Kung Pao Chicken (宫保鸡丁) in Chinese is a stir-fried dish with chicken cubes, dried chili pepper and deep-fried peanuts. The tender taste of the chicken matches great with the crispy peanuts with a combined sweet, sour and spicy taste.
Background of the dish
The name of Kung Pao comes from a court official Ding Baozhen in Qing dynasty. The hero official Ding is a foodie who especially loves stir-fried diced chicken. During the time of being served as governor in Sichuan province, he frequently treats his guest with this dish and add dried chili peppers because People in Sichuan loves to eat hot chili. Later on, he is granted the title Taizi Shaobao also known as Kung Pao, which means the protector of the crown price. People name this dish after him to memory him.In China, chefs usually use chicken thighs to make this dish rather than boneless chicken breasts. The meat of thighs is tenderer but requires more about the cutting skills.
I made this world wide famous Kung Pao chicken every month. I know that it is all loved Chinese food by people around the world. The aroma bought by the combination of chili pepper flakes and Sichuan peppercorn is so fragrant. Kung Pao series dish is considered as one of the most popular one in Sichuan cuisine. Besides chicken, we also have Kung Pao Shrimp, Kung Pao tofu and my own creation: kong pao cauliflower etc.
Cook’s Note
- About the sauce, the amount of cornstarch used in the mixed stir fry sauce (碗芡) can be slightly different based on the very single dish. For example, in this kung pao chicken, only a small amount is enough since the chicken cubes is coated with starch in the marinating process. In other veggie kung pao dishes, more cornstarch is needed to make the sauce thicker and consequently can attach to the main ingredients.
- Key step of this dish is to be quick and accurate. Transfer the chicken cubes to the edges of the wok (no heat part) until they begins to change color to get the tenderest chicken meat. And be quick after adding the stir frying sauce.
Ingredients
- 2 chicken legs, cut into small cubes
- ½ cup of fried peanuts (or salt baked ones)
- 2 leek onion (only white part), cut into small section.
- 6~8 dried chili peppers (change the amount according how hot you wish it to be)
- 3 tablespoons cooking oil
- 1 teaspoon whole Sichuan peppercorn ( or you can use Sichuan peppercorn powder )
- 1 tablespoon Chinese chili oil
- pinch of salt
- a small pinch of salt
- 2 tsp. dark soy sauce (for coloring)
- 1 tbsp.cooking wine
- 2 tsp. cornstarch
- ½ tablespoon dark soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
- a small pinch of salt (around 1/3 tsp.)
- 1 inch ginger grated
- 1 tablespoon chopped green onion
- 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 2 tsp.cornstarch
- 1 tablespoon vinegar
- 2 tablespoons water
- 2 teaspoon sugar
Instructions
If you use chicken thigh: remove the bones by cutting a break on the top and then push the meat off with the help of a sharp knife. 
Cut the meat into long strips and further into one bite cubes.
Transfer the chicken to a large bowl and marinating with salt, soy sauce, cooking wine and cornstarch. This helps to add a basic taste and create a protecting shell for the chicken so we can produce the tenderest chicken.
Then cut the leek onion into 1cm sections, slice ginger and garlic.
Heat up oil in wok until hot, pour in cold oil and then heat until warm. Place the chicken cubes in and let them stay for 3-5 seconds until the starch begins gelatinization. Gently fry until all of the chicken cubes begin to change color.
Transfer the chicken cubes to the edges of the wok and empty the center. Add Sichuan peppercorn and dried chili pepper, fry until aromatic. Place in garlic, ginger and half of the scallion sections. Quickly fry to mix well.
Stir the sauce and pour in.
Fry until the sauce is well coated. Mix with the remaining leek onion white sections and fried peanuts. Transfer out immediately.
You will get the tenderest Kung Pao chicken.
Other hot Sichuan dishes
- 2 chicken legs , remove skin and cut into small cubes (around 150g to 200g)
- ½ cup fried peanuts , you may use roasted peanuts or salt baked ones
- 2 leek onion , only white part, cut into small section.
