Chinese Recipes to Cook at Home

Guide

Chinese cooking: fast prepared, fresh served

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

As soon as the wok is at temperature, it is fast: ingredients are roasted in proportion so that they roast and do not lose too much fluid. Thus, vegetables remain crisp, meat 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 crisp 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 some basic ingredients, many Chinese recipes can simply be cooked at home. You don't have to buy everything at once: even with a few well-combined ingredients, aromatic wok dishes, soups and pasta dishes are produced.

Especially commonly used are:

• Soy sauce and dark soy sauce
• Sesame oil
• Fresh ginger and garlic
• Spring onions
• Rugged or Chinkiang vinegar
• chilli, chilli oil or dried chilli
• Sichuan pepper for a lemony spicy heat
• Oyster sauce or a vegetarian alternative
• Rice, egg noodles, glass noodles or dumplings
• Pak Choi, broccoli, carrots, mushrooms, peppers and bamboo shoots

Tips for wok and pan

Prepare everything before roasting

Cut vegetables, meat and tofu before heating the pan. Stir the sauce in advance and place all ingredients at hand. When roasting, there is no time left to cut, search or measure.

Don't fill the wok

If the pan is too full, the temperature drops quickly and the ingredients stew instead of roasting. Especially with meat, mushrooms and vegetables, this makes a big difference.

Use cold rice from the day before

For fried rice, cooled rice is particularly good. It is drier, sticks less and can fry better in the wok. Freshly cooked rice, on the other hand, quickly becomes soft or muddy.

Add sauce at the end

Place the prepared sauce in the frying pan just before the end of the cooking period. So the vegetables remain crisp and the sauce can settle evenly around all the ingredients without boiling for too long.

Balance with acidity, heat and sweetness

A good Chinese sauce lives from balance. Soy sauce brings salt and depth, vinegar freshness, sugar or honey a light sweetness and chilli spicy. Taste rather gradually instead of using too much soy sauce too early.

Chinese recipes for everyday life

For a quick dinner especially fried noodles, rice dishes or wokge vegetables with tofu, chicken or beef are suitable. Many ingredients can be exchanged: for example, use broccoli instead of Pak Choi, paprika instead of carrots or tofu instead of meat.

Also leftovers from the fridge can be a good basis. Remaining rice, vegetables, eggs and some soy sauce quickly become a simple, satisfying dish in the wok.

Chinese recipes for guests

Dumplings, spring rolls, sweet and sour chicken or a large bowl of fried noodles are ideal for guests. A Chinese-inspired evening will be particularly beautiful 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 noodles. Thus, everyone can taste different flavours and put together their own plate.