There are many styles of cooking in China, but Chinese chefs have identified eight culinary traditions as the best. These have set the course of how Chinese cook food and are looked to as models. Each of these schools has a distinct style and different strengths.
1.Guangdong/Cantonese Cuisine 粤菜 Yuècài
Cantonese or Yue cuisine originates from Guangdong Province (SE China around Hong Kong), and it is the most widely served style of Chinese cuisine in the world. This is because most of the Chinese who immigrated and set up restaurants overseas were from Guangdong. Though what’s served abroad now has departed from authentic Yue cuisine.
What distinguishes Cantonese food is lightly cooked fresh vegetables and meat, and sweet sauces.
- Names: Cantonese food, Guangdong cuisine, Yue cuisine (粤菜 Yuècài /ywair-tseye/)
- Location: Southeast China — Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Macau…
- Distinctives: sweeter, favoring braising and stewing, adding various sauces
Cantonese Cuisine Flavors — Mild, Fresh, Natural, and Slightly Sweet

A wide variety of foodstuffs are used to make Cantonese dishes. Therefore, it surprises foreigners sometimes. The saying “They eat everything with four legs except tables and everything that flies except airplanes” is an exaggeration. But dishes might contain snakes, cats, dogs and sea life not familiar to most foreigners. Keep that in mind when you are ordering something off the menu with strange Cantonese names.
An authentic Cantonese chef’s goal is to preserve the food’s original flavor.Unlike other Chinese styles of cooking such as Sichuan style where the cook buries the food in a lot of spices and oil, a Cantonese chef aims to bring out or highlight the original flavor of the vegetable, meat, or fruit. So little spice or sugar is generally used.
The result: The result of this cooking technique is to produce food that might seem bland or insipid to foreigners who are used to the overseas style of Chinese food where a lot more sugar and spice is used. It takes some time to appreciate the mild and distinct flavors of the meat, vegetables, and fruit.

Not fattening: Unlike overseas Chinese food and some regional styles, a lot of oil or grease isn’t used either. Neither are dairy products. So unlike creamy cheese wontons or a sweet and sour pork on rice meal deal at a Chinese fast food restaurant overseas, there are not a lot of calories in the dishes. This combined with the white rice or rice noodles that is the staple and the dim sum made with little or no sugar may leave a foreigner feeling hungry.
On the other hand, it makes for fine well-balanced meals for dieters. If you are not dieting and still hungry, the solution is simply to eat more or order ice cream for desert if it is available.
Seasonings Used in Cantonese Cuisine
Spices used: Chives, coriander leaves, anise, touches of black pepper, and slivers of ginger provide a mild tanginess that accentuates the flavor of the food. But unless the food in itself smells or tastes bad alone, just a little of these spices are used.
Condiments and Other Seasonings
Spices used: Chives, coriander leaves, anise, touches of black pepper, and slivers of ginger provide a mild tanginess that accentuates the flavor of the food. But unless the food in itself smells or tastes bad alone, just a little of these spices are used.

Rice vinegar accentuates the flavor of vegetables, and a little salt also does. A pinch of sugar gives food a mildly sweet taste that is characteristic of many Cantonese dishes and snacks. A little sesame oil adds a mild tanginess too.
But if the food is delicious as it is, almost no seasoning is added. An example is fresh sea fish. It isn’t served raw like Japanese sashimi, but to preserve and accentuate the delicious flavor, the Cantonese steam it and add just a little soy sauce, ginger or perhaps bits of chives. Like the Japanese, Cantonese delight in the natural flavors of fresh sea fish.
Several sauces are important condiments in Guangdong cuisine. The most widely used sauces include hoisin sauce, oyster sauce, plum sauce, sweet and sour sauce, and soy sauce.
Cooking Methods
Stir frying and steaming are the two most common cooking methods. But stir fried dishes are not as common as in Sichuan. Cantonese like to boil soups, braise or roast meats, and sauté food too. These cooking methods are aimed to preserve the flavor of the dishes. There are also popular deep fried foods that are often eaten as snacks, deserts, or breakfast foods. See below for examples.
