How to Make Your Own Vegan Chinese Food
Learning to cook your own food is empowering, as you no longer have to rely on expensive plastic-wrapped ready-meals and takeaways. Master your favourite cuisines at home. Then every night is restaurant night!
Vegan Chinese Food uses plant-based alternatives for sauces, dumplings, noodles and desserts. Learn how to season a wok from a couple who met in Spain (Yang Liu was born in Hunan province in China and spent her early years sampling cuisines from each region).
Never eat rice after 24 hours (a food poison hazard) and avoid unpasteurised miso for pregnancy/nursing or weak immune systems (and use bamboo chopsticks). Before cooking, read up on food safety for people and pets (many ingredients are unsafe near animal friends).
Bin allium scraps (onion, garlic, leeks, shallots, chives) as acids may harm compost creatures (same with tomato/citrus/rhubarb scraps).
The book begins with an overview of tofu. Then you’ll find all kinds of recipes to use it, like sweet and sour tofu and five-spice tofu.
Other recipes include:
- Kung Pao King Oyster Mushrooms
- Zha Jiang Mian Noodles
- Yuxiang Aubergine
- Biang Biang Noodles
- Wontons in Chilli Oil
- Mango Sticky Rice Balls
- Hong Kong Milk Tea
More Good Vegan Chinese Recipe Books
The Vegan Chinese Kitchen is by a woman who wished to still enjoy the food her family ate, when she went plant-based. She learned of zhai cai (a plant-based Chinese cuisine that uses umami-rich ingredients traced back over to centuries to Buddhist temple kitchens) and offers recipes for:
- Soft tofu in Black Bean Sauce
- Sichuan Chilli-Oil Wontons
- Spicy Mushrooms in Dandan Noodles
- Flaky Scallion Pancakes
- Pea Shoots in Mushroom Broths
The Vibrant Hong Kong Table is a visual guide to 88 classic colourful dishes, made plant-based, from banquet-style restaurant feasts to simple home-cooked dinners.
After leaving Hong Kong, the author yearned to recreate flavours and textures of her family’s food. Christine Wong (@conscious_cooking) is a cook and health coach with a focus on environmental sustainability.
Organised by a day of eating through the city and paying homage to its culinary heritage, these fresh recipes include:
- Sampan Congee
- ‘Egg’ Tarts
- Baked Tempeh Chop Rice
- Sweet and Sour Cauliflower
- Salt and Pepper ‘Squid’
- Laughing Sesame Cookies
- Hong Kong Sweet Buns
This mapo tofu recipe (Jessica in the Kitchen) is a lovely meal, once you’ve mastered it. Inspired by the Chinese classic, it’s made with crumbled vegan burgers and tofu. The recipe also contains lots of healthy veggies, including mushrooms and onions.
This recipe is a good starter recipe to try tofu. Made from bean curd, it has no taste, so absorbs the flavours of what you cook it with. Cookbook author Sarah Kramer says that to say you don’t like tofu, is like saying you don’t like cake flour! We like Tofoo (organic and made in Yorkshire!)
How to Cook Perfectly Fluffy Rice
Many cultures (India, South America, Asia, Africa, Italy) cook a lot of rice. So do millions of people in England, who like international food. So learn how to cook it well.
Never eat rice that’s been cooked after 24 hours, as it’s a food poison hazard.
You’ve likely heard that some rice can contain arsenic (it can’t be that serious, or else everyone would be dropping dead, each time they ate a bowl of it).
But to reduce risk, rinse rice before cooking, then cook in a large amount of water before draining (this will remove most of it). And balance intake with other grains like wholewheat and quinoa.
To cook rice:
Use 1.5 cups of water for each cup of rice, then bring the water to a boil, cover and simmer until cooked. Try not to lift the lid while cooking, and let rice sit for 10 minutes after cooking, then fluff with a fork.
It’s good to use a measuring cup to avoid food waste, as rice can massively expand after cooking. Worth the investment, if you’re like the rest of us (cooking a ‘little pasta or rice’) then ending up with enough to feed an army, once cooked. Add a pinch of natural sea salt for taste, if wished.
If you cook rice in an Instant Pot, use a 1:1 rice-to-water ratio, and cook on high pressure for 4 minutes, then let the pressure release naturally for 10. Open the pot and fluff the rice with a fork.
Ordering Chinese Take-Out?
Root Kitchen delivers home-cooked plant-based Chinese meals like Korean-style tofu noodles. Keep dry ice away from children and pets.
Some people are a bit iffy on ordering from Chinese restaurants, due to ‘wet markets’ and stories of illegally-imported ingredients like shark fins.
You need to also be careful in chip shops. Due to cod being endangered, some are selling dogfish (shark). So whatever you eat, it’s safest to just make your own food anyway.
If you do visit a Chinese restaurant, you won’t have trouble finding tofu on the menu! Vegan Chinese eateries include Tofu Green (London) and Lotus Plant-Based (Manchester) that makes ‘vegan aromatic crispy duck!’
Serve with Vegan Prawn Crackers!
Native vegan prawn crackers are made with natural ingredients, sold in plain or spicy flavours. Also sold wholesale to Chinese restaurants, pubs and hotels, they also have 25% less fat than crisps, so you can eat more or them!
Recycle packaging at supermarket bag bins, if your council does not collect.
