Today we answer all your questions about how to make a Chinese meal, from weeknight dinners for the family to a Chinese dinner party. What’s the traditional way to do it? How many dishes do you need? What types of dishes go together? Read on to become a master at Chinese menu planning and preparation! 

Why Listen to Us? 

If you’re new to The Woks of Life, we are a multi-generational food blog dedicated to recording traditional Chinese and family recipes. Since starting the blog in 2013, we’ve become one of the most cited sources on the subject of Chinese cooking!

Take it from us, our Chinese New Year / Lunar New Year celebrations over the years have ballooned to 15 dishes! After over a decade of honing our craft, we think we know a thing or two about how to plan a Chinese meal. 

You’ll see all four of our perspectives represented here. Whether you’re set to be the matriarch of a family gathering, planning a Friday night dinner with friends in your apartment kitchen, or the guy who knows he’s gonna have to wash the dishes at the end of all this, we aim to account for all participants and experience levels in this post.

Planning the Menu

We’ve gotten many questions on how to plan a Chinese meal, from weeknight dinners to more elaborate holiday celebrations like Lunar New Year. (Wondering when Lunar New Year is this year? We’ve got you covered.)

As anyone who has ever sat down at a Chinese restaurant knows, the potential menu iterations can be vast in range, variety, and complexity. Chinese cuisine by definition is multifaceted and nuanced when it comes to ingredients, techniques, and dishes. 

So it can be tricky to try to give more than basic advice when people come to us saying “I have 12 people coming over next month, what do I do?!” There’s also the question of your personal tastes, dietary restrictions, and ingredient access.

Then there’s the factor of regional differences. Ask southerners, and we’ll say a bowl of rice is always the de facto foundation to any meal. Ask a northerner, and they may prefer a bowl of thick noodles or fluffy mantou (steamed buns) instead. 

Then there’s the question of what your kitchen looks like. How much equipment and space do you have on the counter and stove? 

Each person will have different capacities on what they can juggle, and what dishes they can make come together in roughly the same time frame so everything is warm when everyone sits down to eat. 

(Side note: If you’ve ever cooked even a small Chinese spread, then you know a Chinese dinner comes together best and with the least stress when one has at least a couple sets of hands to help!) 

In spite of these complications, we’ll aim to address all these different factors as best we can.

How Many Dishes Do I Need Per Person? 

This question is a little bit of a false one, because even if you’re one person eating a Chinese meal, you’ll probably want at least two dishes for variety—say, a protein and a vegetable—unless you’re making a one wok protein + vegetable stir-fry. 

And even then, you will probably want rice/grains or noodles. So for one person, you’re already at 2 dishes, even if one of them just entails pressing the button on a rice cooker. 

The key characteristic of a Chinese meal may be the variety of ingredients and textures, so it feels necessary to establish the point that even for one, a little variety is key. 

But now that’s out of the way, the general rule of thumb is one dish per person, with 1 or 2 extra things to round it out.

Case in point, if we’re out at a restaurant, we’ll usually ask each person what they most want to eat. We’ll order 3-4 things based on that, representing the core proteins + vegetables, and then add an extra leafy vegetable for good measure. The dishes that round out the meal are usually a soup, rogue noodle dish, or some cold appetizers.

So we’re usually netting out with 6 dishes for four people, which is obviously a lot of food. You could also just order 4 dishes for 4 people, and forego anything extra! 

Where do I start?

Instead of starting with what is traditional, we’ll say that you should first start by thinking about what you’re comfortable cooking skillswise, what people will enjoy eating, any allergies or dietary restrictions, and your budget. In short, think about your constraints first. Here’s a starting point: 

• Dietary restrictions of you or your guests (e.g., gluten-free, low sodium, low fat, low sugar, vegan/vegetarian, pescetarian, the list goes on) 
• Budget
• Time
• Cooking ability
• Stove / range / quantity of burners and ovens
• Special equipment / tools 
• Taste and flavor preferences 

You can’t think about what kinds of food to make without thinking about these limitations. Don’t feel the need to be hemmed in by expensive ingredients or elaborate dishes. 

It’s why we have different versions of traditional dishes that are designed to be more approachable. There are tasty stir fries, braises, noodle dishes, soups, and dumplings to be had at all price points, experience levels, and for all manner of diets, even when cooking for holidays and traditions! 