Common Cantonese Dishes
These dishes are often simple and easy to learn to cook, and they are widely served in Cantonese homes. They are also the most common foods on the menus of Cantonese restaurants (see below for a menu).
Chinese Steamed Eggs are made by beating eggs to a creamy consistency and then steaming. Variations are derived by adding different ingredients such as spring onion and soy sauce.
Deep Fried Dishes

Although deep fried dishes are not the main stream of Guangdong dishes, there are quite a number of them which are popular around the region.
A youtiao (油条 /yoh-tyaow/ ‘oil strip’) is a long, golden-brown deep-fried strip of dough. Youtiaos are usually eaten for breakfast with soy milk.
Zhaliang (/jaa-lyaang/ ‘fried two’) is made by tightly wrapping a rice sheet around a youtiao (deep-fried dough stick). Zhaliang is widely eaten in Guangdong and Hong Kong. It is usually eaten with soy milk.
Noodle Dishes
Shahe noodles (shahefen /shaa-her-fnn/) are a kind of rice noodles which probably originated from the town of Shahe that is now a part of Guangzhou. They are broad and white in color. Their texture is elastic and a little chewy. They do not freeze or dry well and are thus generally (where available) purchased fresh in strips or sheets that may be cut to the desired width. Shahefen is popular in Guangdong, Guangxi and Hainan in southern China.
Meat Dishes

The famous white cut chicken served by Panxi Restaurant in Guangzhou is believed to be the most delicious. The restaurant has received the Golden Tripod of High Quality Production from the Department of Commerce for its Baiqie Chicken. See below for address.
2. Sichuan Cuisine 川菜 Chuāncài
Chuan Cuisine, originating from Sichuan Province in southwestern China, is the most widely served cuisine in China. The dishes of Chuan Cuisine are famous for their hot-spicy taste and the flavor of Sichuan pepper that are rare in other regional cuisines.
Flavors of Chuan Cuisine — hot and spicy
A variety of seasonings are used in Chuan Cuisine, and each dish can be cooked differently. Therefore Chuan Cuisine enjoys a reputation for variety. As the saying goes it’s ‘one dish with one flavor and one hundred dishes with one hundred flavors’.
The most common flavors of Chuan Cuisine are hot and spicy, “the five fragrances” (Fennel, pepper, aniseed, cinnamon, and clove), other mixed spices, chili and Sichuan pepper (made with prickly ash), and sweet and sour.
Seasonings of Chuan Cuisine

Some of the most common seasonings that contribute to the hot and spicy flavor include Sichuan pepper, black pepper, chili, broad bean chili paste, shallots, ginger, and garlic.
The ingredients used range widely, including poultry, pork, beef, fish, vegetables, and tofu.
Cooking Methods
The methods of cooking Chuan Cuisine vary according to the texture required, including stir frying, steaming and braising, baking, and the most widely used method — fast-frying. Chuan Cuisine has good combinations of flavors and often has thick gravy.
The Most Famous Sichuan Dishes

Chuan Cuisine mainly features pungent, hot, and fragrant home-grown dishes. The most typical Chuan dishes are mapo tofu, kungpao chicken, fuqi fei pian, and hotpot.
‘Pockmarked Granny’ Bean Curd (Mapo Tofu)
Mapo (/maa-por/) tofu is bean curd served in a chili-and-bean-based sauce, which is usually a thin, oily, and bright red suspension, and often topped with minced meat, usually pork or beef. Seasonings include water chestnuts, onions, other vegetables, or wood ear fungus. The taste of mapo tofu is fittingly described as numbing, spicy-hot, fresh, tender and soft, aromatic and flaky. Mapo tofu is easy to find outside of China. Learn how to cook Mapo Bean Curd.
