Chinese Recipes
279 recipes found
Chicken Lo Mein
Chinese lo mein (“stirred noodles”) is beloved for its fun combination of egg noodles, veggies and protein tossed in a sweet and savory sauce. Making this popular takeout dish at home is a fantastic way to use up leftovers, as this dish is completely customizable depending on what’s available in the fridge. (No napa cabbage? Use green or purple!) Here, skinless boneless chicken thighs are thinly sliced for quick-cooking meat that remains juicy and tender. The rich sauce comes together in a flash and can easily be doubled for another stir-fry later on in the week. Go light on seasoning the veggies, since the sauce does bring a good amount of salt to the final dish.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/20250114-TaiwaneseBraisedPorkChops-DeliStudios-09-da5c8f61c4b240fe903285d2a7fe0307.jpg)
Taiwanese Fried and Braised Pork Chops
In Taiwan, railway bento boxes are a beloved feature of the train system. One of the most popular meals is juicy fried pork chops braised in soy sauce, rice wine, and sesame oil. Recreate the meal at home with Clarissa Wei's pork chop recipe.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/20241212-SEA-Tanghulu-MelatiCitrawireja-Hero1-06-fea932f1bfe84b149a4b5e47f7734bde.jpg)
Tanghulu (Sugar-Glazed Skewered Fruit)
Long before tanghulu—skewered fruit glazed in sugar—became a TikTok darling, it was a snack eaten by Chinese royalty. Today, it’s a popular street food in China and Taiwan. Here’s how to make your own jeweled lollipops at home.
Butter-Soy Chicken and Asparagus Stir-Fry
How do Chinese restaurant stir-fries deliver silky and tender meat with a sauce that seems to cling? The secret is a technique called velveting. When meat is velveted (a two-step process of marinating in a cornstarch mixture and blanching in either oil or water), even lean cuts like chicken breast become supremely juicy. Here, velveting does the heavy lifting in this lightning-quick stir-fry, featuring a sublimely savory sauce of butter, soy sauce and lemon. To speed things along further, you can prep the vegetables while the chicken marinates.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/20241125-MalaSpicedChexMix-AmandaSuarez-15-be2250fb6c95496b91f817aade9d730f.jpg)
Mala-Spiced Chex Mix
This salty-sweet, spicy, and crunchy Chex mix is perfect for holiday parties or just a session of zoning out in front of the TV. Plus, it requires just five minutes of active prep time and lasts for up to five days, so you can make it ahead for multi-day munching.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/20241029-SoyBraisedChicken-AmandaSuarez-hero-0aedc780d6ea47a8adffd9cd8b7a778d.jpg)
Soy Sauce–Braised Chicken Thighs
These tender chicken thighs with crispy skin are bathed in a fragrant blend of soy sauce, brown sugar, and warm spices, evoking the flavors of classic Cantonese soy sauce chicken.
Zha Jiang Mian
A budget, weeknight meal that is classic to the Chinese diaspora, zha jiang mian is a noodle dish traditionally made with a mixture of diced pork belly and lean pork, plus a rich sauce made from Chinese soybean paste and sweet bean paste, both of which can be likened to a rich, deeper miso. The recipe is likely to vary from family to family, but this version uses ground pork, a speedier alternative that gives the sauce a nice richness. Chinese soybean pastes vary in saltiness, so make sure to season lightly with salt in the beginning to help build flavor. (You can always adjust the seasoning at the end if you need more salt.)
Vegan Zha Jiang Mian
Zha jiang mian is a popular Chinese noodle dish that is the quintessential pantry meal: Staples in many Chinese households, the fermented soybean pastes are like richer, deeper misos, and add significant depth to this quick dish. Traditionally, zha jiang mian is made with pork belly, but this vegan version captures a similar texture with sautéed eggplant, which cooks down to become soft and creamy, adding to the body of the sauce. Crumbled tofu helps the sauce coat the noodles when mixed. Chinese soybean pastes vary in saltiness, so season lightly with salt in the beginning to help build flavor without overdoing it. (You can always adjust the seasoning at the end if you need more salt.) These noodles are typically served with mung beans and slivered cucumber, but a variety of fresh vegetables could step in; shredded romaine lettuce or carrots would also be delicious.
