Panda Express Bets on Taiwanese Popcorn Chicken in a Pail

Panda Express put Taiwanese Popcorn Chicken into a seven cities test on September 8, 2026, and called it the chain’s first walk-and-eat snack. Dark-meat bites come tossed in a dry spice mix, finished with fried kale, and packed with a cup of Chili Crisp Aioli, and they can still sit on a regular plate.

The bet is that a night-market name, a designer pail, and a mid-afternoon snack can live beside orange chicken. Panda is not turning the steam table off. It is trying to steal a snack slot without leaving American Chinese food.

A Walk-and-Eat Format the Chain Has Never Tried

Adrian Lok, director of culinary innovation at Panda Express, said popcorn chicken adds a mid-afternoon snacking option to a menu built around bowls and plates. Evelyn Wah, vice president of brand innovation, called popcorn chicken a familiar favorite for many Americans and said Taiwanese-inspired flavors felt like a natural way to tell the company’s American Chinese story.

Taiwanese Popcorn Chicken gives guests a new way to enjoy Panda Express, bringing our bold flavors into a portable, shareable format that’s perfect for enjoying on the go.

Evelyn Wah, vice president of brand innovation, Panda Express

Guests can still order it as a standard entrée on any Plate, Bowl, or Family Meal at no extra charge. That hedge matters. The chain can measure whether people grab a pail between meals, or whether they just swap it in for Beijing Beef and go home.

The company said the item is a limited-time regional test to gather guest feedback. It has not promised a national rollout.

Seven Cities Get the Chicken and a Collector Pail

The drop is in participating stores in Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Nashville, Orlando, Phoenix, and Reno, plus select surrounding markets. It is not on every Panda counter in those metros. Southern California has 10 restaurants in the test, including stops in Inglewood, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, and Walnut Park. Metro Phoenix has 10 participating stores of its own.

Some test counters ran through the chicken fast enough that customers had to hunt for a shop that still had it. A participating test-market store locator is the clean way to check before a drive, because a city name on the press list is not a guarantee that the closest dining room is in.

THE SEVEN TEST MARKETS

• Atlanta: Participating stores in the metro, not every location.
• Chicago: Same rule, select restaurants only.
• Los Angeles: Ten Southern California dining rooms, including Long Beach and Santa Monica.
• Nashville: Area test stores, with surrounding markets on the same list.
• Orlando: Select restaurants in the metro.
• Phoenix: Ten participating stores across the metro, including Scottsdale and Glendale.
• Reno: The smallest named city on a list of large metros.

The souvenir is gated. Beginning September 9, 2026, a limited-edition collector pail designed by Frankie Gaw comes as a gift with a large à la carte order of the chicken, while supplies last. The pail is the other product, and people are showing up for the bucket as much as the meat.

HOW THE COLLECTOR PAIL WORKS

• The order: Buy a large pail of Taiwanese Popcorn Chicken, sold only à la carte.
• The limit: One redemption per order, in-store at participating test locations.
• The exclusions: Not valid with a Family Meal, and not valid with other offers or discounts.
• The clock: Quantities are limited, and Panda can modify or end the offer at any time.

That is a merch test riding on a food test. If the pails vanish while the entrée sits, the chain still learns what guests will leave the house for.

The Spice Mix Started as Hot and Sour Soup

Panda’s take on yán sū jī uses juicy dark meat in a light, extra-crispy breading. The house mix is tamarind, tomato, garlic, and onion. Crispy fried kale stands in for the basil that usually rides on night-market chicken, and every order comes with Chili Crisp Aioli.

Lok did not hide the shortcut. He said the team wanted to honor the traditional dish and still make its own version, and then he pointed at a soup already on the steam table.

We spent a lot of time working on the spice. We took inspiration from a dish already on our menu. It’s called Hot & Sour Soup. How do we take the flavors of Hot and Sour Soup and turn that into a dry spice?

Adrian Lok, director of culinary innovation, Panda Express

That is the American Chinese move in one kitchen note. The snack wears a Taiwanese name, and the seasoning started as a Panda bowl. Early eaters keep talking about the Chili Crisp Aioli before they talk about the kale. The dip is doing the work the fried basil usually does, adding heat and a reason to keep reaching into the pail.

