21 Chinese Chicken Recipes for Cozy Braises and Flavor-Packed Stir-Fries
The beautiful thing about chicken is the many shapes, textures, and tastes it can take on. While pork often gets the spotlight in Chinese cooking, we say chicken is just as much a prized chameleon, and this list of Chinese chicken recipes demonstrates the versatility of this much-loved protein.
You can poach it whole or stir-fry seared slices. You can sprinkle it with chile flakes and grill it on skewers, douse it in ginger and scallion oil, or enshrine it inside a crispy dumpling. Or cook it simply and tuck it onto a pillow of steaming jasmine rice cooked in chicken stock for multiple sources of pure chicken flavor.
You might be tempted to call chicken a blank canvas, but in Chinese cooking it’s all about amplifying its chicken-y essence, taking the silky texture of the meat to the highest possible heights. This collection of 21 chicken recipes features a full range of flavors—with some of our personal favorites from our cookbook, The Woks of Life: Recipes to Know and Love from a Chinese American Family, fellow food friends, and Epicurious contributors.
Photo by Joseph De Leo, Food Styling by Micah Marie Morton1/21Chicken Congee (Gye Joke)
Our list of Chinese chicken recipes begins with this comforting congee. There are a few ways you can make at-home rice porridge more convenient. One of them is throwing everything into a slow cooker so you don’t have to stand at the stove.
Photo by Sarah Leung and Kaitlin Leung2/21Easy Salt-Baked Chicken
A traditional Cantonese salt-baked chicken is a labor of love—and lots and lots of salt. Our version has the traditional flavors of sand ginger and five spice, with the ease of a weeknight roast chicken.
Photo by Betty Liu5/21Bean Sprout Stir-Fry With Chicken and Garlic Chives
Betty Liu’s My Shanghai is a beautiful ode to Shanghainese flavors and the food of China’s Jiangsu province. This simple stir-fry is the stuff of weeknight ease—a full meal with a bowl of rice.
Photo by Joseph De Leo, Prop Styling by Anne Eastman, Food Styling by Lillian Chou7/21Drunken Chicken
Photo by Joseph De Leo, Food Styling by Kaitlin Wayne8/21Peking-Style Chicken
The virtue of this recipe may be that it absolutely knows it will never measure up to a classic Peking duck, but some smart workarounds for crispy and flavorful skin make it a worthy alternative.
Photo by Joseph De Leo, Prop Styling by Anne Eastman, Food Styling by Lillian Chou9/21Big Plate Chicken
A big wok full of spicy chicken stew poured over a bed of flat noodles. What’s not to like? Just give yourself plenty of space to toss the noodles with the sauce!
Photo by Joseph De Leo, Food Styling by Lillian Chou10/21Red-Cooked Chicken With Chestnuts
During the colder months in China, chestnuts start to hit the markets. Roasted chestnuts purchased on the street are thrilling, but they’re also absolutely delicious in this homey braised chicken stew.
Photo by Heami Lee, food styling by Judy Haubert, prop styling by Rebecca Bartoshesky12/21Bo Zai Fan (Chinese Chicken and Mushroom Clay Pot Rice)
A bo zai fan, or Cantonese clay pot rice, builds various flavors in one simple vessel. Here, you have a pot of earthy flavors from chicken, Shiitake mushrooms, and Chinese sausage, with the requisite layer of crispy rice on the bottom. If you don’t have a clay pot, don’t worry. We love using a cast-iron skillet.
Photo by Joseph De Leo, Food Styling by Lillian Chou13/21Concubine's Chicken 贵妃鸡
This dish is spicy and tangy—it’s a little bit like Xinjiang-style big plate chicken, but it’s got a Xi’an Famous Foods spin on it.
Photo by Joseph De Leo, Food Styling by Lillian Chou14/21Pan-Fried Chicken and Cabbage Dumplings
Chicken dumplings can hold their own next to a wide array of pork dumpling recipes. Here’s a version from Nom Wah Tea Parlor, an NYC institution.
Photo by DL Acken15/21Soy Sauce Chicken
Soy sauce chicken is a juicy, savory way to cook a whole bird—we suggest getting a Buddhist-style chicken from your local Chinese market for the best flavor and texture. They are generally a different breed of hen than your regular whole fryer, and allowed to grow more slowly for superior flavor and texture.
Romulo Yanes17/21Steamed Chicken With Xiao Fan's Special Sauce
A sauce of garlic, Thai chiles, cilantro, soy sauce, and rice vinegar is a simple combination that adds a flavor punch to this steamed chicken recipe. You can use a half chicken, but we think this is a fantastic way to liven up a pack of chicken leg quarters, too.
Photo by Alex Lau, Prop Styling by Beatrice Chastka, Food Styling by Lillian Chou20/21Soy-Braised Chicken Wings
These wings are as good a reason as any to go out and buy a bottle of dark soy sauce, without which you simply cannot achieve the same depth of flavor and color. Braising chicken wings also results in an excellent stickiness, as the collagen from the chicken skin gets released into the sauce.
Photo by Sarah Leung and Kaitlin Leung21/21Chicken Curry Puffs
You may not expect puff pastry to show up in a list of Chinese chicken recipes, but it makes for a tasty dim sum item. The secret to these chicken curry puffs is a little more sugar than you’d think. They make for a sweet-savory anytime treat that’s excellent with a cup of tea (or something stronger). Make them with store-bought puff pastry or a homemade rough puff.
