Plan your Chinese new year dinner with this recipe collection from traditional CNY appetizers to desserts and anything in between for home cooks with any level of skills.
Chinese New Year is one of my favorite events as a kid and still is. Festive decorations, family gatherings, amazing spread of delicious food prepared single-handedly weeks ahead by mom and mom alone, the cookies! Chinese New Year is as big as Thanksgiving and Christmas to Chinese families throughout Asia.
CHINESE NEW YEAR RECIPES – WHAT TO COOK TODAY COLLECTIONS
I will be adding to this list as I go of course. I seriously wish I could cook all the dishes in one day, BUT, that’s not possible right! So, in case you are looking for ideas to plan Chinese New Year meals or what cookies or dessert to make for potlucks or to feed your family to celebrate Chinese New year, I hope you find something in this collections. And of course please let me know if you think of something I should have included in this list. I would be more than happy to check them out and hopefully cook them too 🙂
CHINESE NEW YEAR MUST-HAVE FOOD
Many of the Chinese foods have auspicious meanings. More often than not, the name of the food and appearance have something to do with this. To get you started to plan for a Chinese New Year meal, here are the basics of what Traditional Chinese in China, Indonesian Chinese (like myself), and Singaporean like to include in their Chinese New Year’s eve meal:
CHINESE NEW YEAR DUMPLINGS
-Jiao zi (Boiled and pan-fried)
-Chinese money bag wontons (Fried or steamed)
-Chinese egg dumplings
-Shanghai siu mai
-The best pork and shrimp siu mai
-Pork and chives dumplings
-Yin yang vegetable dumplings
CHINESE NEW YEAR STARTERS OR APPETIZERS
-How to prepare yu sheng
-Fried nian gao sweet potato sandwich
-Easy sweet piggy steamed buns
-Golden Pumpkin Chai Tow Kue
-Chinese savory turnip cake
CHINESE NEW YEAR SEAFOOD
How to clean sea cucumber
Braised pork with sea cucumber
-Braised abalone with bok choy
-Cantonese steamed whole fish
-Thai-style steamed whole fish
-Abalone and fish maw
-Fish maw snow fungus soup
-Mai Pian Xia (Cereal butter prawn)
-Salt and pepper shrimp
-Leng hong kien (Sweet mayonnaise shrimp)
CHINESE NEW YEAR MEAT DISHES
-Xiang su ya (Fragrant crispy duck)
-Hakka Kau Yuk (Pork belly and taro)
-Ngo hiang / Lor bak
-Easy homemade bak kwa
-Mai pian ji (Cereal butter fried chicken)
-Braised pork with sea cucumber
-The easiest crispy siu yuk with cracklings (Crispy Pork Belly)
CHINESE NEW YEAR RICE
-Easy Chinese stir-fried nian gao rice cakes
-Dried scallop abalone congee
-Easy pressure cooker lo mai gai
-Yang Zhou Fried Rice
-Thai pineapple fried rice (Khao Pad Sapparod)
CHINESE NEW YEAR VEGGIES
-Buddha’s Delight (Lo han jai)
-Cap Chay
-Stir-fried gai lan with pork
-Stir-fried asparagus and shrimp
-Braised green bean with bean thread noodles
CHINESE NEW YEAR NOODLES
-Super easy scallion oil noodles
-Ants climbing a tree (Ma yi shang shu)
-Easy shrimp lo mein
-Spicy kung pao noodle with shrimp
-Homemade egg noodles
-Noodles with sesame peanut dressing
-Super simple spicy and tangy noodles
CHINESE NEW YEAR SWEETS AND DESSERT
-Baked Chinese new year sweet nian gao
-Eight-treasure glutinous rice pudding (Ba bao fan)
-Nian Gao
-Tang yuan in sweet ginger broth
-Tang yuan with lava peanut filling
-Snow fungus dessert soup
-Longan, red dates, goji berries poached pears
-Sesame balls (Jian dui)
CHINESE NEW YEAR COOKIES AND CAKES
Look at that!!!
-Easy sesame peanut brittle (Teng Teng kacang)
-Love letters cookies (Kue kapit) – using pizzelle maker
-Chinese new year peanut butter cookies (Kue skippy)
-Salted egg yolk cookies
-Kue Semprit Susu
-Kue Bangkit
-Kaastangels
-Kue Salju
-Pineapple tarts (Kue nastar)
-Chocolate cornflakes cookies
-Thousand-layer cake (Spekkoek / Lapis legit)
-Bika Ambon (Indonesian honey comb cake)
-Huat Kueh (Fatt Koh)