Spicy Diced Chicken (Kung Pao Chicken)

Kung Pao chicken is from the Wade-Giles Romanization, but the Chinese name is ‘Palace Defender chicken cubes’ (宫保鸡丁 Gōng Bǎo jīdīng /gong-baow jee-ding/).
It is cooked by frying diced chicken, dry red pepper and golden peanuts. Spicy diced chicken is more popular among Westerners than mapo tofu, and is usually less spicy, or not at all spicy, when served abroad, or far from Sichuan. Learn how to cook Kung Pao Chicken.
Fuqi Fei Pian (‘Husband and Wife Lung Slices’)
Fuqi Fei Pian is made of thinly sliced beef, or bovine lung or tongue seasoned with chili oil. There is a romantic story of the origin of this famous Sichuan dish. Guo Zhaohua (the inventor) and his wife sold their vinegar-ized beef slices by trundling a small cart along the street. Their beef slices were very delicious, and no one could resist the charming smell in that street. People liked the food made by this couple very much, so they gave it the name Husband and Wife Lung Slices in honor of the couple.
Sichuan Hot Pot
Sichuan Hot Pot, like most of the cuisine in that humid and populous province, is very spicy. The broth is flavored with chili peppers and other pungent herbs and spices. The main ingredients include hot pepper, Chinese crystal sugar and wine. Slices of kidney, chicken breast, beef tripe, goose intestines, spring onion, soy bean sprouts, mushrooms, duck, and sea cucumber are the usual meats used in the dish. Learn more about Hot Pot.
3. Jiangsu Cuisine 苏菜 Sūcài
Jiangsu cuisine is one of the lesser known of the Eight Great Cuisines of China among foreigners. Jiangsu Province has the highest per capita income. Probably for this reason, the food is more gourmet style. It is very refined and presented colorfully and artistically.
- Names: Jiangsu food, Su cuisine (苏菜 Sūcài /soo-tseye/)
- Location: Jiangsu Province (coastal east China) — Nanjing, Suzhou
- Distinctives: seafood; richly aromatic with fine presentation
Flavors — Marine, Moderate, and Natural
A wide variety of seafoods are eaten. Unlike most Western seafood restaurants where the main dishes include a few varieties of fish and oysters, Jiangsu people eat many things most people have never seen. The wide range of sea vegetable dishes is something healthful to explore.
Their chefs emphasize bringing out the distinct natural flavors in the rich range of meat and plant ingredients in their dishes. So they don’t add much salt, sugar or seasonings like chili powder that hide and overwhelm the ingredients’ flavors. So their meals are richly aromatic.
Ingredients of Jiangsu Cuisine
Seafood: Since Jiangsu is on the coast, the fresh seafood is the highlight. The high income means the people demand high quality ingredients, and the chefs are known for selecting the best seafood for their dishes.
Staples: Both rice and wheat products are the staples. Jiangsu people also grow various root crops for staple foods. A favorite dish and a popular snack is sweet taro filled rice balls or rice cakes.
Herbs and vegetables: The province is also known for its wide diversity of agricultural products. There are a lot of lakes and ponds in the region, so much watershield, lotus, Chinese chestnuts, winter bamboo shoots, water bamboo, and water chestnuts are eaten. Jiangsu’s comparatively wealthy people are also particular about choosing vegetable/herb combination dishes for their health effects.
Jiangsu chefs pay attention to both the season and the weather, and according to their understanding, they use different foods to achieve balance and promote health and comfort. For example, ginseng is thought to be good for consumption in cold weather, and by most elderly people.
For Chinese, food is medicine. You could talk with your guide, waiters, or local Chinese friends about your health or how you feel physically, and they’ll help select the right dishes for you. Yancheng City in particular is known for medicinal dishes. Learn more about Chinese Medicinal Food.
Cooking Methods and Styles
Reflecting the wealthy and imperial origins of the style, their chefs use very elaborate and precise cooking methods and presentation. Their cooking methods are more complex than stir-frying. They commonly stew, braise, simmer, and warm to preserve the original flavors and to maintain clarity, freshness, and mildness.
