The honey sauce at P.F. Chang’s doesn’t use any honey. The sweetness comes from white sugar dissolved into Michiu cooking wine and white vinegar, with dried chilis and rehydrated garlic for aromatics. Every recipe I’ve found online uses actual honey, and that’s why none of them taste like the restaurant version.
Sugar and vinegar together give you a sweet-and-sour flavor that’s tangier and less cloying than a honey glaze, and the Michiu cooking wine gives the sauce a savory quality that honey doesn’t have. This dish also uses the same alkaline soy brine that P.F. Chang’s uses on almost all their proteins, which keeps the chicken tender even after deep-frying. If you’ve made this at home and the chicken was dry or the sauce tasted like a straight honey glaze, your homemade version was likely missing both of these techniques.
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Chicken breast. Regular boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into 1-inch cubes. The protein itself isn’t anything special. The alkaline soy brine is what makes it tender.
Baking soda (for the brine). A half teaspoon dissolved in one cup of water creates the alkaline brine. This raises the pH on the surface of the meat, which prevents the protein strands from drying out during deep-frying. If you’ve ever added baking soda directly to chicken and noticed a soapy or metallic taste, the water in this brine dilutes it enough that you get the tenderizing effect without affecting the flavor.
Lee Kum Kee Low Sodium Soy Sauce. This is the brand P.F. Chang’s uses, the one in the green bottle. Any soy sauce will work for the brine, but if you want to match the restaurant exactly, this is the one to get.
All-purpose flour and cornstarch (for the batter). The batter uses both in roughly equal amounts. Flour gives the crust structure and cornstarch gives it crunch.
Baking soda and baking powder (in the batter). Small amounts of both go into the batter. They create gas bubbles during frying that make the crust lighter and crispier than a straight flour-and-cornstarch dredge.
Michiu cooking wine. A Cantonese and Taiwanese cooking wine that’s very similar to Shaoxing wine. P.F. Chang’s uses Michiu in this sauce. You can find it at most Asian grocery stores, and it’s available on Amazon. If you can’t find Michiu, Shaoxing wine works as a substitute.
White sugar. One full cup for four servings of sauce. This is the sweetener, not honey. The sugar dissolves completely into the liquid, creating a smooth sauce that coats the chicken evenly.
White vinegar. The sour half of the sweet-and-sour balance. White vinegar is more potent than rice vinegar, which is why the sauce has that distinct tang instead of a muted sweetness.
Dried chilis. You’ll saute these in oil at the very beginning of the sauce, then strain them out later. They give the sauce a mild background heat and a bit of color, but you won’t actually eat them in the finished dish.
Dehydrated minced garlic. You can find this on the spice aisle at most grocery stores. Rehydrate it in hot water for 20-30 minutes before using. P.F. Chang’s uses this instead of fresh garlic because it doesn’t burn as easily in hot oil and the flavor is smoother and more concentrated. You can keep rehydrated garlic in the fridge for about a week.
Potato starch. Used to coat the chicken before dipping it in the batter. Potato starch gives a lighter, crispier initial coating than cornstarch. Look for it at Asian grocery stores in small bags. If you can’t find it, cornstarch works for this step.
Chili oil. Used to coat the wok before adding the sauce during the final stir-fry. P.F. Chang’s makes their own house chili oil, but Lee Kum Kee’s bottled chili oil is a good substitute if you don’t want to make it from scratch.
Rice sticks (rice vermicelli). For the fried rice stick garnish that the chicken sits on. These are thin rice noodles that puff up instantly when dropped into hot oil.
1. Make the alkaline soy brine. Dissolve half a teaspoon of baking soda in one cup of water, then stir in one tablespoon of soy sauce. Pour this over your cubed chicken breast and refrigerate for at least two hours. P.F. Chang’s brines for a full 24 hours, and longer marination does improve both texture and flavor, so go as long as you can.
2. Make the batter. Whisk together the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and baking powder in a large bowl. Add one cup of ice-cold water and whisk until there are no dry clumps. Add the egg and whisk until smooth, then add the oil and whisk until incorporated. Store this in the fridge until you’re ready to fry. The batter keeps for several hours and needs to be ice-cold when it hits the oil.
3. Make the honey sauce. Heat a couple teaspoons of neutral oil in a small pot over medium heat. Saute 10-15 dried chilis until they darken in color, about 1-2 minutes. Add one tablespoon of rehydrated garlic and saute for 20-30 seconds until it releases some aroma. Add the soy sauce, Michiu, and sugar, then whisk until the sugar is completely dissolved. Bring it to a light simmer, turn off the heat, and let the aromatics infuse for 10-15 minutes. Add the white vinegar, whisk everything together, and strain out the solids. The sauce makes about 4 servings and keeps in the fridge for about a month.
