How To Guarantee Your Panda Express Orange Chicken Is Fresh, According To Reddit

What's a Panda Express order if you don't get a portion (or two) of their iconic orange chicken? The sweet and spicy orange sauce glazed pieces of wok-tossed chicken are pretty much the best thing on the menu. As with most fast-food chains, though, sometimes the near-perfect dish turns into a soggy entrée that tastes stale from being left outside for too long.

Earlier, a similar predicament faced a McDonald's fan, who wondered what they could do to get fresh fries every single time (via Business Insider). The answer, according to McDonald's employees, was simple: simply ask for fresh fries — or fresh whatever it is that you want — and if you're polite, they will give it to you. It's also possible to swap an ingredient in your order. Chances are, your fast-food outlet will have to make your order fresh to make the change.

So, what do you have to do to get the freshest possible orange chicken at Panda Express? PuzzledBuddy6771 asked Reddit what they could do and as always, Reddit had a lot of ideas.

The simplest way to guarantee that your orange chicken is fresh out of the wok is to ask the employee straight up. One Panda Express employee admitted that it takes about 15 to 20 minutes to cook a fresh batch of orange chicken. When asked for a fresh batch, the employee just lets the customer know the exact time and if they're willing to wait that long, they can get fresh orange chicken. All good things in life come to those who wait, hey?

One comment suggested going to Panda Express during rush hours which is, "depending on the store 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. then 5 p.m.-8 p.m." Another Redditor agreed, adding that "In the middle of rush hour, Orange gets ordered a lot, so it probably rotates out every 15 minutes or so." If you want fresh orange chicken, your best bet is probably to go when the outlet is swamped with people constantly ordering orange chicken, meaning that fresh batches of the entrée are being put out rapidly. However, it's also possible that the outlet just cooked a big batch of orange chicken right before rush hour to last them for a few hours, so you might just get handed two-hour-old orange chicken.

Another suggested going in the morning, right when the Panda Express outlet opens. "Actually your best shot would be right when they open in the morning, the whole steam table is cooked, so you guarantee the orange is at most a half hour old, and that would only be if they made it first which is unlikely," the person wrote. That is, if you fancy a plate of orange chicken for breakfast, of course.