Six Main Regional Styles
Su Cuisine is composed of six styles: those of Huaiyang, Nanjing, Yangzhou, Suzhou, and the less notable styles of Xuzhou and Haizhou.
Chinese chefs think that the Huaiyang (Huai’an) style is one of the four best in China, and it is frequently served at government banquets. It is considered to be one of the four most influential regional cuisine styles (四大菜系 ‘Four Great Cuisines’). Their forté is aroma and a high degree of visual artistry. Expect food set down in a rainbow of colors at a gourmet restaurant.
Nanjing style is famous for its fine cutting and preparation techniques. The dishes are not only fine-tasting, but also very good-looking. It features freshness, fragrance, crispness and tenderness. Like the rest of Jiangsu styles, the dishes tend to be mildly sweet in taste. The excel at seasonal vegetables, freshwater fish and seafood.
Yangzhou style is renowned for fine cutting techniques, perfect timing, fresh color and original design. The Yangzhou fried rice is a favorite dish. It is much more complex in terms of ingredients and probably more nutritious than fried rice in the West.
4. Zhejiang Cuisine 浙菜 Zhècài
Zhejiang Cuisine originates from the populous and rich eastern province of Zhejiang on the Pacific. If you don’t like spicy cuisine, but prefer fish and seafood, then this is the food style for you.
Hangzhou, its capital, was the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty, and the city was renowned for their wealth and sophistication. Maybe this is why the food isunusually dainty and refined.
- Names: Zhejiang food, Zhe cuisine (浙菜 Zhècài /jer-tseye/)
- Location: East China, Zhejiang Province — Hangzhou
- Distinctives: mellow flavors, seafood, artistry, many cooking methods
Main Features — Seafood, Refined Artistry, Freshness…
The great seafood dishes are the main draw of this style of food. But most tourists will find the artistic refinement of the cuisine attractive too.
A wide variety of seafoods are used to make Zhejiang dishes. Unlike most Western seafood restaurants where the main dishes include a few varieties of fish and oysters, the people of Zhejiang can eat all these and things from the sea most people have never seen such as sea cucumbers and varieties of sea vegetables that you can explore.
Zhejiang is the richest province in China, and it was called the “land of milk and honey”, so the people expect some extra refined touch to their food. It isn’t greasy, not mouth numbing, not too sour, not too sweet, but not bland either.
However, they focus less on colorful dishes and artistry than the Fujianese do and focus more on serving fresh food. The food is often served raw or almost raw and is fresh and crispy and seasonal. It is more like Japanese food in this way.
The Three Styles of Zhejiang Cuisine
- Hangzhou style is the most refined. They prefer stir-fried dishes, soups and seafood and are said to include bamboo shoots in half of their dishes.
- Shaoxing is inland, and poultry and freshwater fish is the common fare.
- Ningbo is noted for salty seafood and sweet confectioneries.
Sweet Desserts
Wealthy people often prefer sweet deserts, and the province is traditionally noted for sweet confections made from sugar, beans, rice, and wheat. For those in Hangzhou on the Yangtze River, northern wheat was readily available for making confections.
Sweet Ningbo rice balls (宁波年糕) and rice cakes are an example of local sweet foods. Glutinous rice and sugar gives a sweet taste that is often eaten for celebrations, festivals, and snacks. The rice balls may have a black sesame or red bean filling mixed with sugar, and flavorings might include cassia (cinnamon tree) flowers.
Many Cooking Methods — Sautéing, Braising, Stewing…
Zhejiang chefs have developed numerous ways to cook and prepare food. Perhaps this has something to do with their location next to Fujian, that also traditionally used diverse cooking methods, the influence of Shanghai’s cosmopolitan culture, and influences from abroad.
Soaking in Brine
This style of “cooking” is unusual. But it is common in Ningbo where salty food is popular. It is similar to pickling. Meat is simply left to soak in brine and eaten.