Grilled Cumin Lamb Skewers
This surprisingly simple marinade yields a complex taste experience of rich, smoky lamb spiked with chili powder and the unique numbing sensation of Szechuan peppercorns.
Ginger-Scallion Tofu and Greens
A classic Chinese condiment, ginger-scallion oil is most commonly served with poached chicken but is incredibly versatile — and shines here, applied to cold silken tofu and blanched greens. Most Chinese families will have their own version of the aromatic oil, each with their own ideal ratio of ginger to scallions. There are no hard rules here, so feel free to adjust the amount of ginger and scallions to your preferences. Thinly slicing both will give you a robust sauce, but you may chop them until minced for a smoother sauce. This oil is a great one to make in bulk, as it keeps, refrigerated, up to one month, so you can add it to rice, roasted veggies, pan-fried tofu, cold noodles or eggs, invigorating your everyday cooking.
Siu Mai
A mainstay of dim sum, siu mai are open-faced steamed dumplings filled with juicy, seasoned pork, and sometimes shrimp and shiitake mushrooms, like in this version. Dim sum, a variety of small dishes meant to be shared, roughly means heart’s delight in Cantonese. Its origins are thought to date back to the tea houses along the Silk Road in Southern China where weary travelers shared small bites of food alongside their tea. Unlike other more intricate dumplings, wrapping siu mai is not too fussy. For their signature buttery hue, use round, yellow dumpling wrappers, sometimes labeled “Hong Kong Style.” Adding cornstarch to the meat filling is a Chinese culinary technique called velveting, which ensures the meat is juicy with a silken, velvety texture. For added contrast, add chopped water chestnuts to the filling. Top the siu mai with fish roe (or finely chopped carrot) for a pop of color, and serve with black vinegar, soy sauce and chile paste for dipping.
Lazi Ji (Chongqing Chicken With Chiles)
Lazi ji, a specialty of the sweltering city of Chongqing in southwestern China, might appear at first glance to be all chiles, spilling rim to rim in reckless abundance. But you’re not meant to eat them. They’re fried briefly, just long enough to give off their fragrance and lend a little sting to the cooking oil. Part of the fun of the dish is hunting for the small, crispy nubs of chicken, which in Chongqing are served with the bones left in, for happy grappling. (If you prefer to use boneless chicken thighs, cut them into pieces no bigger than popcorn.) You’ll want your ingredients premeasured at the start, since everything comes together quickly at the end: garlic and ginger turned golden and toasty, Sichuan pepper with its tickling buzz. The culinary scholar Fuchsia Dunlop advises staying away from the most powerful chiles; instead, seek out the long, slender, medium-hot variety sold by the bag at Chinese groceries. Be careful they don’t blacken in the wok. You want that red, untainted, unextinguished, blazing on the plate.
Salt and Pepper Shrimp
Temptingly seasoned salt and pepper shrimp is a Cantonese dish that takes little effort to prepare and is a joy to eat. Jiao yan is the salt and pepper mixture that livens up the fried shrimp with a quick jolt of flavor. It is typically prepared with white pepper, or, for a fiery heat, with Sichuan peppercorns, but you can also use black pepper (if using Sichuan peppercorns, use 1 part peppercorns to 3 parts salt). Toasting whole peppercorns and then grinding them draws out even more flavor. This recipe makes more of the seasoning than you may need, but you can store the mixture and use it on tofu, chicken, pork chops or vegetables. Coating the shrimp in cornstarch and then shallow-frying makes for an irresistibly crunchy exterior and juicy interior. For the classic restaurant-style preparation, use head-on, shell-on shrimp (the shell is edible when fried), but use peeled shrimp if that’s easier, and don’t be shy with the salt and pepper mix. Serve either as an appetizer with a cooling drink, or with rice as a main dish.