- 6 ~8 dried chili peppers , change the amount according how hot you wish it to be
- 3 tbsp. cooking oil
- 1 tsp. whole Sichuan peppercorn , or you can use Sichuan peppercorn powder
- 1 tbsp. Chinese chili oil
- pinch of salt
- a small pinch of salt
- 2 tsp. dark soy sauce , for coloring
- 1/2 tbsp. cooking wine
- 2 tsp. cornstarch
- 1 tbsp. water
- ½ tbsp. dark soy sauce
- 1 tbsp. light soy sauce
- 1 tsp. a small pinch of salt
- 1 inch ginger grated
- 1 tbsp. chopped green onion
- 2 garlic cloves , finely chopped
- 2 tsp. cornstarch
- 1 tbsp. vinegar
- 2 tbsp. water
- 2 tsp. sugar
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Prepare a small bowl; add all the seasonings for the sauce together.
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If you use chicken thigh: remove the bones by cutting a break on the top and then push the meat off with the help of a sharp knife.
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Cut the meat into long strips and further into one bite size cubes. Transfer the chicken to a large bowl and marinating with salt, soy sauce, water, cooking wine and cornstarch.
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Heat up oil in wok until hot, pour in cold oil and then heat until warm. Place the chicken cubes in and let them stay for 3-5 seconds until the starch begins gelatinization. Gently fry until all of the chicken cubes begin to change color.
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Transfer the chicken cubes to the edges of the wok and empty the center. Add Sichuan peppercorn and dried chili pepper, fry until aromatic. Place in garlic, ginger and half of the scallion sections. Quickly fry to mix well.
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Add the remaining onion sections and pour the sauce in (pre-stir the sauce just before using). At last mix in fried peanuts. Transfer out immediately as long as everything is well combined.
If you are using Sichuan peppercorn powder, add it along with the deep-fried peanuts.
When frying the Sichuan peppercorn, use slow fire and be patient. Over-fried Sichuan peppercorn brings a bitter taste.
Finally found a site that has good oriental recipes, love spicy food and hope that these are all original.. not american style..
thank you
Hi Richard,
Thanks for your kind words. I am really glad that you love spicy food too because I am a such a big fan.
Spicy food is the only food i eat, I’m definitely making this, i have made something similar to this before without following ingredients so this is next on my list along with the sweet and sour sauce. This website is going to be visited by me a lot, i can tell 😀
Thanks James for the lovely comment. I love spicy food too. Look forward to your works.
Hi Elaine. Thank you very much for the great recipe. I tried it today and the dish tastes very good. Wondering whether some sugar should be added to the sauce?
Hi CE,
Thanks for your wonderful feedback. And yes, you can add some sugar in the sauce. It is just some personal reference.
Hi Elaine,
Made this today for dinner and it was absolutely delicious. This will definitely be on my menu on a regular basis. Thanks so much for sharing this recipe. I’m looking forward to trying more from your site.
Thanks again 🙂
Hi Ronnie,
Well done! And I am so happy to hear your feedback. Let’s just enjoy food and cooking together.
How many does this serve?
It should serve 2 Kate.
Hello Elaine,
This recipe sounds excellent! I will try it soon, but I have a couple of questions. Could you please specify how many lbs/kg of chicken this recipe requires? Also, how much is “5 cm section” of shallots? Coulpd you please specify this in number of tablespoons or cups?
Thank you very much for this recipe!
Hi Shams,
4 chicken legs are around 300g. And “5 cm section” of shallots means a shallot around 5cm long.
Thank you! This recipe comes closest to my favorite restaurant. I added more chili and szcheuan pepper, and chopped stir fried celery and carrot to make it more of a one-dish meal!
Such a brilliant idea! I am just providing the basic steps and ingredients. However food is really all about creation. I personally add other ingredients too. And celery and carrot are so perfect for many stir fry recipes.
hi!
another great recipe! I saw you mention in the comments in your doubanjiang recipe that you can add it to this dish. Can you use doubanjiang with this recipe?
