37 Easy Cantonese recipes (Hong Kong) 2024 - Greedy Girl Gourmet (2024)

What is Cantonese Cuisine?

Cantonese cuisine, also known as Yue cuisine (粤菜 yuè cài), is 1 of the cuisines of China's Guangdong province in Southern China. It is specific to the Cantonese speaking parts along the Pearl Delta River: Guangzhou (its capital), Hong Kong and Macau. (Guangdong has 2 other groups- Hakka and Chao Zhou- which have their own cuisines, but Cantonese cuisine is the most famous of the 3.)

Fun fact: If you've ever eaten in a Chinese restaurant in America, Canada or UK, it's 99.9% likely that you're eating Cantonese food. (The majority of Chinese restaurants outside Asia are Cantonese.)

Chinese culture is big on food and Cantonese cuisine is considered 1 of its 4 great traditions of Chinese Food (in addition to Chuan, Lu, and Huaiyang i.e. the cuisines of West, North, South & East China.)

It is also 1 of its 8 modern culinary treasures:

• Anhui (徽菜;Huīcài)
• Guang Dong/ Cantonese (粤菜;Yuècài)
• Fujian(闽菜;Mǐncài)- where my family is from!
• Hunan (湘菜;Xiāngcài)
• Jiangsu (苏菜;Sūcài)
• Shandong(鲁菜;Lǔcài)
• Sichuan (川菜;Chuāncài)
• Zhejiang(浙菜;Zhècài).

Characteristics

How do you tell if the food is Cantonese?

• Scallion, ginger and garlic are considered the Holy Trinity of Cantonese recipes, similar to mirepoix (onions, carrots and celery) in French food
  • Please do not substitute for onion or garlic powder!
• Emphasis on preserving the taste of the ingredients (a little like Italian cooking): the flavor is from the freshness and quality of the food used, so there is little application of spices
• It's all about the "wok hei" or breath of the wok- a somewhat smoky flavor that the best Cantonese dishes have thanks to the super hot fire
  • This is why it can be hard to cook restaurant quality Cantonese food at home- our fires just aren't hot enough!
• Herbs are used in moderation, mostly as garnishes
• Preserved ingredients are used to add flavour. Some examples are:
  • salted egg
  • dried shrimps
  • dried scallops
  • dried shiitake mushrooms
  • Mei cai (pickled cabbage)
  • La Chang (dried sausage)
• The Cantonese are known for its soups, such as old fire soup/ lao huo tang, silky congee and dim sum.
• As Guangdong has a coastal location, seafood is another key ingredient of Cantonese recipes
  • ordering steamed fish is a great way to tell if the restaurant is worth its salt!
• You sometime see "weird" ingredients, such as chicken feet, entrails, frogs and snakes, in Cantonese recipes
  • Frogs meat is delicious! It's like a really tender chicken
  • Lamb and goat are uncommon though

Sauces

Savory sauce is often used in Cantonese food recipes, including:

• light soy sauce
• dark soy sauce
• oyster sauce (or a luxe version- abalone sauce)
• XO sauce
• sesame oil
• salted egg yolk sauce
• rice vinegar
• hoisin sauce
• plum sauce
• shrimp paste
• douchi/ dried black beans
• white pepper (not interchanegable with black pepper)

Vegan Wonton Soup

To make it a complete meal, you can add some wonton noodles. Don't forget the spring onion garnish!

Macaroni Soup

This simple dish is very popular in Hong Kong's coffee shops, but super quick and easy to recreate in your own kitchen.

Hong Kong Macaroni Soup

Hong Kong Macaroni Soup is an easy and delicious comfort food found in the country'sCha Chaan Tengs (local cafes or diners), but it's really not difficult to make at home. And you can make it just as delicious but more healthy than the 1 in the cafe!

Click here for the Hong Kong pasta soup recipe.

Egg Drop Soup

This is a very popular dish at Chinese restaurants, but you can make a better version, using my family recipe, if you have chicken stock at home!

Congee (Jook)

Jook or congee is the ultimate Cantonese comfort food, especially when you're under the weather- if you grew up in a Chinese home, you've definitely had this one time or another!

It can be eaten plain- and spiced up with toppings and small plates sich as century egg- or flavoured with seafood, chicken etc

Abalone Congee

Abalone is considered a premium and auspicious ingredient in Chinese cooking.

For more canned abalone recipes, click here.

