Cream cheese rangoons are the crunchy extra that rides along with many Panda Express orders, tucked beside the entrees. This week the chain gave that familiar shell a chocolate filling and a new job as dessert.
Panda Express launched Triple Chocolate Rangoons on Tuesday, Nov. 10, its first dessert rangoon, made in collaboration with Ghirardelli Chocolate Company, Nation’s Restaurant News (NRN) reported. A two-piece order starts at $2.55, and the limited-time offer runs through Jan. 11, 2027, in 10 test markets: Chicago, Dallas, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Miami, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, San Diego, the San Francisco Bay Area and West Palm Beach.
What Goes Into a Triple Chocolate Rangoon
Each rangoon starts with a chocolate cream cheese filling made with Ghirardelli Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips and Ghirardelli Chocolate & Cocoa Sweet Ground Powder, according to NRN. The pieces are fried until golden and crisp outside and warm and gooey inside. After they leave the fryer, they get a drizzle of Ghirardelli Black Label Chocolate Sauce and a dusting of powdered sugar. Chips, powder and sauce make three Ghirardelli chocolate products, which lines up with the “triple” in the name.
Sporked reported on Nov. 10 that the rangoon is the chain’s first dessert of its kind, and called the pocket-sized format a light finishing touch. Adrian Lok, Panda Express’s director of culinary innovation, said the goal was a warm, gooey chocolate center that is “the sweet spot between a fudgy brownie and a lava cake,” per the NRN story.
The $2.55 Two-Piece and the Catering Tray
Prices are listed as a starting point. The two-piece dessert starts at $2.55, which works out to about $1.28 a piece. A 48-piece catering tray ranges from $34 to $40, or roughly 71 to 83 cents a piece by simple division, so the tray costs less per rangoon than the two-piece order. Buying 24 two-piece orders to match a 48-piece tray would come to $61.20 at the starting price, compared with $34 to $40 for the tray.
For households watching the grocery and takeout budget, the math is worth a look before an office party or a family gathering. Comparing per-piece costs is a habit that a frenzhub.com list of wallet-friendly life hacks encourages, and a craftingyourhome.com story on grocery clearance tips shows how much unit prices can differ between stores and sizes. Readers who like to stretch a small dessert budget can also browse a frenzhub.com list of frugal living tips, and a frenzhub.com roundup of things that are getting cheaper offers a counterpoint to rising menu prices.
The 10 Test Markets, City by City
The launch is a regional test, so most Panda Express customers cannot order the rangoons yet. Three of the markets are in California: Los Angeles, San Diego and the San Francisco Bay Area. Two are in Florida, Miami and West Palm Beach, and the rest are Chicago, Dallas, Indianapolis, Phoenix and Salt Lake City. Sporked noted that the dessert “won’t be available everywhere at first,” and neither outlet says whether it could expand after the test ends on Jan. 11.
From Saturday, Nov. 14, that leaves about eight weeks to try them. One of those markets, San Diego, is the setting of a craftingyourhome.com story about a laid-off man whose apartment pizza slots sell out. The reports do not say how many locations in each market carry the item, so anyone planning a trip should check with a nearby store first.
Sporked writer Jay Wilson wrote that he suspects the rangoons will eventually reach nationwide availability, while saying he had no proof. That is opinion rather than a company plan, and Panda Express has not confirmed any expansion in the reports reviewed. For now, the item has been on menus in the test markets for four days, as of Nov. 14, and the eight-week window is the only commitment on the record.
How a Cream Cheese Filling Became a Dessert
NRN calls the chain’s Cream Cheese Rangoons a signature item, and says Lok described rangoons as one of the chain’s top-selling items. The format has an American history. Wikipedia’s entry on crab rangoon says the appetizer was on the menu of the Polynesian-style Trader Vic’s restaurant in Beverly Hills in 1955 and in San Francisco by at least 1956. It adds that the dish was probably invented in the United States, and that cream cheese is not found in Chinese or Burmese cuisine. Wonton wrappers and cream cheese are the main ingredients the page lists for the original, and the chocolate version keeps that cream cheese base.
Panda Express, founded in October 1983 in Glendale, California, and now based in Rosemead, has about 2,600 locations in 2026, according to Wikipedia.
Ghirardelli’s First Asian Quick-Service Collaboration
NRN notes that this is Ghirardelli’s first collaboration in the Asian quick-service space, though Panda Express has worked with other brands before. A recent partnership with the spicy sauce brand Buldak produced Dynamite Sweet & Sour Chicken, and Sporked says a team-up with Compartés produced four chocolate bars in the past year.
Ghirardelli, founded in 1852 in San Francisco, is now owned by Lindt & Sprüngli, per Wikipedia. Neither outlet gives a sales target or says whether the rangoons could stay on the menu after January. The Compartés collaboration, which Sporked says confirmed the chain was as focused on sweet foods as on savory ones, is the other partnership the outlet ties to the past 12 months. Customers in the 10 test markets have until Jan. 11, 2027 to find out how the two-piece order tastes.
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
Image: Sumit Surai – CC BY-SA 4.0/Wikimedia Commons
