21 Chinese Pork Recipes That Are Packed With Flavor

Pork is a culinary staple around the world, but is especially important in Chinese cooking. A versatile ingredient that lends itself to a number of dishes and cooking methods, pork boasts a richness that works well with warm spices as well as pungent ingredients like garlic and ginger, both of which feature often in Chinese recipes. You'll find pork in a number of dishes from dumplings to stir-fry, but this roasted pork is particularly beloved. It can be found at many Cantonese restaurants, typically hung on hooks in front of a display window, glossy red on the outside and juicy on the inside. As for the flavor, it can lean either more sweet or savory. We prefer a slightly sweeter char siu with a twist: the addition of peanut butter lends a subtle nutty flavor that makes the meat even more delicious. Serve it over white rice with a Chinese green vegetable, such as bok choy, and a light drizzle of soy sauce. Any leftovers are great tossed fried rice, noodle soups or vegetable side dishes, too.

Family recipes always come with the best cooking tips and Molly’s Grandma’s Tepong Pork is no exception. Molly sears the pork shoulder fat-side down first — so that the rendered fat in the pan helps to flavor the rest of the roast when she flips it over.

Jet says, “Sweet and Sour actually has roots from Western China and isn’t just a Chinese American Classic. The pineapples were added here, but the spirit of sour and sweet is a classic Asian combination. And did you know that ketchup also has roots from Asia, formerly known as ke-chap, a fermented fish sauce? I’ve found the balance in my version using Worcestershire sauce.”

Molly uses a blend of Chinese pantry and refrigerator staples to give these sweet-and-savory pork buns their flavor: soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic and ginger — to name a few. The perfect finishing touch? A sweet topping that is piped on before the buns go into the oven.

This is a variation on Tepong pork. If you can get your hands on traditional Chinese ingredients, this recipe more closely recreates what you will find in Shanghai, where locals prefer this dish on the sweeter side.

This spicy, aromatic Sichuan dish is recognizable from the citrus aroma of Sichuan peppercorns and the spicy fermented flavor of hot bean sauce.

No dim sum table is complete without siu mai (open-faced dumplings with a thin wonton wrapper and savory "bouncy" filling) and every restaurant’s recipe is slightly different. We’ve created a pork and shrimp version for a delicious “surf and turf” combo. The baking soda marinade for the pork and shrimp helps develop the optimal texture of the filling, as does the process of tossing the filling against the bottom of the bowl. Hand-chopping the pork belly also adds to the unique texture, but ground pork could be substituted in a pinch.

Congee, or jook in Cantonese, is a nutritious rice porridge that is eaten at dim sum, as a cozy comfort food or a tried-and-true when you’re feeling under the weather. The simplest version of congee is made with just rice, water and salt, so it is easily digestible and a blank slate for any flavor. There are many varieties of congee across Asian cuisines — but this recipe focuses on the popular Cantonese combination of salted pork and century egg.

A signature meat of Cantonese barbecue restaurants, siu yuk is a roast pork belly dish that features a wonderful contrast between crackling-crisp skin and tender, juicy meat. While this dish doesn’t require a lot of ingredients, it does involve some advance preparation and a few steps to achieve its crowning glory: skin that is perfectly crispy all the way through. We tested a lot of different methods that are popular for cooking the dish at home, but more often than not while the top of the skin would get crunchy, underneath it would remain chewy. We eventually settled on an easy combination of techniques for roasting the pork belly, including keeping the skin very dry and poking it full of tiny holes using a meat tenderizer with sharp needle-like blades. But the final step for getting a consistently beautiful layer of crispy, crumbly skin is finishing the pork skin-side down in a skillet. The result is beautifully burnished chunks of meat with an irresistible combination of flavor and textures.

Molly says, “Xiao long bao, or soup dumplings, are Chinese steamed dumplings that have soup inside of them. They are like magic! I grew up eating these with my family at our favorite dim sum restaurant in Chicago's Chinatown and later learned how to make them by combining my family’s go-to pot sticker recipe with the secret ingredient: soup gelatin, which melts down into soup once the dumplings are cooked.”

These rich and juicy pork ribs are fall-off-the-bone tender after slowly braising in a mixture of soy sauce, star anise, cinnamon and rock sugar. The dish originated in the town of Wuxi (pronounced woo-shee) located outside Shanghai. It’s a popular dish in Shanghai-style restaurants but quite easy to make at home with just a bit more than an hour of braising time needed for irresistible results. The ribs with their thick, sweet-salty sauce pair well with a bowl of rice and a vegetable side. Wuxi spareribs are traditionally sweetened with rock sugar, but brown sugar is a good substitute if you can’t find it.

This hearty tender pork belly in a rich, savory sauce is made entirely in a rice cooker with flavors inspired by the Chinese classic, steamed pork belly with preserved mustard greens (mui choy kau yuk in Cantonese; mei cai kou rou in Mandarin). This celebratory dish is often served on special occasions, like Chinese New Year, with rice on the side. Here, we’ve streamlined the process, cooking the pork and mui choy (preserved mustard greens) all together with jasmine rice.

An important part of a char siu bao is getting the ratio of bun to filling just right. When rolling out the dough for the bun, flatten it into a pancake to make it easier to portion the pork equally — so that every bun has plenty of flavor.

Wontons have a storied culinary history, tracing their origins back to the Qing dynasty in around 1600 and now popular throughout China, Hong Kong and beyond. Our version, known as laat ziu wan tan in Cantonese, are little gems of juicy pork and shrimp served with a sauce of spicy, flavorful chili oil. This recipe makes a generous batch of about 50 wontons; you can cook them up fresh and also freeze some for future meals if you like.

Long before she became the executive dim sum chef at the Wynn Las Vegas Hotel, Sandy Shi learned techniques from her mother. These chive dumplings, which Sandy makes using homemade wrappers, are one of her go-to recipes.

To achieve the crispiest roast pork, rub a mixture of baking soda, salt and water over the skin of the pork before boiling.

Chow fan, or fried rice, is a dish that originated in Guandong (formerly known as Canton) that made use of day-old white rice. It became wildly popular almost everywhere Cantonese immigrants migrated to, and there are versions of this dish everywhere from Thailand and Pakistan to Nigeria and Peru.

We created an air fryer version of egg rolls that’s crisp, savory and satisfying without all the oil of deep frying. We kept the filling classic with shredded cabbage, carrots and strips of char siu, which you can buy from Cantonese barbecue restaurants if you don't want to make your own. Make a large batch and freeze extras so you can have this Chinese American takeout favorite as an appetizer any time.

These dim sum dumplings may be delicate but they’re packed with flavor, thanks to a variety of ingredients like mushrooms, scallion, ground pork and ginger.

Lotus root is prized for its characteristic texture, which is similar to water chestnuts. Even after stir-frying, deep frying, boiling, braising or steaming, it remains crisp and tender. This traditional dish is made during Chinese New Year — in Cantonese, lotus root (“leen ngau”) is directly translated to “year have,” meaning you should have another year to come — and is a beautiful harmony of crunchy coating, crisp lotus root and savory (and juicy) pork filling.