The Type Of Cooking Oil Panda Express Uses In Most Of Its Dishes

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Panda Express might expect a good meal when they spot that panda mascot, but devoted foodies know that what's used to cook the food counts for a lot. According to an official ingredients statement from the company, Panda Express opts for soybean oil to prepare most of its menu offerings. When foodies order popular entrees like broccoli beef, eggplant tofu, string bean chicken breast, kung pao chicken, and more, soybean oil is in the mix. Two of Panda Express' most popular side dishes, the chow mein and the fried rice, are also cooked in that ingredient.

Generally speaking, this kind of cooking oil consists of 12%-15% saturated fat, making it lower by composition in harmful saturated fats than other cooking oils (and a good source of heart-healthy fats, according to Harvard Health Publishing). Still, this isn't to say that soybean oil is a health food; it's highly-processed and often genetically-modified. However, when it's subjected to an intense refining process, it also does not pose a threat to consumers with soy allergies. To produce this vegetable oil, soybeans are harvested, cleaned, dehulled, extracted of their oils, then refined to remove impurities. For foodies looking to steer clear of this particular ingredient, the chain's signature orange chicken is one of the few entree dishes that does not list soybean oil in its prep lineup. Other soybean-oil-free menu options include the steamed rice, honey sesame chicken breast, and cream cheese rangoons.

Perhaps befitting the American-Chinese takeaway chain's heritage, soybean oil's culinary uses trace back to 1000 C.E. in East Asia, and in 1942, the U.S. emerged as the global leader in soybean oil production. In the kitchen (home or commercial), soybean oil serves as a versatile tool with a neutral taste and high smoke point at 450 degrees Fahrenheit. That's a substantially higher temperature than what extra virgin olive oil can withstand (375 degrees). It also compares favorably to some kinds of canola oil, whose smoke point falls between 428 and 450 degrees. Soybean oil's tough heat resistance makes it suitable to myriad culinary uses from sauteeing to baking to deep-frying — which, at Panda Express, can look like roasting vegetables, frying chicken to a crisp, or keeping a stir-fry from scorching in an ultra-hot wok. The chain's Super Greens veggie medley of cabbage, broccoli, and kale, for instance, is cooked with soybean oil.

That cooking oil even serves double-duty. As the company shared in a 2023 press release, Panda Express partnered with Darling Ingredients Inc. to collect and recycle its used cooking oil from "from nearly all of the almost 2,400 Panda Express restaurants in the United States" to be turned into renewable diesel fuel. According to data analytics firm ScrapeHero, as of October 2025, Panda Express' U.S. presence has expanded to 2,550 restaurant locations nationwide.