• Nervous about the notion of cooking a whole fish? Go for filets instead. 
• Not sure you want to take on a whole poached chicken? Make one of our shredded chicken recipes. 
• Can’t do wheat noodles? Opt for rice noodles or gluten-free dumplings.
• Don’t want to make homemade chili oil? Buy your favorite chili oil or chili crisp instead! 
• Don’t have time to wash Chinese leafy greens? Make a stir-fry with easy-to-prep onions, carrots, and/or canned bamboo shoots instead. 

You’ll also want to consider what you have in your kitchen. How many burners are on your stove? Do you have access to an oven? What appliances do you have? Stock pots? Steamers? 

It may be a good idea to choose only 2-3 dishes that need cooking in the wok. Then make a braised dish or soup that can be cooked in a separate pot, and perhaps something that could be steamed in a separate pot too. (See our post on how to steam food without special equipment.) We talk about this more in our future guide to Wok Sequencing—how to cook multiple dishes with one wok!

The beauty of any Chinese meal is the coming together of a variety of dishes to make a dinner greater than the sum of its parts. You can keep things simple and still have an impressive, delicious meal!

How to think about key components of the meal 

Proteins

Generally, you want anywhere from 1-3 proteins on the table, whether that’s meat or tofu/seitan.

Note that a meat dish may only have several ounces of meat, and be mostly vegetables, as in our Pork & Garlic Scapes Stir-fry or Beef & Pepper Stir-fry. 

Let’s say you’re serving a rich pork dish as the centerpiece of the meal. Consider balancing it out with a more delicate poultry dish and perhaps a light steamed fish or shrimp stir-fry. If you want to go even lighter, you can have a chicken dish with a steamed egg and a tofu stir-fry. 

What those proteins are is up to your tastes, but we will make a plea for bringing eggs into the fold for any meal of the day! They’re not just for breakfast. Steamed eggs and egg stir fries like our Scrambled Eggs with Hunan Chilies or Chinese Chive and Egg Stir-Fry are an easy, tasty (and inexpensive) way to round out a meal. 

Vegetables

Unlike Western cuisine, meat does not always need to be the main event in Chinese cooking. Vegetables are often front and center. 

Special vegetable dishes may feature in-season items like spring bamboo shoots, garlic scapes, or fava beans in the spring or daikon radish or pumpkin in late summer/fall. Asparagus season? Make an asparagus stir-fry to showcase it. Growing loofah (sponge gourd) in the summer? Serve our Loofah with Chicken. You get the idea.

While you may have veggies appearing in a stir-fry with chicken, beef, or pork, it’s usually a good idea to also serve up a leafy vegetable or mixed vegetable stir-fry to make sure everyone’s getting their fill of fiber and vitamins. 

Starches

In any Chinese meal, there’s got to be a starchy foundation. These items are known as zhǔshí (主食) in Chinese, which translates to “staple food.” 

Of course, while customs around eating rice are changing even in China (it’s not uncommon to attend a fancy banquet and have everyone opting out of rice so as to enjoy the rich spread of seafoods, meats, veggies, and soups), for the average person putting together a home-cooked Chinese menu, you’re going to want to have a starch to serve with everything. 

When it comes to rice, plain steamed jasmine rice is king! If you want to get fancy with it, you could also make fried rice. Just keep in mind that 1 cup of uncooked rice yields 3 cups of cooked rice. Figure each person will have about 1 cup of cooked rice, and go from there. 

Another option would be noodles. Some may say that if you have noodles on the table, you don’t need rice. Our family loves rice, so we say hogwash. Though if you’re serving noodles, it probably is the case that you will need less rice.

Showing up on our dinner tables more often these days are porridges. Things like my mom’s multigrain porridge, millet porridge, or pao fan (a simple, plain rice porridge). Porridge is warming and easy to digest. It’s more of a homey option, so probably makes more sense for a family meal rather than for entertaining guests. 

Finally, you could choose to serve mantou. These fluffy steamed buns are the staple starch of many parts of Northern China, where you’ll see folks enjoying their meal with chopsticks in one hand and a mantou in the other. Try my mom’s classic steamed mantou or whole wheat mantou. 

Soups 

Some would say that a Chinese meal isn’t complete without soup. It’s always going to be an appreciated part of the meal, whether you’re cooking for your immediate family or for guests. 

