a culinary genealogy
Below, view all our posts in chronological order, starting with the most recent. To browse recipes by category, course, or collection, visit our Recipe Index. Also be sure to check out our How-To section and Chinese Ingredients Glossary.
Chinese lemon chicken is a delicious, refreshing alternative to the usual sweet and sour chicken. Fresh lemons really make this chicken dish, and although our sweet and sour chicken recipe nails it every time, this lemon chicken may just become your new favorite. We’ve gotten many requests for this recipe over the years. Crispy on
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This siu mai recipe, made with pork and shrimp, can stand up to any siu mai from any dim sum restaurant! They’ll transport you to those big dim sum halls of old, filled with push carts, the smell of warm aromatic steam, and the din of dozens of families enjoying a weekend brunch together. Our
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Egg rolls. They’re the quintessential Chinese takeout food. This easy egg roll recipe is a copycat of the basic version you’ll find in takeout places and Chinese buffets, with cabbage and roast pork in the filling. It’s been a very long time since I was regularly making them in my parents’ takeout restaurant, when we’d
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Kabocha squash is one of our favorite squashes/pumpkins to enjoy in the fall! It has a lovely texture—almost like a cross between butternut squash and chestnuts. The skin is also edible, so you don’t have to peel it. Let’s talk about how to grow Kabocha Squash in your garden. This post is part of our How
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Today we have another recipe in our postpartum series—a lightly sweet postpartum porridge made with 7 nourishing Chinese ingredients. In Chinese, the porridge is called yuè zi zhōu (月子粥) which roughly translates to postpartum confinement porridge, and it’s especially meant for the first month after giving birth! Give Chinese Dessert Soups a Try! To be
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This Beef Stir-Fry recipe with vegetables is one of those quick and easy dishes that you can throw together in minutes if you prepare properly ahead of time. Tender beef, crunchy vegetables, and that perfectly flavored sauce you expect from really solid Chinese food (the right amount and the right consistency!) make this stir-fry an
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We make this delicious chicken chow mein recipe with real Chinese chow mein noodles (while many recipes out there use a soft lo-mein-like noodle), crunchy vegetables, and lots of juicy chicken. The term chicken chow mein has gotten a bit muddy over the years. We’ll talk about the different dishes that share the name, so
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We’ve gotten lots of questions over the years about how to cook low sodium Chinese food, especially as it pertains to the many fermented and salted ingredients you might encounter, from soy sauce to spicy bean paste. In this post, we’re going to talk about keeping sodium levels down in Chinese cooking—and recipes that are
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Our Mongolian Beef recipe became one of the most popular Woks of Life recipes after we first published it in July 2015, and for good reason! The Origins of Mongolian Beef But first. What exactly are the origins of Mongolian Beef? Because it’s definitely not Mongolian… In fact, in Mongolia, more often than not, home
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This recipe for pickled daikon with carrots is a classic appetizer that was once often served as a freebie in Cantonese restaurants, along with fried peanuts. I would usually let my parents take control of perusing the menu and concentrate all my attention on this sweet, crunchy pickle in combination with the salty fried peanuts—the
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This Panda Express Super Greens mix of kale, cabbage, and broccoli is a beloved side from the popular chain, but my mom has been making a version of it for years when we have odds and ends of leafy greens left in the refrigerator! Does The Woks of Life Ever Eat at Panda Express? This
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This sticky oyster sauce chicken has been one of our top chicken recipes on the blog since we published it in 2016, and for good reason! The chicken is infused with intense umami flavor thanks to oyster sauce and a classic trio of Chinese aromatics (scallion—AKA green onions, ginger, and garlic) to make for a luxurious,
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Welcome to our How to Grow Chinese Vegetables series: Choy Sum edition! In this post, we’ll talk about how to grow choy sum or cài xīn (菜心), AKA yu choy or yóucài (油菜). We have professional insights from Christina Chan, farmer and owner of Choy Division, a regenerative Asian vegetable and herb farm in the
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Today, we’re coming to you with a new mooncake recipe for the Mid-Autumn Festival! This one is a bit non-traditional. We’re making Pecan Pie Mooncakes! This recipe is for all of you out there who think you don’t like mooncakes or who want to try making them for the first time. The flavors are deliciously
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Winter melon soup is a popular home-cooked Chinese dish when winter melons are in season (late summer through fall). It’s also probably the most popular application of winter melon in China. Winter melon soups are often made with pork ribs, meatballs, and seafood like shrimp and clams. We have already published a meatball soup with
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This loofah stir-fry with chicken is a super tasty and satisfying way to cook loofah (luffa?), a Chinese vegetable (ahem, fruit) that doesn’t get enough love! What is Loofah? When we were promoting our cookbook last year, a journalist came out to our house (the TWOL HQ) for an interview, and we showed her around
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This stuffed bitter melon recipe in black bean sauce is a classic Cantonese dish that highlights a produce item in abundance right now in Chinese groceries and backyard gardens: bitter melon! While beef with bitter melon might be more well-known, this recipe might be tied with it for my favorite bitter melon dish! Interested in
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The Mid-Autumn Festival is the second most important Chinese holiday of the year (after Lunar New Year/Spring Festival). It’s a time to get together with family, eat, worship the moon, and celebrate the fall harvest! In this post, we’ll talk about how to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival with friends and family! Note: This post was originally published
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