Thanks in advance!
James
Hi James,
Traditionally, we do not use Doubanjiang in Kung Pao Chicken. But personally, I like the taste with doubanjing. So sure, you can use doubanjing in this recipe.
Hi great recipe ! What is the difference between corn starch and corn flour
Hi Punam,
corn flour is directly grounded into powder, but starch is extracted, without any of the fiber.
Hello, thank you for the post. I am excited to try it out. I have a quick question. Is the vinegar the Chinese black vinegar?
Yes, Bill. I am referring to Chinese black vinegar.
The recipe lists “5 cm section shallots (only white part)”. I think that this is a mistake. I think that the author meant “scallion” (green onion), not “shallot” (which is a type of red onion).
Hi Chistopher,
Thanks so much for pointing that out! I have double checked about the English name of this ingredients. Scallion is the right one. Thanks for the lovely correctness.
Hi Elaine,
I am looking for an authentic Kung Pao Chicken recipe and delighted to find yours. I know it’s going to be the real deal because you are from Sichuan.
There far too many westernized version especially from blogs written in English.
Thanks,
KP Kwan
That would be about 2 inches for us metric hating Americans, or 1 small to medium shallot.
Hi Gernise,
Thanks for the suggestion. But I guess cm might be work for people around the world. I will add that measurement as a reference.
I made this recipe for our family last night, and they liked it SO much they all sent me an email saying it was the best Kung Pao Chicken they have ever eaten! I have traveled to the Sichuan province and eaten a lot of amazing food there, and I have to say your recipe was as good as some of the food I ate there. Thank you so much, I am looking forward to finding more great recipes on your blog! Greetings from Seattle, Jeree
Hi Jeree,
Thanks so much for your lovely feedback. The warm words really made my day!!! I am so glad that you guys love Kung Pao Chicken, which is my favorite Sichuan dish. Happy cooking ahead.
Hello Elaine,
I just found your website. I am a big fan of Sichuan cuisine and luckily we have two very authentic restaurants in my city. But I want to try to make my favourite dishes (one of which is Kung Pao Chicken) at home.
I own a Sichuan cookbook (the famous one by Fuchsia Dunlop), but the problem is that many of her recipes, while well written, seem to be a bit complicated to recreate.
I hope you will share more SPICY dishes like this one which are quick and easy to make after a long day of work.
Thank you!
Hi Birgit,
Sichuan cuisine in fact is quite complicated when comes to sauces and steps. But we can use simplified version for home cooking, as we can not spend 8 hours just for three meal preparation. Thanks for the suggestion about the noodles and simple spicy dishes. I will try to catch up.
hello. thank you for this nice recipe, i added a few pieces of cucumber because i saw this one time when i went eating to a chinese restaurant, it’s not traditional but it gives a nice crunch.
Hi Keytie,
Cucumber goes well with this dish for sure. I am glad it turn out satisfying for you. Happy cooking.
I live in Shanghai and absolutely love this dish! But they put way too much salt, oil and even MSG in this at restaurants here so it’s nice to try a fresher, healthier version that is just as tasty!
Thanks Hannah for your wonderful feedback. Restaurant versions have much stronger taste than home-made ones, which is quite common in almost all Szechuan style dishes.
This was not good. We used the entire peppercorns as recommended and it was like a minefield. We’d periodically bite into one and our mouth would go numb from the overwhelming intensity of the pepper.
One of the worst meals we’ve ever cooked together.
Dear Elaine. Thank you for this wonderful recipe. It was very very delicious. We will definitely try more of your recipes. And the pictures are very beautiful as well!
Hi, Christiane
Thank you for the compliment. I’m glad you like my recipes. Hope you happy in the cooking.
Thank you for this lovely and authentic dish 🙂 it tastes exactly as I remember it.
However, when I was in China, sometimes I had a version with additional cubed cucumber. I really want to try this doing this one as well. When would you suggest to put in the cucumber? And are there any more steps to prepare it (other than cutting it).