Lychee Cake
Chinese Jamaican bakers might closely guard the secrets to their lychee cake recipes, but typical components include fluffy sponge cake, sweetened cream filling and decorative fruits, for garnish. Lychee cake was originally created by Selena Wong, a professional baker, about 40 years ago to celebrate the Lunar New Year, and home bakers also sell the confection. Lychee is delicately flavored and watery, so producing a strong lychee flavor can be tricky. This recipe infuses the cake with lychee flavor by reducing lychee into a glaze, sauce and filling, thus introducing it into the batter, glaze, filling and garnish. Rose water, common in Jamaican baking, intensifies lychee’s floral notes. This cake uses canned lychees, because fresh ones are hard to find (and too watery for baking), but if you can find fresh lychees at Asian markets in the summertime, they make a wonderful garnish, along with other fresh fruits of your choice.
Spicy Cumin Lamb Burgers
Many people go to Xi’an Famous Foods in New York City for their spicy hand-pulled noodles, but the sleeper hit is the cumin lamb burger. This recipe, adapted from “Xi’an Famous Foods: The Cuisine of Western China, From New York’s Favorite Noodle Shop” by Jason Wang and David Shi (Abrams Books, 2020), starts with homemade buns that rise and crisp on a griddle, resulting in a soft interior similar to a pita. (You can make the bread from scratch, or substitute a burger bun or even an English muffin.) The restaurant’s signature spicy cumin lamb with red onions and green longhorn peppers is stuffed inside the bread, resembling a steak sandwich as opposed to a burger. You’ll want to slice the lamb as thinly as possible (a short stint in the freezer helps firm it up), which increases the surface area to great effect: The meat cooks through quickly, browns effectively and easily absorbs a tongue-tingling dose of cumin and chile.
Stir-Fried Chicken With Mushrooms and Snow Peas
This classic stir-fry recipe, adapted from “The Key to Chinese Cooking” by Irene Kuo, calls for velveting chicken breast, a process of marinating the meat in a mix of egg white, cornstarch, salt and Shaoxing wine, and then blanching it. The extra steps help ensure that the lean chicken stays very tender and silky, even when seared at very high heat. You can use this basic recipe as a template for any chicken stir-fry, varying the vegetables depending on the season and what’s available. Serve it piping hot, with rice on the side.
Kung Pao Tofu
Fiery from dried chiles, tingling with Sichuan peppercorns and studded with peanuts, this kung pao tofu recipe is a vegetarian take on kung pao chicken, the classic Chinese American restaurant staple. Though variations on this dish abound, this version swaps in tofu for chicken, treating the tofu similarly. Pressing the tofu removes excess moisture, leaving more room for flavor to penetrate and giving it a denser, chewy texture. The cornstarch coating helps the tofu brown, makes it crisp and acts as a sponge for the savory, spicy, tingly sauce.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/20240501-PoachedChicken-AmandaSuarez-hero-8327e0f2e64d450cb81505ef9c582cc5.jpg)
Foolproof Juicy Poached Chicken
Traditional poached chicken recipes are usually a guessing game of timing and temperature, leading to meat that's either undercooked or dry and stringy. Our unconventional cold-start method is worlds better, producing chicken that is plump, tender, and juicy.
Xiao Long Bao (Soup Dumplings)
Filled with seasoned pork and savory broth, these delicately pleated dumplings are a labor of love. The trick to getting the soup inside the dumpling is using aspic, a gelatin that forms when meat broth (traditionally made with pork skin and feet) cools and hardens into a jelly. Here, powdered gelatin is dissolved in chicken stock, chilled to set, then cut into small cubes and added to the filling. The pork and aspic are bundled up in the dough, sealed, then steamed, melting the aspic and filling the area around the pork with a heavenly, slurpable broth. Assembling the soup dumplings requires patience and practice, so solicit family and friends to join in on the work. Serve immediately with black vinegar and sliced ginger, and some chile crisp for a little kick.
