Happy New Year to all of you!
There were a lot of memorable moments in my 2014. I visited Jordan for the first time, had a great trip to Chicago in February, got featured on Buzzfeed for the first time, celebrated my first blogiversary in July, spent some wonderful time in Greece, started my Instagram account, and started a YouTube cooking channel.
Besides these things, I invested a great amount of time in building this blog and spent most of the time outside my day job creating new recipes and shooting pictures. The blog has become one of the most important aspects of my life and has brought me unlimited joy.
Here, I want to thank you all for your support. The blog has become bigger, busier, and better in the past year, because of you!
I wish you all a Happy New Year!
20 Healthy Chinese Recipes You Need to Try Out in 2015
I shared my top 10 recipes of 2014 the other day. Today, I want to share some of my favorite Chinese dishes that you might not have tried or heard of before. The best part, they are super healthy too! If you like to experiment with new ideas and flavors, these are definitely the good choices for you. Here we go:
Appetizer & Snack
A far cry from your typical unhealthy fried chicken, this tender and moist boiled chicken is drizzled with a super hot and numbing savory sauce and accompanied by pungent green onion and citrusy cilantro. And it’s healthy.
Chinese Spinach and Peanut Salad
Blanched spinach and fried peanuts are served in a gingery vinegar dressing. It’s simple, highly nutritious, and easy to cook.
Addictive Kimchi Pork Steamed Bun
The steamed bun is fluffy, springy, and filled with mouthwatering spicy kimchi and moist pork. Learn the trick to creating the BEST filling with only four ingredients!
San Xian Potstickers with Pork, Shrimp and Shiitake Mushrooms
A total classic of a dumpling. This recipe comes with a cooking video and thorough step-by-step pictures to walk you through the cooking process.
Plain as it may look, the potato slivers are crisp and infused with a clean, appetizing, and slightly spicy flavor. It is an easy dish that you can finish in less than 30 minutes.
The pork is slow braised for hours in a savory master sauce to get a moist, melt-in-your-mouth texture, with a rich, tangy flavor. It’s served in a fluffy flatbread with lemony cilantro and crisp peppers and drizzled with a spoonful of velvety gravy.
Soup & Stew
Different from the traditional kimchi soup, this recipe uses ground pork instead of pork slices to create flavorful, juicy, and tender meatballs. The soup is so satisfying that you can serve it by itself for dinner.
Learn the golden ratio of seasonings and all the tricks to creating a hearty and authentic hot and sour soup.
Authentic recipe with tips and a cooking video to teach you how to create a simple, flavorful, and soothing wonton soup.
Main
Braised Coca-Cola Chicken Wings
This dish sounds so American, but in reality it’s a super popular Chinese dish. Who doesn’t like sweet, savory, and moist BBQ style wings?
Great news for vegetarian, this sweet and sour tofu tastes even better than sweet and sour pork!
The prep only requires five minutes, and then you can leave it to braise on it’s own, and the chicken sauce will be ready in 30 minutes. This is what you should do when you feel lazy, instead of ordering the same old mediocre Chinese delivery.
Beef Chow Fun with Chinese Broccoli
I admit this one is a bit tricky to cook, but after you have one bite, you will know the time and energy were totally well spent.
An undiscovered treasure that will get you hooked. The chicken is baked to a beautiful char, then braised in a sweet, savory sauce of peanut, coconut, and peppers.
The best and easiest way to turn the leftover rice and beef into a feast.
Mom’s Best Braised Chicken with Mushrooms
It’s a recipe from the Mom’s Best series, so there’s no doubt. It is the best.
The tender and moist slices of chicken, the slightly charred rice with a tangy flavor of herbs and red curry, and the crispy pepper and cucumber, all coming together on one plate.
Side
Chinese Style Green Vegetables
Believe or not, you can use three ingredients and ten minutes to cook any green vegetable with this method. Well, almost any vegetable!
Classic Tomato and Egg Stir-Fry
Tomato and egg is a no-fail combination. So is this dish.
Green Beans with Spicy Peanut Sauce
A smart way to use peanut butter to create a pungent, flavorful, and authentic taste of China.
MAGGIE! This is an awesome round up. Awesome awesome!! What a way to discover fabulous recipes on your blog to try out!! YES I am putting a bunch of them on my “must make” list!
I love Chinese food, but rarely make it at home! Great post and so informational!!! This Chinese ground chicken bowl is on my to do list, but these all look fantastic! Bright and beautiful pictures!
This year I’m probably going to try out every single one of these recipes. I never make any Chinese food (partly because I’m afraid of failing miserably), but with all these videos and step-by-steps, how could I possibly screw up? So I guess one of my mini-resolutions is to make a lot of Chinese food this year.
There are so many good recipes here Maggie! I just hope I can find the time to try them all!! 🙂
You are an inspiration, Maggie. Like so many others, I rarely cook Chinese food at home but you have motivated me to do so. There are so many easy recipes here too that I can start out with those, lol. Great collection!
Thanks Robyn! I understand it’s difficult to start a whole new genre of cooking and you do need to add quite a few things to you pantry. Take your time and let me know if some of the spices are too difficult to find!
By the way, you can order the dish from my blog if we gonna find time to cook together this year. I have the confidence to get you hooked 😉
Wow! Very yummy Green Beans with Spicy Peanut Sauce. This is my favorite recipe. Thank you for sharing.
Yum! I’ve already spotted a few I want to try. Also your bao zi folding is on point! They are beautiful.
All the dishes look delicious and beautifully presented. I am surely going to try them out one by one. Loved your space Maggie !
What a round up Maggie!! LOVE LOVE LOve it!! Have to try out a few for sure…. 🙂
Wow, I’m so excited to find this blog!! I live in China, and I always tell people back in America that the best Chinese foods are still in China. I’m sure that New York and California have discovered them, too, but in the Midwest, we mostly have fast-food Chinese and, though tasty in a terrible, junk food way, is highly inauthentic. Foods like baozi, baijimo, and the many eggplant dishes have never shown up on any Chinese menus I’ve seen. I’m paleo these days, which means I don’t get to eat out and eat Chinese food anymore, but I find myself bringing aspects of Chinese cooking into my paleo dishes. I’m excited to check out your techniques and maybe make some paleo adjustments!
Hi Julia, thanks so much for taking time and leave all the kind words! Yes I totally share the same feeling. I had some authentic Chinese food at big cities in the US, but in most of the area, the popular or well-known Chinese food is not the same thing we eat in China.
It’s a bit difficult to keep a paleo diet in China, but not impossible. For me, I don’t really order rice or staple in most of the restaurant. I really enjoy eating a lot of dishes, including stir fried dishes by itself, without rice (you might need to adjust the amount of the salt if cooking at home). Yes they contain cornstarch, but I don’t think a tiny amount is a big problem. Where do you live now? I think Beijing and Shanghai have tons of options for a paleo diet.
I’m really glad to hear you like my recipes! I hope they will be helpful 🙂 Have a great week!
Love your blog
I absolutely love the look of the the egg stirfry recipe. I absolutely love Chinese food and I would love to have some this weekend. I think that I should order some online so my whole family can enjoy it on Friday night.
Chinese food is my Favorite food. Thanks for sharing such informational post.
Great post.