All recipes
Sorted by time budget. Every single one: 6 ingredients max, 1 pot, no wok skills.
10-Minute (10)
Smashed Cucumber Salad (Pai Huang Gua)
The most-ordered cold starter in China takes 8 minutes and requires you to attack a vegetable with a blunt object.
5 ingredients · 3 steps →Egg & Seaweed Drop Soup (Zi Cai Dan Hua Tang)
The default weeknight soup of a billion people: 7 minutes, 4 ingredients, zero knife work.
4 ingredients · 3 steps →Blanched Greens with Oyster Sauce (Bai Zhuo)
The Cantonese technique that makes any green vegetable taste like a $18 restaurant side.
4 ingredients · 3 steps →Tomato & Egg Stir-Fry (Xi Hong Shi Chao Ji Dan)
The undisputed national dish of Chinese home cooking — the one dish everyone's mother made.
4 ingredients · 3 steps →10-Minute Scallion Oil Noodles (Cong You Ban Mian)
Two dollars of ingredients, one pan, and the smell will make your neighbors jealous.
5 ingredients · 3 steps →Cold Tofu with Scallions (Xiao Cong Ban Dou Fu)
Five minutes, no stove at all, and more protein than a protein bar.
4 ingredients · 3 steps →Hot Oil-Poured Noodles (You Po Mian)
The dinner-theater recipe: pour sizzling oil over chili and garlic and it makes that sound.
6 ingredients · 3 steps →Oyster Sauce Lettuce (Hao You Sheng Cai)
Yes, lettuce. Cooked. It takes 6 minutes and converts lettuce haters.
3 ingredients · 3 steps →10-Minute Sweet-Sour Pickled Radish (Kuai Shou Yan Luo Bo)
The palate-cleanser that sits on every Chinese dinner table — made while your main dish cooks.
5 ingredients · 3 steps →Cold Sesame Noodles (Ma Jiang Mian)
Beijing's peanut-butter noodles — the one-bowl dinner that requires zero cooking beyond boiling pasta.
6 ingredients · 3 steps →20-Minute (10)
Silky Steamed Egg Custard (Zheng Shui Dan)
China's answer to soft scrambled eggs: three eggs steamed into custard so smooth it jiggles.
5 ingredients · 3 steps →Tomato & Egg Noodle Soup (Xi Hong Shi Ji Dan Mian)
The soup version of China's national home dish — brothy, sweet-sour, 15 minutes of actual cooking.
6 ingredients · 3 steps →Weeknight Mapo Tofu (Ma Po Dou Fu, simplified)
The Sichuan legend, reduced to one pan and six ingredients — numbing, spicy, spooned over rice.
6 ingredients · 3 steps →Hand-Torn Cabbage (Shou Si Bao Cai)
The stir-fry that converts cabbage skeptics: smoky edges, garlicky, faintly sweet and sour.
5 ingredients · 3 steps →Crisp Pan-Fried Tofu with Dipping Sauce (Jian Dou Fu)
Golden tofu cubes that stay crisp, plus the garlicky dip that makes the whole plate disappear.
6 ingredients · 3 steps →Silky Shrimp & Eggs (Xia Ren Hua Dan)
Restaurant banquet texture from frozen shrimp: eggs so soft they slide, shrimp so snappy they squeak.
5 ingredients · 3 steps →Chives & Eggs (Jiu Cai Chao Dan)
The dumpling-filling flavor, five minutes faster as a stir-fry — garlic chives make eggs taste expensive.
4 ingredients · 3 steps →Shredded Pork & Peppers (Qing Jiao Rou Si)
The most common "meat dish" in Chinese homes: strips of pork, sweet-hot peppers, 15 minutes at the stove.
5 ingredients · 3 steps →Scallion-Oil Chicken Thighs (Cong You Ji)
Pan-seared chicken thighs drowned in a warm scallion-soy sauce that you will want on everything.
5 ingredients · 3 steps →Hot & Sour Shredded Potatoes (Suan La Tu Dou Si)
Potatoes treated like a vegetable, not a side: vinegar-sharp, chili-warm, snappy-crunchy.
5 ingredients · 3 steps →30-Minute (10)
Chaoshan Daikon & Pork Soup (Chao Shan Qing Tang)
The soup this whole site was built around: a whole chunk of pork and a daikon, half an hour, then celery and salt. That is the recipe.
5 ingredients · 3 steps →Steamed Fish with Ginger & Soy (Qing Zheng Yu)
The Cantonese gold standard of "let the fish be fish" — steam 10 minutes, smother in hot oil and soy.
5 ingredients · 3 steps →Corn, Carrot & Pork Soup (Yu Mi Hu Luo Bo Tang)
The sweetest soup in the Chinese canon — corn does all the flavor work while you do nothing.
4 ingredients · 3 steps →Easy Braised Chicken & Potatoes (Huang Men Ji, simplified)
The dish behind China's biggest chicken-rice chain, simplified to one pot and six ingredients.
7 ingredients · 3 steps →Soy-Braised Eggs & Tofu (Lu Dan Lu Dou Fu)
The braise that lives on Chinese stoves all week: eggs and tofu steeping in a soy broth you reuse.
5 ingredients · 3 steps →Lotus Root & Pork Soup (Lian Ou Tang)
Wuhan's beloved soup: lotus root turns starchy-silky and slightly threads like cheese when you pull it apart.
4 ingredients · 3 steps →Easy White-Cut Chicken Legs (Bai Qie Ji)
The dish Cantonese grandmothers judge each other with, made foolproof with just legs and a pot.
5 ingredients · 3 steps →Garlic Steamed Eggplant with Soy (Suan Rong Zheng Qie Zi)
All of the melty eggplant glory, none of the oil lake — the steamer does what frying usually does.
6 ingredients · 3 steps →Black Bean Steamed Pork Ribs (Dou Chi Zheng Pai Gu)
A dim sum cart classic at home: butcher-chopped ribs, a black bean marinade, and 25 minutes of hands-off steaming.
6 ingredients · 3 steps →Shiitake Steamed Chicken (Dong Gu Zheng Hua Ji)
The homeliest of Cantonese classics: chicken and mushrooms steaming in their own juices into something silky.
6 ingredients · 3 steps →