tsung-t'ang.

What is the closest dish to General Tso's chicken? ›

Sweet and sour chicken: The two are super similar. The main difference is that General Tso sauce has more ginger flavor, as well as a little more heat from the hot sauce or chili flakes.

What is the closest thing to General Tso's chicken? ›

Similarities in Sesame Chicken, Orange Chicken and General Tso. Sesame Chicken, General Tso, and Orange Chicken look quite similar and share some common ingredients, which can make it difficult for some to choose between them. Chicken: Each dish uses chunks of boneless chicken meat (usually thigh).

Should I coat my chicken in cornstarch before frying? ›

Cornstarch Is the Secret to the Crispiest Fried Chicken

And, it's the secret ingredient for getting crispy coatings like tempura paper-thin.

What is General Tso's sauce made of? ›

How to Make General Tso's Sauce: The sauce for General Tso's chicken is so simple to make with pantry staple ingredients: rice vinegar, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, water, sugar, and some corn starch to thicken the sauce. Simply add the ingredients to a bowl and stir to combine.

What is the original General Tso Chicken? ›

"The original General Tso's chicken was Hunanese in taste and made without sugar," he says, "but when I began cooking for non-Hunanese people in the United States, I altered the recipe." In the late 1980s, having made his fortune, he sold up and returned to Taipei.

Do they eat General Tso's chicken in China? ›

You might be surprised to learn that General Tso's chicken, a staple on Chinese-American menus, is almost entirely foreign to people who live in the country from which it supposedly originated. While the dish isn't exactly authentic Chinese food, its namesake was a very real (and very powerful) general.

What does TSO mean in General Tso Chicken? ›

Peng named the chicken after the Hunanese Qing Dynasty General Tso Tsung-t'ang (now transliterated as Zuo Zongtang). The future general began his military career fighting for the Qing in the Taiping Rebellion, a 14-year civil war waged by the Han Chinese against the Qing emperor.

What is another name for General Tso Chicken? ›

The dish or its variants are known by a number of names, including Governor Tso's chicken, General Gau's chicken, General Tao's chicken, General Tsao's chicken, General Tong's chicken, General Tang's chicken, General Cho's chicken, General Chau's chicken, General Joe's Chicken, T.S.O.

What is better Szechuan chicken or General Tso's? ›

General Tso's chicken is about the most dangerous Chinese dish on the menu—dark meat battered and deep-fried, then cooked with vegetables in a sweet, spicy sauce. Szechuan chicken, made with leaner, white meat and sautéed with vegetables, is a far better choice.

What flavor is General Tso Chicken? ›

General Tso's Chicken is that perfect combination of sweet, savoury, spicy and tangy with crispy Chinese chicken bites. It's a Chinese takeout favourite that just pushes all the right buttons!

How many pieces is a serving of General Tso Chicken? ›

The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a serving of food contributes to a daily diet.

What is the same as General Tso Chicken? ›

General Tso's Chicken is a Chinese-American dish of fried chicken pieces that are breaded and tossed in a tangy sauce. This dish is very similar in style to sesame or orange chicken.

What is another name for General Tso's chicken? ›

Whether it goes by the name General Tso's, General Gau's, or General Gao's (see a spirited Yelp discussion on the matter here), the deep-fried nuggets of boneless chicken tossed in sweet-spicy sauce and served on a bed of broccoli is America's reigning Chinese dish.

Is General Tso Chicken and orange chicken the same? ›

Key Differences

General Tso chicken has a more complex and slightly spicy flavor profile, while orange chicken has a bright and citrusy flavor. Additionally, General Tso chicken has its roots in Chinese cuisine, while orange chicken was created in the United States.

Is kung pao chicken like general tso chicken? ›

Kung pao chicken and General Tso's chicken are similar in that they are both chicken-based dishes with a hint of chili, but the primary difference is that latter is deep-fried and coated with a syrupy sweet and sour sauce, and the former is coated with a gentle, more balanced sauce.

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