An example is the popular Ningbo salty crab dish prepared by soaking crabs in very salty brine for about 24 hours so that the brine impregnates the crab meat. They prefer female crabs with an orange roe (crab eggs), so when it is served, the roe on the meat looks like an orange sauce.
5. Fujian/Min Cuisine 闽菜 Mǐncài
Fujian Cuisine originates from the southeastern province of Fujian on the Pacific. The history of the cuisine dates back 5,000 years. Great seafood soups and the precise use of scintillating, but not tongue numbing, spices are the highlights.
- Names: Fujian food, Min cuisine (闽菜 Mǐncài /min-tseye/)
- Location: Southeast China, Fujian Province, Xiamen, Quanzhou
- Distinctives: lighter, with a sweet and sour taste, using ingredients from the sea and the mountains.
The Three Styles of Fujian Cuisine
There are three regional styles: Fuzhou style that is light fare compared with other styles and is often sweet and sour to the taste; western Fujian style that features a slightly spicy flavoring from mustard and pepper; and southern Fujian style that usually tastes spicy and sweet.
The Four Notable Features — Unusual Ingredients, Soups, Decoration, Seasonings
Their cuisine is known for the use of exotic delicacies from the mountains and sea as the main ingredients, an emphasis on soup eating, precisely applying various kinds of seasonings, and an emphasis on artistically cutting and decorating food.
Fujian’s abundant natural resources mean that their cuisine is rich in quality nutritious ingredients. They’ll use somewhatexotic ingredients such as wild foods, wild herbs, varieties of mushrooms, bamboo, and many kinds of seafoods. So it is nutritious, and it is good for dieters since it isn’t high calorie.
Flavors of Fujian Cuisine — Sweet and Sour, Many Flavors of the Sea
A wide variety of seafoods are used to make Fujian dishes. Unlike most Western seafood restaurants where the main dishes include a few varieties of fish and oysters, the people of Fujian eat all these and things from the sea most people have never seen. There are various kinds of mussels including big ones, sea cucumbers, sea worms, kinds of snails and slugs, and varieties of sea vegetables that you can explore.
Condiments and Seasonings
Spices used: The Fujianese are distinguished for applying a wide variety of herbs and seasonings to flavor the food. They apply them to make the food taste good and make it aromatic. They also want to make it different and interesting, something new. When applied artistically, the various colors and herbs can also make a beautiful presentation.
- Salty seasonings: sea salt, shrimp sauce, shrimp oil, and soy sauce.
- Sour seasonings: white vinegar and qiaotou (a vegetable similar to green onion.
- Sweet seasonings: brown sugar, anise, and cassia cinnamon.
- Hot seasonings: pepper, mustard, and shacha sauce.
Their Favorite Cooking Methods
Their chefs have developed numerous ways to cook food perhaps reflecting the history of the province. The region was a haven for refugees from the large Western Xia Empire and the Tang Empire. They brought with them their cooking styles. The position on the coast meant they had contact with Japanese and people from Southeast Asia too.
They use numerous methods to cook: pan-frying, deep-frying, boiling, baking, stewing, mixing, sautéing with wine, stewing in gravy, grilling, cooking with red rice wine, simmering, stir-frying, smoking, braising and salting.
Red rice wine: Their most peculiar method of cooking is cooking with red rice wine. This includes stir-frying with red rice wine, baking with red rice wine, quick-frying with red rice wine and deep-frying with red rice wine. The “drunken” (cooked in wine) dishes that are prevalent in Fujian Province are famous throughout China.
Soup making: The people of Fujian love soup more than most of the rest of the Chinese. A common saying about their food is “不汤不行” (bù tāng bù xíng). It literally means: “No soup is not OK.” Or, a meal without soup isn’t a good meal. Soup will often mean the main beverage or only beverage at a meal.
Their Daily Staple Food
Daily staples: The area is in the subtropical rice growing area of China, so white rice is the main staple cereal. They also eat red yeast rice that is a type of rice that is coated with a red mold. This mold is slightly sweet, and it is thought of as having medicinal effects.