There are soups that range from fantastically easy (e.g., our Tomato Egg Drop Soup) to moderately difficult (e.g., our Hot and Sour Soup which requires a couple of unique pantry ingredients) to easy, but time intensive (e.g., our Pork Bone and Watercress Soup), and intricate (e.g., Wonton Soup or Egg Dumpling Soup). 

There aren’t many rules here, so serve what sounds good to you!

Appetizers 

From dumplings and baozi to scallion pancakes and spring rolls, appetizers are a way to go above and beyond. More importantly, they are a way to buy you some time in the kitchen when your guests arrive. Everyone enjoys watching the flames of the wok when they’ve got something to munch on. 

This is also a good time to rely on store-bought shortcuts. For example, our Chinese grocery sells delicious frozen mushroom shumai, and we’re not averse to the store-bought scallion pancake or dumpling, so long as they’re served with our Perfect Dumpling Sauce!

Dessert

When it comes to Chinese food, dessert is often dictated by the holiday in question. Mid-Autumn Festival calls for mooncakes, and the Lantern Festival calls for Tang Yuan. 

A simple fruit platter is always a good idea, or you could go for one of Judy’s signature lightly sweet desserts like her Old Fashioned Chinese Egg Cakes or Walnut Cookies. 

Also don’t forget about the plethora of Chinese dessert soups out there, like our Taro Sago, Red Bean Soup, and Mung Bean Soup.

Holiday Specialties 

Once you have your main components chosen, you can layer on any traditional dishes for whatever holiday or occasion you may be cooking for (e.g., Mid Autumn Festival, Lunar New Year, the Dragon Boat Festival, etc.). 

And happily, these are usually recipes that can come together in advance (e.g., mooncakes, zongzi, nian gao, etc.). You can also buy them if you’re simply not up for the extra task. Even better, perhaps one of your guests can bring dessert!  

How to set the table for and serve a Chinese meal 

Chinese food is served family-style. In our view, the only reason for each person to order their own dish at a Chinese restaurant is if everyone is prohibitively picky. And that’s all we’ll say about that!

Generally, you want to have a small rice bowl for rice, and one for soup if necessary. Small plates or large dinner plates can go alongside, along with forks or chopsticks, depending on everyone’s chopstick skills! 

If you’re including a hot pot of tea with dinner, you can have Chinese-style tea cups. But at larger gatherings, we  usually end up with a motley assortment of water glasses, wine glasses and mugs of tea anyways, so we generally don’t get too fussed over what people are drinking out of. 

It’s a good idea to have serving spoons or sharing chopsticks—gòng kuàizi 共筷子. At a dinner with close family, everyone often just reaches in with their chopsticks. To avoid food spoilage (leftovers and all that), however, it’s best to avoid.

Generally all foods should be easy to pick up with chopsticks. Large poultry or cuts of meat are served pre-cut into pieces or with a knife. (As in the rare case of a Chinese Tipang Pork Shank or Lion’s Head Meatballs.)

Chinese food & drink pairings 

As for what to drink, it’s really up to you, but if you’d like our two cents, here it is: 

For tea, you can’t go wrong with a Chinese red tea (what we know as black tea in the West), a green tea like longjing, or an oolong like tieguanyin. 

Jasmine tea may sound like the obvious candidate, but can be slightly too fragrant in some of our opinions. Chrysanthemum tea can be an unexpectedly refreshing and healthful way to cut through heavy and rich foods. 

For alcohol, dry white wines like Riseling, Sauvignon Blanc, or Chenin Blanc are usually a good choice for Chinese food, where meat and seafood are often present together. A sparkling wine can be a refreshing accompaniment too!

If beer is more your speed, light, crisp lagers, whether they be German, Japanese, or American, reign supreme in Chinese restaurants because they go well with the food (see Tsingtao, Budweiser, Sapporo, etc.). Our great grandma on Judy’s side always had a Budweiser with her Chinese New Year meal. 

If you enjoy cocktails or mocktails, something light and refreshing is ideal. You can opt for unique Chinese fruit flavors like lychee, hawthorn berries, Asian pear, or even pomelo in an twist from traditional grapefruit. Something like lemonade or lightly sweetened iced tea for little ones is usually a hit with our family!

We hope you found this post on how to make a Chinese meal helpful. We’ll be back on this topic with a post about sequencing the actual cooking process, so that everything arrives to the table hot! 

Still have lingering questions? Let us know in the comments!