Ordering take-out can get expensive and who knows exactly what is in that plastic or Styrofoam container they hand you. After some research* I’ve found that Panda Express’ Mongolian Beef has 1000 mg of sodium per serving. PF Chang’s Mongolian Beef has 1340 mg of sodium per serving. Pei Wei’s Mongolian Beef has 1400 mg of sodium per serving. Its recommended that you do not consume more than 1500 mg of sodium daily. Now I usually don’t pay very close attention to calories or daily allowances (I’d rather just eat fresh, wholesome food) but those numbers are ridiculous. Sure, every once in a while take-out food won’t kill you but with the amount of food Americans consume from take-out restaurants and the amount of pre-packaged over-processed food products in the average American pantry, paying attention to those numbers might be necessary if we want our health and planet’s health to improve.

For those reasons (I mean 1400 mg of sodium, really!? You’d never put that much salt in your own cooking!) I’ve decided to start a new series here at Handle the Heat called Take-out at Home. I’ll be featuring recipes for take-out menu favorites but with better, fresher ingredients that are easy and quick enough to make in the same amount of time it would take you to drive to the restaurant or order your food for delivery.

*All nutritional information was found via the respective company website.