6. Hunan Cuisine 湘菜 Xiāngcài
Most tourists who visit China get to know the spicy red hot flavors of Sichuan cuisine since it is a tourist favorite. But in Hunan Province, the food is maybe even hotter. Their food tastes less numbing and sourer.
- Names: Hunan food, Xiang cuisine (湘菜 Xiāngcài /sshyang-tseye/)
- Location: Hunan Province (southern central China) — Changsha, Zhangjiajie
- Distinctives: spicy, favoring sautéing, stir-frying, steaming, and smoking
The Flavors of Hunan Cuisine — Hot and Sour, and Salty
Eating Hunan food is fun. You’ll have a chance at trying your tongue on a new kind of cuisine. If you’ve experienced the burning numbness of Sichuan or Chongqing food, see how your body reacts to the vinegar/chili mix of Hunan food.
The many different tastes of the food partly stems from an unusually wide variety of agricultural products. Several kinds of chili peppers are grown. Citrus fruits are one of the major crops, and it lends the yummy sour flavor to dishes such as the popular Hunan Orange Chicken.
‘Chopped chili’ (剁辣椒 duò làjiāo /dwor laa-jyaow/) is made from vinegar, chili peppers, and salt. It is liberally applied in noodle soups and meat dishes to produce the sour, hot flavor they love.
Stimulate Your Appetite the Chinese Way
Hunan food is actually hotter than Sichuan food. The Sichuanese use pepper corn that numbs your mouth so the food all starts tasting the same. Instead, the Hunanese use vinegar with the pepper. It serves to stimulate the taste buds and make them tingle, so you can better perceive the wide range of flavors and the rich variety of ingredients and spices.
The numbing Sichuan food might give you a higher blood pressure/pulse rate so that you’ll need to drink something cold or go out for a walk to cool down. Hunan food does the opposite. Vinegar lowers blood pressure and cholesterol levels too. So it isgood for those with high blood pressure.
Why Such Hot (and Sour) Food?
Common saying: 四川人不怕辣,湖南人辣不怕,贵州人怕不辣! (Sìchuānrén búpà là, Húnánrén là búpà, Guìzhōurén pà búlà!) It means: “Sichuan people don’t fear hot food, Hunan people don’t fear any degree of spiciness at all, and Guizhou people fear to eat food that isn’t spicy.”
Perhaps the wet hot summers and chilly wet winters drive the people to eat sour hot foods. The Chinese think that extra heat (yang) of peppers and other hot spices balances out the excessive cold and wet (yin).
Vinegar also packs yang, and along with helping with digestion, you’ll find that it helps cool your body on hot days. In traditional Chinese medicine, vinegar is used to help people be more comfortable in the heat of summer and stay healthy. It also kills parasites and bacteria that grow in hot weather.
Notable Features — Many Vegetables, Hot Seasonings, and Rice
Crunchy vegetables: Eating a wide variety of vegetables keeps them healthy as does their cooking method. They generally like to sauté with a little oil so it is still crunchy “al dente.” It preserves vitamins in food this way.
- Refreshing summertime vegetable: ‘Slapped cucumber’ (拍黄瓜 pai huanggua) is an appetizer of cold cucumbers served in garlic, dried chili flakes, and vinegar. To prepare it, cucumbers are ‘slapped’ down to absorb the vinegar dressing.
Daily staple: The area is in the subtropical rice growing area of China, so white rice and rice noodles are the the main staple cereal foods. For example, mi fen (长沙米粉 mǐfěn) rice noodle soup is popular in Changsha.
Seasonings of Xiang Cuisine
Yang sources: They use hot peppers and green onions, shallots, garlic, ginger, spicy oil, duo la jiao and cassia cinnamon to provide the needed daily yang. Soy sauce and tea seed oil are also used in cooking.
