Panda Express Soy Sauce

Soy Sauce is the plainest thing on the Panda Express condiment station and the most consequential: 5 calories per packet, and 375 mg of sodium in that same packet. It costs almost nothing in calories and a great deal in salt, which is the whole story of this item.

The sauce itself is standard brewed soy: dark, thin, sharply salty with a faint sweetness underneath. It is what most of the kitchen's wok sauces are built on, which means adding a packet to a finished dish is doubling down on a seasoning already present. Most dishes here do not need it, and the ones that do, plain steamed rice or the steamed fish, need very little.

The sodium figure deserves the attention. At 375 mg per packet against a 2,300 mg daily reference, two packets alongside an entree carrying 850 mg can push a single meal past a full day's sodium. Calories at 5 are effectively nil, which is exactly why people underestimate it. The published flags are wheat and soy, the wheat inherent to how standard soy sauce is brewed.

How much is Soy Sauce? Packets are free with orders at every location, and extras are available on request.

It suits plain white rice at 520 calories and Steamed Ginger Fish at 200 calories, which are the two items on the menu genuinely under seasoned by design. Skip it on anything already sauced. For flavor with less salt, Chili Sauce at 10 calories or Hot Mustard at 10 calories do more per packet.