Thank you!
Cucumber chicken in mainland China is a different dish named as Jiangbao Chicken. Very similar to kung pao chicken but they are slightly different. But it ok if you want to add some cucumber dices to Kung Pao chicken too.
One thing i hate about the west is the way they badger the original people of india or china into adapting meals to their taste instead of keeping the original taste that made it so famous.I am white british but hate how most indian and chinese dishes taste nothing like they do in the country of origin because it’s too spicy or hot.My indian wife is going to try this method of kung pao and adjust the chillies accordingly as i am now used to spicy hot hot food.My first introduction to kung pao was jerry sienfeld show with george eating a very hot kung pao but sadly in England it’s more sweet n sour in taste and erm milder.
this sounds awesome. Thanks for sharing. Simon
Elaine,
I love preparing your dishes and fortunately my son loves eating them as much as I do! The instructions and easy format to print them are wonderful. Keep up the great work!
We’ve become addicted to Chili oil, Sichuan Pepper Corn and Doubanjiang! One day we hope to visit Chengdu ourselves.
Thank you again!
Hi Jeff,
I really hope you can come to Chengdu and enjoy the real Sichuan dishes here. Thanks for the wonderful feedback from such a wonderful mom. Happy cooking.
Hi Elaine,
thank you for your wonderful recipes. I was finally able to buy some real Sichuan pepper, which used to be very hard to find in Belgium. This has added a whole new dimension to Chinese cooking as far as I’m concerned. I will be returning to your site regularly and be sure to recommend it to all my friends.
Best regards,
Dirk
Hi, Dirk
That’s good news you get the real Sichuan pepper. Remember to feedback and share your outcome with me on Instagram. Wish you success!
Dear Elaine,
I couldn’t do without your website, thank you for such amazing recipes!
About this one, I have a question. It says in the recipe 1 chicken leg (or 2 tights) and 1 teaspoon of cornstarch, then also says to add 1 spoon of cornstartch in the sauce. This makes a very thick sause and it doesn’t look like the photos you have here. I’m using Maizena as my cornstarch, is that why ? I would prefer the sause a bit more runny. Am I reading the proportions wrongly? Otherwise, it’s delicious!!
Hi Priscila,
You understand the recipe right. Yes, firstly we match 1 teaspoon of cornstarch with the chicken meat and use 1 tablespoon of cornstarch with the sauce. If you read the ingredient for the sauce carefully, you will find we are using 1 tablespoon of cornstarch with 4.5 tablespoons of liquid. So the sauce should be running. Did you add add the water in the sauce?
Hi Elaine
Do you use whole dried chillies or chopped dried chillies in this recipe? IT looks like you cut THE chillies in half But left THE stem of THE chillies ?
I cut them in halves and add a small amount of pure red oil to enhance the color.
Hi Elaine!
I have been an avid follower of your website and I just want to thank you for all this awesome and mouthwatering recipes you are sharing!
I want to know if the cooking wine that is being used in your recipes can be substituted with a plain vinegar? Cooking wine is not really common in my place so I want to know if it has an effect on the final taste of the recipe.
Thanks!
If there is no cooking wine, you can simply skip it. We use cooking wine not for flavoring but for removing any odd taste from the meat itself.
Dry sherry can be a good substitute.
I really enjoyed this, thanks for sharing it. I can’t find where you say to add the peanuts. I think the adjustments to accommodate removing the peppers messed up the number references in the narrative. (Steps 3 and 4 don’t involve peanuts, but you describe them as optional if you use roasted peanuts.
Going now to look on your site for more recipes!
Glad I discovered your site. Made your Chinese Steamed Ribs with Fermented Black Beans and it was excellent.
My father had a Chinese Restaurant in the Caribbean and I have travelled around the world and love trying different foods. In April 2018 we were in Lijiang, Yunnan and had a soup my Canadian husband really enjoyed.. I cannot remember the name but it was something about Crossing the Bridge Soup. When it was presented at the table, the chef placed the ingredients,( about 7, one of which was raw quail eggs) in layers ending with rice noodles and a most delicious broth. If you know it would you send me the recipe.