Sweet foods: Honey is enjoyed in some dishes, and sugar is used in some dishes and candy. They like sweet food, but not as much as the Cantonese further south. Lotus seed candy is a local product.
Their Favorite Cooking Methods
Their cuisine is thought of as the melting pot of the larger regional cuisines around them. Their cooks use various ways to prepare food. They commonly boil soups or stews, stir-fry, sauté (炒香), bake, braise, smoke, pickle or ferment.
Fermentation: To store vegetables and meat for the winter or preserve it through the hot summers, Hunanese have traditionally eaten much pickled and fermented food. They pickle tofu by letting it sit for few weeks. It is then mixed with liquor, salt, star anise, and chili and fermented in pickling jars for a month or more.
7. Anhui Cuisine 徽菜 Huīcài
Shandong Province has a long coast, so fresh river fish and seafood were always the local delicacies.
Shandong was one of the first civilized regions in China and an early cultural center, so its cooking tradition set the style for the regions around it, especially to the north in Beijing and northeastern China. Now Shandong cuisine is relished for the many kinds of different seafood and vegetable dishes and their style of frying in high heat that locks in the flavors and isn’t oily.
- Names: Shandong food, Lu cuisine (鲁菜 /loo-tseye/)
- Location: northern east-coast China — Qingdao, Jinan, Qufu, Mount Tai
- Distinctives: salty and crispy, favoring braising and seafood.
Flavors of Shandong Cuisine — Fishy, Salty, Tender, Light and Crispy
A wide variety of seafood are used to make Shandong dishes, and the people also like to eat pork. An ancient medical/science text describes the people in the area as relishing both fish and salt, and the people still do.
Seasonings Used in Lu Cuisine

Spices used: Shandong people like spices in the onion family such as green onions and garlic. They include onions in many dishes. Ginger is also commonly used along with a little red pepper. But spice is less heavily applied than in Sichuan cuisine. It is meant to accentuate the flavor of the food.
Condiments and Other Seasonings
Vinegar is heavily used and so is lots of salt. The province is known for its fine dark connoisseur kinds of vinegar that some people drink as a medicinal drink. Soy sauce is also used.
Their Favorite Cooking Methods
The Shandong chef’s goal: Unlike other Chinese styles such as Sichuan style where the cook buries the food in a lot of spices and oil, the main aim of an authentic Shandong style chef is to preserve the cut, color, and taste of the main ingredients. So relatively little spice or sugar is used generally and the bao stir fry method is used often.
Extreme heat stir frying — “bao”: Their chefs love to cook meat and vegetables in a wok over a big hot flame. They make the oil boil at an extremely high temperature and toss in the ingredients for a quick fry. This singes the outer layer and locks in the flavor. It also keeps oil from seeping into the food. They usually pour out the oil after the main ingredients are cooked, and then they will add spices, herbs, and seasonings, stir it quickly, and serve it hot. There is little residual oil on the food. This cooking method is called “bao.”
Sometimes though, the oil will be part of the sauce that the food is served in. They may add flour, herbs and seasonings to the oil to make a tasty sauce.
Fried dough coating method — “pa”: Another method of frying is to apply flour to a cut of meat and then stir fry it to make it crispy. Then they add a sauce to sauté it while stirring continuously.
Soup making: Clear broth and white varieties of soups are also popular. The white variety may contain milk or cream. The tradition of making soups stems from the western side of Shandong.
Healthy food: Since the main aim is to preserve the cut, color, and taste, the style of cooking preserves the nutritive value of the food. So the cuisine is generally healthy providing you eat wisely and don’t overindulge in any particular food such as pork dishes or lobster.
Daily Staples and Common Vegetables

Daily staples: The area lies along the border between the temperate north and the semitropical south, so both wheat and other temperate grains and riceare available and are daily cereals. Wheat noodles, steamed wheat bread and steamed pastries are commonly eaten and is the staple in many meals. Porridge made from oats, millet, and/or barley are also eaten. White rice is regularly eaten, and corn on the cob or fried corn is common. Their meals are sort of a combination between hearty and heavier northern Chinese regional food and light southern Chinese regional food.
