Authentic Chinese Cuisine: Your search for the best Chinese food ends here! 🇨🇳 20 and 1 Traditional Chinese Food Dishes You Must Try.

Let’s start with number 2.

2. Fried Rice (炒饭 chǎo fàn)

A Chinese staple, it’s a complete family meal that can include various ingredients like chicken, pork, beef, shrimp. Best tip: Use leftover rice for the ultimate flavor explosion!

3. Peking Duck (北京烤鸭)

Crispy roasted duck served in delicate pancakes with salad and hoisin sauce, a Beijing specialty best enjoyed at a traditional Chinese restaurant.

4. Stinky Tofu (臭豆腐)

This fermented tofu is known for its strong aroma, and the stronger it smells, the better it tastes. It’s prepared using a unique brining and fermenting process.

5. Chow Mian (炒面)

Noodles are another Chinese culinary treasure. Chow mein offers endless variations and can be an easy family dish, even using spaghetti in a pinch.

6. Congee (白粥)

A comforting rice porridge, congee comes in various forms, sweet or savory, and can be customized with a variety of toppings.

7. Chinese Hamburger (肉夹馍)

A bun filled with tender braised pork, originating from northwest China, is a delightful street food with a rich history.

8. Scallion Pancakes (葱油饼)

These savory pancakes, with scallion and sesame oil, offer a chewy and crispy experience, perfect as street food or in restaurants.

9. Kung Pao Chicken (宫保鸡丁)

This authentic Sichuan dish is fragrant, spicy, and mouth-numbing, thanks to Sichuan peppercorns. The real deal is easy to recreate at home.

10. Steamed Pork Buns (包子)

These bread-like dumplings come in various sizes and fillings, making them a delicious, squishy delight, often served with dipping sauces.

11. Mapo Tofu (麻婆豆腐)

Known for its spicy kick, this Sichuanese dish is rich in flavor, textures, and heat, offering an authentic taste of China’s diverse cuisine.

12. Char Siu (叉烧)

This succulent barbecued pork is “fork roasted” to perfection. The seasoning, featuring honey, five-spice powder, hoisin sauce, soy sauce, and red fermented bean curd, creates its signature scarlet hue. Enjoy it on its own, with noodles, or in baozi.

13. Fried Sauce Noodles (炸酱面)

Straight from Shandong, these chewy wheat noodles are adorned with zhajiang sauce—a rich blend of ground pork and fermented soybean paste. It’s a delicacy found all across China.

14. Wonton Soup (馄饨汤)

Wontons are authentic Chinese dumplings filled with shrimp, pork, fish, or more. The broth, infused with pork, chicken, Chinese ham, and aromatics, is a culinary masterpiece.

15. Soup Dumplings (小笼包)

These delightful dumplings hold a delightful surprise—soup inside! The rich pork stock solidifies when cooled and is steamed to perfection. Savor the broth before biting into the dumpling.

16. Hot Pot (火锅)

Beyond a dish, it’s an experience. Cook your raw ingredients tableside in simmering broth, with options like different broths, meats, veggies, seafood, noodles, and toppings. It’s a communal dining adventure.

17. Chinese Sticky Rice (糯米鸡)

A dim sum favorite, lo mai gai combines glutinous rice, Chinese sausage, chicken, and more, all wrapped in a lotus leaf. The result is an impeccably sticky texture and rich flavors.

18. Hainanese Chicken Rice (海南鸡饭)

From Hainan province, this poached chicken dish is tender and comforting, served with fragrant rice, cucumbers, and chile sauce.

19. Chinese Steamed Eggplant (凉拌茄子)

With a juicy, tender texture and a sweet flavor, this dish is seasoned with a mixture of soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, and sesame oil, letting the eggplant soak up all the flavors.

20. Chinese Dumplings (饺子)

Jiaozi are thinner-skinned dumplings filled with a mix of meat and vegetables. They can be boiled, steamed, pan-fried, deep-fried, or served in soup, symbolizing good fortune and enjoyed year-round.

Spring Rolls (春卷)

These Cantonese dim sum treats, filled with vegetables or meat, are wrapped in thin dough wrappers, fried to a crispy golden perfection. Eaten during Spring Festival, they symbolize wealth.

🌮 Embark on a culinary journey through China, and relish the authentic flavors of this diverse and delicious cuisine. Seek out these delights at local Chinese restaurants for a truly immersive experience. 🍜🥡 #ChineseCuisine #AuthenticFlavors #DiscoverChina

Now let’s get to my favorite, today’s number 1: QingBuLiang from Hainan.

1. QingBuLiang

A “lifesaving” summer dessert from China’s southernmost province combines coconut milk, ice, and everything nice

“Nectar from coconut trees, collected in a bowl of jade-white aroma,” exclaimed poet and foodie Su Shi (苏轼) of the Song dynasty (960 – 1279), also known as Su Dongpo (苏东坡), after tasting coconut milk for the first time in the 11th century on the southern island of Hainan.

The fruit was said to be a comfort food for Su, ousted from his government post by a rival court faction and exiled to one of the empire’s southernmost outposts.

Today, coconuts continue to be a cheap, nourishing treat in this tropical holiday paradise, many enjoying its milk in qing bu liang (清补凉), a dessert locals dub a “life-preserving” necessity in the scorching summer.

Qing bu liang’s name speaks for itself when it comes to merits and popularity—it literally means “refreshing, nourishing, cool.” Typical ingredients include mung bean, pearl barley, red jujube, seasonal fruits, syrup, ice, and sometimes milk, all cooked up in a sweet and tasty porridge.

People in Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macau have been drinking qing bu liang ever since, often adding supplements like foxnuts, longan, and even chicken and pork.

It’s believed to dispel heat and damp, strengthen the spleen, and nourish the lungs. Hainan’s qing bu liang combines the Cantonese version with shuiguo lao (水果捞), a dessert that soaks fruit in milk or yogurt. A cup of Hainanese qing bu liang could hold dozens of different ingredients: bean jelly, watermelon, mango, coconut meat (or dried coconut shavings), cooked mung bean, red bean, taro, quail eggs…anything the chef can think of.

It’s all combined with brown sugar syrup, ice, coconut water or coconut milk, and sometimes a few scoops of ice cream to top the thing off. There’s a qing bu liang shop on every street corner across the province, with flavors and ingredients varying from shop to shop. For first-time visitors to the capital city, Haikou, the night market by the south gate of Hainan University, and the Historic Qilou Streets (骑楼老街) around Zhongshan Road are highly recommended sampling spots.