Chinese Recipes to Cook at Home

Guide

Chinese cooking: quick to prepare, fresh to serve

Many Chinese dishes cook in a wok or in a large pan in a few minutes. To make everything relaxed, vegetables, meat, tofu, pasta, rice and sauce should be prepared before the pan gets hot.

Once the wok is at temperature, it's quick: Ingredients are fried in portions so that they toast and do not lose too much liquid. Thus, vegetables remain crisp, meat is juicy and rice or pasta get the typical, slightly roasted taste.

Popular Chinese Recipes

Here you will find varied Chinese recipe ideas for every taste:

• fried noodles with vegetables, chicken or beef
• fried rice with egg and crunchy vegetables
• spicy wok dishes with tofu, chilli and peanuts
• Dumplings, Wantans and Spring Rolls
• aromatic soups with broth, mushrooms, tofu or pak choi
• sweet and sour dishes with peppers, pineapple and crispy chicken
• Rice dishes like congee for a warming, uncomplicated meal

Typical ingredients for Chinese dishes

With a few basic ingredients, many Chinese recipes can be easily cooked at home. You don't have to buy everything at once: even a few well-combined ingredients can create aromatic wok dishes, soups and pasta dishes.

Particularly frequently used are:

• Soy sauce and dark soy sauce
• Sesame oil
• fresh ginger and garlic
• Spring onions
• Rice vinegar or chinkiang vinegar
• chilli, chilli oil or dried chillies
• Sichuan pepper for a lemony-spicy pungency
• Oyster sauce or a vegetarian alternative
• rice, egg noodles, glass noodles or dumpling dough sheets
• Pak choi, broccoli, carrots, mushrooms, peppers and bamboo shoots

Tips for wok and pan

Prepare everything before frying

Cut vegetables, meat and tofu before heating the pan. Stir the sauce well in advance and keep all the ingredients at hand. No more time to cut, search or measure when frying.

Don't fill up the wok

Better to fry large quantities one after the other. If the pan is too full, the temperature drops quickly and the ingredients stew instead of roasting. Especially for meat, mushrooms and vegetables, this makes a big difference.

Use cold rice from the previous day

Chilled rice is particularly good for fried rice. It is drier, sticks less and can fry better in a wok. Freshly cooked rice, on the other hand, quickly becomes soft or mushy.

Add sauce only at the end

Put the prepared sauce into the pan just before the end of the cooking time. This way the vegetables remain crisp and the sauce can evenly wrap around all the ingredients without boiling down for too long.

Balance with acidity, pungency and sweetness

A good Chinese sauce depends on balance. Soy sauce brings salt and depth, vinegar freshness, sugar or honey a slight sweetness and chilli heat. Taste better gradually, rather than using too much soy sauce too early.

Chinese recipes for everyday life

For a quick dinner, fried noodles, rice dishes or wok vegetables with tofu, chicken or beef are particularly suitable. Many ingredients can be exchanged: use broccoli instead of pak choi, peppers instead of carrots or tofu instead of meat, for example.

Leftovers from the fridge can also be a good foundation. Leftover rice, vegetables, eggs and a little soy sauce quickly become a simple, filling dish in the wok.

Chinese Recipes for Guests

Dumplings, spring rolls, sweet and sour chicken or a large bowl of fried noodles are great for guests. A Chinese-inspired evening becomes especially nice when several dishes are placed in the middle of the table.

For example, combine dumplings as an appetizer with a soup, a wok dish and rice or pasta. So everyone can taste different flavours and put together their own plate.