4. Coat and first-fry the chicken. Remove the chicken from the brine and pat dry with paper towels. Toss the chicken in potato starch until every piece is coated, then dip each piece into the cold batter. Lower the chicken into 350°F oil one piece at a time, agitating gently so the pieces don’t clump together. Fry for 3-4 minutes or until the chicken reaches 165°F internally. Drain on a wire rack or a baking sheet lined with paper towels.
5. Second fry. Raise the oil temperature to 375°F. Fry the chicken a second time for 1-2 minutes until the pieces are slightly darker in color. This second fry is what gives you a crust that holds up in the sauce instead of going soft within a few minutes. Drain on a wire rack.
6. Final stir-fry. Heat a large wok over medium heat until you see light wisps of smoke. Drizzle in a couple teaspoons of chili oil and swirl it around to coat the bottom. Add half a cup plus two tablespoons of the honey sauce and stir it until it starts to simmer. While stirring, slowly drizzle in the cornstarch slurry (one tablespoon cornstarch mixed with one tablespoon water). Simmer until the sauce thickens to your desired consistency, usually about 1-2 minutes. Add the fried chicken and toss until every piece is coated.
7. Serve. Line a plate with fried rice sticks. Place the honey chicken on top and garnish with sliced green onion.
Keep the batter ice-cold. Cold batter fries crispier because the temperature difference between the batter and the oil creates more steam, which puffs up the crust. Make the batter ahead of time and refrigerate it. It keeps for several hours.
Lower each piece of chicken individually. If you dump all the battered chicken into the oil at once, the pieces will stick together and fry unevenly. Add them one at a time and move them around gently during the first 30 seconds.
The second fry makes a real difference at home. P.F. Chang’s serves the chicken immediately after one fry, so the crust doesn’t have time to absorb moisture. At home, even a few extra minutes between frying and saucing is enough for the crust to start softening. The second fry at 375°F expels that moisture and re-crisps the exterior.
The sauce recipe is difficult to scale down. The honey sauce makes enough for about 4 servings. Smaller amounts are hard to measure accurately because the ratios involve tablespoons and fractions of cups. The sauce keeps in the fridge for about a month, so I recommend making the full batch and saving whatever you don’t use.
Rehydrate the garlic completely before using. Soak the dehydrated minced garlic in hot water for 20-30 minutes, then drain all the water before adding it to the pot. If you add it dry, it will burn almost immediately in the hot oil.
The honey sauce stores well in an airtight container in the fridge for about a month. Make the full batch even if you’re only cooking for one or two servings.
The fried chicken is best eaten the day it’s made. If you have leftovers, store them in the fridge for up to 3 days. Reheat in a 400°F oven for 8-10 minutes to re-crisp the coating. Microwaving will make the crust soft. Toss reheated chicken in freshly warmed sauce right before serving.
Fried rice sticks can be stored in a covered container for about a week.
It’s a menu name, not a description of the ingredients. The sugar, vinegar, and cooking wine combination produces a glaze that looks and behaves like a honey-based sauce, but the flavor is tangier and less one-dimensional than actual honey. P.F. Chang’s developed the sauce around white sugar, and the dish was named for what it resembles, not what it contains.
You can, but the sauce will taste noticeably different. Honey has its own distinct floral flavor and doesn’t dissolve into liquid the same way granulated sugar does. The restaurant’s version uses sugar because it creates a cleaner, more neutral sweetness that lets the vinegar and cooking wine come through.
Both are Chinese rice wines used for cooking. Michiu is more common in Cantonese and Taiwanese kitchens, and Shaoxing is more associated with Shanghainese and northern Chinese cooking. The flavor differences are subtle enough that they’re interchangeable in this recipe. If you can find Michiu, use it. If not, Shaoxing works.
Yes. Potato starch gives a slightly lighter, crispier initial layer, but cornstarch works well for this step. The batter is doing most of the work for the final crunch, so the difference between potato starch and cornstarch in the initial coating is fairly minor.
P.F. Chang’s only fries once at the restaurant, so technically the “authentic” method is a single fry. But the double-fry is worth doing at home because your chicken will sit longer between frying and saucing than it would in a restaurant kitchen. The second fry at 375°F re-crisps the exterior so the crust stays crunchy after you toss it in the sauce.