What Night-Market Popcorn Chicken Usually Tastes Like

Yán sū jī means salty crispy chicken. Clarissa Wei, in her cookbook Made in Taiwan, traces the snack to night markets in the 1970s, around the time American fried chicken was also catching on in Taiwan. The hallmarks are a twice-fried crunch from thick sweet potato starch, and a finish of chile powder, ground white pepper, and shards of fried Thai basil.

Wei’s method marinates boneless chicken thighs in soy sauce, Taiwanese rice wine, garlic, sugar, salt, white pepper, and five-spice, then coats them in sweet potato starch. The pieces fry until lightly golden, rest, then fry again until deep brown. Dry basil leaves go into the same oil for a few seconds, then the chicken and basil get shaken with chile, white pepper, and salt. There is no aioli in that bag.

NIGHT MARKET VERSUS PANDA

The kale is the tell. Panda named it as its American Chinese twist on basil, which is honest branding and a different snack. Anyone who knows the night-market version will look for basil first, and that is already the question people ask when they see the garnish. The chain is not plating a Taipei stall. It is translating a street food into a mix it can cook next to orange chicken.

Frankie Gaw Already Put This Snack in a Book

Panda hired Taiwanese American designer, author, and food creator Frankie Gaw of Little Fat Boy to design the limited-edition collector bucket. Gaw grew up eating Panda Express, and he said the partnership felt like a full-circle moment. The pail pulls from Taiwanese night markets, classic American movie-theater popcorn buckets, and Panda’s own playfulness. On the bucket, the chain’s mascot Pei Pei shows up as a cowboy roping a container of popcorn chicken.

My mind first went to popcorn buckets. I wanted to take inspiration from the red and white stripes that are classic to popcorn buckets. The other influence was pulling inspiration from the Asian side of things. A lot of my favorite references are old Asian packaging for snacks. They always have a lot of really playful characters.

Frankie Gaw, designer and author, Little Fat Boy

He had already cooked this mashup on paper. His cookbook First Generation, published October 25, 2022 by Ten Speed Press, runs 224 pages at $32.50 and collects 80 recipes from his Taiwanese-American home. One of them is Honey-Mustard Glazed Taiwanese Popcorn Chicken, filed next to lap cheong corn dogs and a Lion’s Head Big Mac. Panda did not invent Gaw’s subject. It put his subject in a red pail and hung it over the steam table.

Gaw called the drop a special, out-of-the-(takeout)-box item and told people to grab it while supplies last. The launch reel is the same pitch in motion, cowboy panda and all.

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The pail is also a constraint. It is free only with that large à la carte order, only in the test stores, and only until the stack on the counter is gone. That is how you find out whether guests will pay entrée money for a souvenir.

Orange Chicken Began as a Hawaii Special

Panda Express is a family-owned chain founded in 1983 by Andrew and Peggy Cherng, now with over 2,500 locations in the United States and a presence in 11 countries. Its food philosophy page says the kitchen pairs Chinese roots with an American taste and serves dishes that are authentically American Chinese. Orange Chicken, created in 1987 in Hawaii by chef Andy Kao, is the proof of that method. The philosophy page ties it to chenpi niurou, tangerine-peel beef from Sichuan, then notes that Panda swapped in chicken and leaned on sweet-and-sour citrus.

THE DROP CALENDAR

1. 1970s: Yan su ji becomes a night-market staple in Taiwan, twice fried and finished with basil and white pepper.
2. 1983: Andrew and Peggy Cherng found Panda Express.
3. 1987: Andy Kao creates Orange Chicken as a Hawaii special that later defines the chain.
4. October 25, 2022: Frankie Gaw publishes First Generation, including honey-mustard Taiwanese popcorn chicken.
5. September 8, 2026: Taiwanese Popcorn Chicken enters the seven-city walk-and-eat test.
6. September 9, 2026: Gaw’s collector pail starts as a gift with a large à la carte order, while supplies last.

Orange chicken had to earn the national board. This snack has to earn a daypart. The terms of the bet are already visible in the test: whether guests buy the pail, whether they talk about the aioli, and whether they still default to Hot Orange Chicken once the novelty fades. At least one early taster still put Hot Orange Chicken first. That is the bar inside Panda’s own menu.

Panda Express has not set a nationwide date. The chicken is still limited to participating stores in Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Nashville, Orlando, Phoenix, and Reno, and the collector pail is already a while-supplies-last item.