>> Chinese Daily Food

Chinese Daily Meal

People often ask me what Chinese daily meal looks like and how we eat certain type of food. You may check some of my posts about Chinese breakfast and Chinese homemade soup.

Food Advertisements by

In the West, the reputation for Chinese food appears to be mixed with good and bad. Positive side, it is tasty; negative one, sometimes it can be greasy such for fried stuff, too much salt or sugar, etc.

How about real Chinese food? I mean food Chinese really eat in China? Here is what I summarized four things about Chinese Daily Meal.

Healthy Meal with Fresh Vegetables

We have lots fresh vegetables available from local food market. Unlike supermarket, food from local market is fresh and provided from local farmers every day. The vegetables change with the seasons, so there are plenty choices all year.

In China we use quick/stir frying more than deep fry, so the homemade Chinese meal is not greasy as you may see from the West. (You may check my easy Chinese meat recipes).

Here are the lunch dishes my parents prepared in China, see how many vegetables they have, chinese chive, long beans, silk melon, green chilli and tofu (Xiang Gan).

Chinese share food

In Chinese family’s dining table, you will see all dishes are put on the table for share. Each meal we will have vegetables, protein and carbohydrate.

How many dishes should have? Well, normally, one person one dish. For family of four, they may have three or four dishes on the table.

In this picture we have more than usually we had, because I went back China and my parents just want to feed me more :)

Rice in South and Wheat in North

Chinese daily meal with boiled or steamed plain rice is often seen in south. Wheaten food is more common in north, such as noodles and steamed buns.

For example, these sesame wrapped glutinous rice balls are popular for breakfast in Hunan (south of China).

Chinese Food Sesame Glutinous Rice Balls.

Here is another type of steamed dumplings stuffed with glutinous rice, called Shao Mai (烧卖), seasoned by salt and pepper, some may have cube pork inside as well.

About Meat: Pork

Pork is the most seen in Chinsese daily meal. Beef and lamb are available, but relatively less compared to pork. Perhaps north maybe slightly different, not sure, as I was from the south of China.

Pork dishes are usually made by stir fry pork with one type of vegetable. Meat is cut into thin thread and marinated. My parents also prefer use corn flour to make sure the cooked meat is very tender.

Here are pork dish from my family meal in China, pork fried with Chinese chive.