Common vegetables: Peanuts are eaten often. Soybean products are common. Commonly eaten vegetables include tomatoes, potatoes, mushrooms, onions, eggplant, seaweed, and especially cabbage.
8. Shandong Cuisine 鲁菜 Lǔcài
Shandong Province has a long coast, so fresh river fish and seafood were always the local delicacies.
Shandong was one of the first civilized regions in China and an early cultural center, so its cooking tradition set the style for the regions around it, especially to the north in Beijing and northeastern China. Now Shandong cuisine is relished for the many kinds of different seafood and vegetable dishes and their style of frying in high heat that locks in the flavors and isn’t oily.
- Names: Shandong food, Lu cuisine (鲁菜 /loo-tseye/)
- Location: northern east-coast China — Qingdao, Jinan, Qufu, Mount Tai
- Distinctives: salty and crispy, favoring braising and seafood.
Flavors of Shandong Cuisine — Fishy, Salty, Tender, Light and Crispy
A wide variety of seafood are used to make Shandong dishes, and the people also like to eat pork. An ancient medical/science text describes the people in the area as relishing both fish and salt, and the people still do.
Seasonings Used in Lu Cuisine
Spices used: Shandong people like spices in the onion family such as green onions and garlic. They include onions in many dishes. Ginger is also commonly used along with a little red pepper. But spice is less heavily applied than in Sichuan cuisine. It is meant to accentuate the flavor of the food.
Condiments and Other Seasonings
Vinegar is heavily used and so is lots of salt. The province is known for its fine dark connoisseur kinds of vinegar that some people drink as a medicinal drink. Soy sauce is also used.
Their Favorite Cooking Methods
The Shandong chef’s goal: Unlike other Chinese styles such as Sichuan style where the cook buries the food in a lot of spices and oil, the main aim of an authentic Shandong style chef is to preserve the cut, color, and taste of the main ingredients. So relatively little spice or sugar is used generally and the bao stir fry method is used often.
Extreme heat stir frying — “bao”: Their chefs love to cook meat and vegetables in a wok over a big hot flame. They make the oil boil at an extremely high temperature and toss in the ingredients for a quick fry. This singes the outer layer and locks in the flavor. It also keeps oil from seeping into the food. They usually pour out the oil after the main ingredients are cooked, and then they will add spices, herbs, and seasonings, stir it quickly, and serve it hot. There is little residual oil on the food. This cooking method is called “bao.”
Sometimes though, the oil will be part of the sauce that the food is served in. They may add flour, herbs and seasonings to the oil to make a tasty sauce.
Fried dough coating method — “pa”: Another method of frying is to apply flour to a cut of meat and then stir fry it to make it crispy. Then they add a sauce to sauté it while stirring continuously.
Soup making: Clear broth and white varieties of soups are also popular. The white variety may contain milk or cream. The tradition of making soups stems from the western side of Shandong.
Healthy food: Since the main aim is to preserve the cut, color, and taste, the style of cooking preserves the nutritive value of the food. So the cuisine is generally healthy providing you eat wisely and don’t overindulge in any particular food such as pork dishes or lobster.
Daily Staples and Common Vegetables

Daily staples: The area lies along the border between the temperate north and the semitropical south, so both wheat and other temperate grains and riceare available and are daily cereals. Wheat noodles, steamed wheat bread and steamed pastries are commonly eaten and is the staple in many meals. Porridge made from oats, millet, and/or barley are also eaten. White rice is regularly eaten, and corn on the cob or fried corn is common. Their meals are sort of a combination between hearty and heavier northern Chinese regional food and light southern Chinese regional food.
Common vegetables: Peanuts are eaten often. Soybean products are common. Commonly eaten vegetables include tomatoes, potatoes, mushrooms, onions, eggplant, seaweed, and especially cabbage.