Please include me on your mailing list if you have one. This is the first time I am responding to a blog.
I know the dish, Mary. A local specialty from Yunnan. But preparing it at home is a hard task. I have no test a recipe at home, but I would love to make it in the coming winter.
is the amount of cornstarch in this recipe right? In most other kung pao recipes it is only a teaspoon (instead of a tablespoon in this recipe) with twice the amounts of light and dark soy sauce…
After making it this way, the sauce was extremely thick
I will re-check the amount of cornstarch soon.
Just wanna say I love your site. It’s great to have so many of my fav Chinese dishes in one place. Provides and handy reminder of recipes when online! Much thanks <3
One questions regarding this Gong Bao Ji Ding recipe.
The written description says to add the:
1 inch ginger grated
1 tablespoon chopped green onion
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
to the mix sauce.
Yet the images seem to add the 1 inch ginger grated / 1 tablespoon chopped green onion /2 garlic cloves, finely chopped to the wok frying them from the beginning.
Can you clarify what you do here please.
Seb
Seb,
I will update this one soon with a more clear and detailed guide. Well done kung pao chicken is not easy.
Is 1tsp salt for the sauce too much? Can u substitute it with chicken stock instead of water?
Lilian,
Yes, 1 teaspoon of salt is too much for this. I just add a very small pinch and that’s a wrong detail and have already updated this. Yes, you can use chicken stock instead of water.
Great recipe. If you want it to taste like the Gong Bao Jie Ding served in northern China, add 1 or 2 tablespoons of honey, corn syrup or maple syrup to the dish before serving.
Wow…… finally i will stop calling my favorite chinese restaurant. I definitely will cook it. Thank you…..if i want to add meat and shrimp, when i i mix it?
Thank you Noemi. Sure, you can try to mix shrimp and chicken together.
Hello, it says 3 table spoon of cooking oil and 4 tablespoons of cooking oil. Which is the chilli oil? And do I first use 4 tablespoons heat up and then add the 3 tablespoons? Sorry if this is a stupid question.
Greetings out of the Netherlands.
Sorry Mark. I made a serious mistake.
Actually, you need to heat 3 tablespoons of cooking oil firstly for frying the chicken and only 1 tablespoon of chili oil to lighten the color.
Thanks a lot! With the update on your recipe I have just made it! I had a lot of soy sauce because of the marinate, do you actually throw the marinade in the wok or just try to put the chicken in without it?
Anyway this was my first recipe in my wok. Before using this wok I used a western wok with a nonstick coating. I love this new pan so much more it’s only 1mm thick so it fires up really fast! I think this recipe really is a keeper! I disliked the dried chili’s though it has a weird texture so next time I’ll just fish them out. Or I’ll try adding in one or two fresh ones?
Thanks a lot for the help and I’ll be sure to keep watching your blog.
I just ran across your website a few days ago and you have done a great job on it. This was an excellent version of Kung Pao chicken. So much better than the mild sweetened up versions found typically in the states. I added a few more dried chilies and sichuan peppercorns and it was just about perfect. I’m looking forward to cooking your tofu with black bean sauce tonight.
Thanks, Robert.
Thank you Robert. Most of my recipes are authentic Chinese version. In general, the real Chinese version is less sweet than American version. I even found Sichuan dishes in Shanghai are quite sweet and less spicy too. Dishes are always customized locally.
Happy Cooking and I hope you love the tofu with black bean sauce version too.
One small but powerful word of advice: teaspoon, not tablespoon when adding Szechuan pepper 😂 my mouth is still numb! Very very tasty, though. I’ll make this again; only properly…
😂 I am so sorry for your numbed mouth, Matt! I searching about the Sichuan pepper, but only find teaspoon, no tablespoon. Can you specify which line lead you to this mistake.
Thank you so much for the recipe. What type of vinegar should be used?
Chinese black vinegar.