Shrimp Congee

Seafood

Steamed fish

If you've ever eaten in a Cantonese restaurant, you'll know that a steamed whole fish is a can't-be-missed item on the menu. In fact, good Cantonese restaurants are so big on their fish, they cook live ones (and not frozen/ dead fish.)

Fun fact: if you know how to eat it, the fish head is considered a delicacy- the meat in the cheek is super tender! If you eat the head, you need to take responsibility for the tail too as, for every beginning (head), there's an end (tail.) In Chinese, this translates to "有头有尾 you tou you wei."

Eggs & Shrimp

Eggs are often scrambled with shrimp for an easy weeknight dish- click here for a 5-star recipe from Omnivore's Cookbook!

Meat

Soy Sauce Chicken

This is a famous Cantonese dish that is often served as a trio with "siu Mei" (roasted meats) such as "siu yuk" (roast pork belly) and "char siu" (BBQ pork.)

However, to get the meat super tender, it will take a few hours of poaching. (It's an easy recipe but takes a while to cook.) If you're in a rush, make the easy chicken thighs version below.

Pork Ribs

An easy version of "tang chu pai gu" (sweet vinegar pork ribs, literally but usually called "sweet and sour pork" in the West), once you've made these 12345 ribs you'll never look back!

Pork Trotters

A classic Cantonese dish, often eaten during confinement (the period after a woman gives birth), is vinegar pig trotters as it's considered to be a very warming and nourishing food.

Salted Ducks' Egg Yolk Tofu

P.S. The same ducks egg sauce is used to coat deep-fried prawns or chicken and pork too!

Stir-fried Vegetables

A classic veg would be Choy Sum in Oyster sauce (here's a 10-minutes, easy recipe from Ohmyfoodrecipes.)

Noodles

Lobster noodles is a classic Cantonese dish- my family used to eat it every time we visited Chinatown in London- but, for something easier to cook at home, try these stir-fried noodles by Woon Heng. (Use rice noodles, not egg noodles, as the flavor of the latter doesn't go.)

Fun fact: (uncut) long noodles are a must-have dish for a Chinese birthday or Cantonese New Year as they symbolise long life!

Singapore Noodles

Despite the "Singapore" in the name, this is actually a dish invented by Cantonese chefs in the West!

Fried Rice

Rice is a staple at any Chinese table. If you end up with too much, overnight white rice is the secret ingredient to a good plate of fried rice, such as this Cantonese salted fish fried rice by The Woks of Life. The rice grains aren't so wet and don't clump together as much.

Click here for more Chinese fried rice recipes.

Claypot Rice

Claypot rice is another delicious Cantonese dish but it's not exactly for beginners- you need to buy a claypot for one and, if you don't know what you're doing, your claypot may crack!

Having said that, these days there are hacks such as using a rice cooker, but you don't get exactly the same flavor.

Dim Sum

My favourites include:

• char siu bao
  • Click here for a RasaMalaysia recipe (If you're wondering why I'm choosing a Malaysian recipe- there are lots of Cantonese in Malaysia. In fact, most Chinese people in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, speak Cantonese!)
  • For other bao fillings, click here.
• lo bak gao (savoury carrot cake or turnip cakes)
  • Here's a RedHouseSpice recipe
  • It's not really made with carrot, but turnips are called white carrots in Chinese
• sio mai
  • A RecipeTinEats recipe for you!
  • In Philippines, they eat their siomai with calamansi dipping sauce!
• shrimp dumplings
  • If you're wondering what side dishes to serve at a dumpling party, click here

Home cooking

There are some Cantonese foods that we make at home but you seldom see at fancy restaurants:

• tomato omelette
  • A recipe from Chinasichuanfood
• ABC soup
• Coca Cola wings
  • Here's a Noobcook recipe for beginners!
  • Make sure your soda doesn't contain aspartame as when aspartame is heated to above 86F/ 30C, the wood acid in it converts to formaldehyde and then formic acid which leads to metabolic acidosis (and mimics Multiple Sclerosis.) (Aspartame also loses its sweetness when heated.)

Desserts

These are some popular tong sui (the Cantonese word for dessert- literally "sugar water."

Sea Coconut

Sea Coconut dessert with longan sweet soup recipe

A Cooling Sea Coconut dessert with longan sweet soup, the perfect tong sui for hot days.

Click here for Asian sea coconut tong sui.

Black Sesame Soup

Extra black sesame seeds can be used in these recipes, such as sesame cookies. I also show you how to make your own black sesame paste.