Hand-Pulled Noodles
The pleasantly chewy texture of these long Chinese noodles is part of the allure, as is the artful practice of delicately pulling the fresh wheat dough to create the strands. Hand-pulling noodles, or la mian, is a technique that has been passed from generation to generation, and the results cannot be replicated with a machine. With just bread flour, water and salt, a streamlined recipe, and a little patience, you really can make these fresh noodles at home. Using a high-gluten flour like bread flour, and allowing an ample amount of rest time, will make the dough easier to pull. Once cooked, these springy noodles can be served in a simple broth accompanied by fresh vegetables and topped with a tongue tingling chile crisp.
Hot and Sour Soup
Rich with pork, silky with tofu, punchy with rice vinegar, and spicy with both red and white pepper, this comforting soup is a Chinese classic. Hot and sour soup has been around for centuries in China, eventually making its way to the United States where it was tweaked for American palates (less sour and spicy) and became a popular staple at Chinese-American restaurants. Variations of the dish abound, mostly dependent upon the protein used: Pork is most common, but lamb, beef, chicken and vegetarian versions also exist. Cornstarch is essential to the recipe as it provides the soup’s velvety texture. (Just note that the soup can thicken as it cools.) Adjust the pepper and vinegar amounts to your preference.
Hot Pot
Featuring a steaming pot of savory broth surrounded by platters of meats, seafood and vegetables, Chinese-style hot pot is a fun, interactive dining experience meant to be shared with friends and family. The practice likely began during the Song dynasty (960-1279), when cooking food in a communal copper pot became popular among nobility, but nowadays, a large metal pot — or double-sided pot if you want both a spicy and a mild broth — perched atop a portable burner is used so everything can be cooked at the table. Diners choose their ingredients, dip them into the bubbling soup, then into accompanying sauces. When it comes to ingredients, the more the merrier: All of the amounts below are just suggestions, so mix and match until you have a variety that makes you happy. For a vegetarian hot pot, double up on the tofu or bean curd and vegetables. The soup base and ingredients vary by region: Sichuan-style hot pot, for example, is famous for its numbingly spicy red broth spiked with Sichuan peppercorns, the Cantonese version is loaded with seafood, and Beijing-style is made with mutton. (Here’s everything you need to make hot pot at home.)
Ginger Scallion Chicken and Rice
Hainanese chicken rice, most likely originating from the island of Hainan off the coast of southern China, is a beloved dish of silky poached whole chicken and gingery rice cooked with the bird’s cooking broth and rendered fat. This streamlined version simmers the two together in a single pot to make it a meal fast enough for weeknights. With endless variations throughout the world, most notably in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia, one constant is dipping sauces for the meat. There’s often three: ginger-scallion or ginger-garlic sauce, sweetened dark soy and red chile sauce. Here, hot oil is poured over minced ginger and scallions to create an aromatic blend that brings a warming edge to the comforting rice and meat. The slick of oil that remains is used to quickly stir-fry vegetables to turn this into a complete meal. Any leftover sauce is great over fish, tofu, eggs and noodles.
Chicken Mei Fun
A tangle of vermicelli noodles tossed with chicken (or other protein) and a hodgepodge of veggies in a savory sauce are the essential components of mei fun, the versatile Chinese stir-fry whose name means “rice noodles” in Cantonese. Here, chicken, cabbage, carrot and bell pepper are used, but feel free to switch up ingredients as you wish, subbing in strips of pork tenderloin, thinly sliced beef or bite-sized shrimp for the chicken, and celery, onion or broccoli for the veggies. While mei fun, or chow mei fun as it is sometimes known, can serve as a blank canvas for whatever is hanging out in your fridge, some versions have become a dish in their own right, including Singapore mei fun, a bright yellow variation seasoned with curry powder.