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Copyright © 2025 Foodies Only
6 Min
27/02/2026
Ever wondered how the Chinese take to food to celebrate the Chinese New Year? You can find that answer in this article with some familiar and not-so-familiar Chinese dishes. There are dumplings, whole fish and even unique rice-based dishes that the Chinese love to eat for Chinese New Year. They’re delicious, naturally, but also hold deep symbolic meanings.
Chinese New Year 2026 kicked off on February 17, ushering in the Year of the Fire Horse, the seventh animal in the Chinese zodiac, associated with energy, momentum, and success. Across Chinese communities, the Chinese dishes consumed on the reunion dinner (the night before the New Year) are incredibly important. Each dish on the table is symbolic, chosen for what is denoted by its shape, name, colour, and even the way it sounds when you say it out loud. Some of these dishes you'll recognise immediately. Others are less familiar outside of Chinese homes and restaurants. All deserve a second glance if you’re a fan of good food, quirky luck stories, and interesting trivia.
Hand-folded dumplings with fillings of minced pork, prawns, Chinese chives, and cabbage, jiaozi are the centrepiece of the Chinese New Year in many parts of China. Their curved shape resembles the gold and silver ingots used as currency in ancient China, so eating them is meant to bring wealth. Some families hide a coin inside one dumpling. Whoever finds it is said to have exceptional luck in the year ahead.
Also called lo hei, one of the more modern Chinese dishes (developed in the mid-20th century), yu sheng is a raw fish salad made with shredded vegetables, pomelo, crushed peanuts, and a dressing of plum sauce, hoisin, and sesame oil. The ingredients are arranged on a platter. All the diners then toss them together with chopsticks as high as they can, while calling out wishes for the new year.
The Chinese know these are Shizitou, or Lion's Head. They are oversized braised pork meatballs served with cabbage or bok choy, framing them like a lion’s mane. The four meatballs represent the four blessings of happiness, prosperity, health, and longevity. Their round shape signals reunion, and the accompanying leafy greens signify financial growth. It comes from Huaiyang cuisine from eastern China, with origins traced to the Tang dynasty.
One of the most widely known and loved Chinese dishes, chicken fried rice might not be on the traditional table in China, but it is present elsewhere in the world, celebrating Chinese New Year. Whole chicken is more common, as the intact form represents completeness and family unity. The word for chicken in Chinese (ji) is also a homophone for luck and prosperity. At the New Year, chicken is sometimes first offered to ancestors before being eaten by the family.
Right alongside whole chicken, whole fish takes its rightful place, symbolising abundance because the Chinese word for fish, yú, sounds exactly like the word for surplus. Serving a whole fish, head and tail intact, signals a good beginning and end to the year. It is usually steamed with some herbs and topped with sauce. What makes this dish unusual is the etiquette around it: you are not supposed to finish it. Leaving fish on the bones is deliberate, a way of carrying abundance into the new year.
Ba bao fan, AKA ‘eight treasure rice’, is a steamed Chinese dessert made with glutinous rice filled with red bean paste and eight types of dried fruits, nuts, and seeds. The fillings range from red dates, lotus seeds, and longan to goji berries, walnuts, and others, depending on the family or region. Eight is the luckiest number in Chinese culture because bā (eight) sounds like fā (to prosper).
Like most Chinese dishes associated with the New Year, the round tang yuan are symbolic of the wholeness of a family and the wish that all members will be together in the coming year. The chewy and soft glutinous rice balls are usually filled with black sesame paste, peanut paste, or red bean paste. They are boiled and served in a light, sweet broth. Tang yuan are eaten from the reunion dinner all the way through to the Chinese Lantern Festival.
Buddhism is intertwined in Chinese culture, and this particular dish translates to ‘Buddha jumps over the wall’. One of the legendary Chinese dishes, this one’s a slow-simmered soup that uses exquisite ingredients like abalone, dried scallops and sea cucumber. The unique name comes from a monk who was tempted by the tantalising aroma of the soup. He had apparently jumped over a wall, breaking his vows to try this soup.
The entire globe knows this Chinese dish! Spring rolls get their name directly from the Spring Festival, which is the broader term for the Chinese New Year celebrations. Cantonese spring rolls are thin dough wrappers, filled with vegetables or a meat and vegetable combination, and fried till golden-brown. Their appearance as a lightly golden cylinder is said to resemble a bar of gold. This gave rise to the traditional saying used when eating them – a wish for ‘a ton of gold’, meaning prosperity.
Longevity noodles, often called long‑life noodles or changshou mian, are eaten during Chinese New Year and other celebrations to symbolise long life, health, and prosperity. Their extra‑long, uncut strands represent an unbroken, extended lifespan, and tradition holds that you shouldn’t cut them before or while eating. The custom dates back over a thousand years to ancient China, with origins linked to the Tang dynasty and even stories mentioning Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty.
Chinese New Year food is hardly decorative. Each dish earns its place through what it represents. From the beloved dumplings folded in a certain way to deliberate half-eaten fish, these Chinese dishes been shaped over centuries of traditions. Luck, prosperity and abundance are all echoed by the shapes, sizes and ingredients handpicked for the Chinese New Year.
