If you're looking for something different from American Turkey and cranberry sauce this year, try 1 of these easy and delicious Asian & Chinese Thanksgiving Recipes!
Jump to:
- 🐓 Chicken
- 🐖 Pork
- 🍖 Ham
- 🥗 Side Dishes
- 🥧 Desserts
- 💬 Comments
The perfect Asian and Chinese recipes for Thanksgiving Day are ones that can be made ahead, or involve passive cooking (e.g. cooked in the oven.) Thanksgiving/ Friendsgiving meals usually call for cooking lots of dishes, for lots of people, and that can be difficult if you have to stir-fry all that food!
Scroll down for some classic Chinese cuisine dishes, or click here for alternative Thanksgiving meals, including seafood Thanksgiving recipes and options that cater for smaller gatherings of just 1 or 2 people.
Fun fact: the literal Chinese translation of "Happy Thanksgiving" would be 感恩节快乐 (The pronunciation of the Chinese characters is "Gan En Jie Kuai Le.")
🐓 Chicken
Pumpkin Chicken Curry
Easy Pumpkin Chicken Curry from Scratch
This easy pumpkin chicken curry is made of juicy, tender chicken morsels simmered in a deliciously aromatic sauce that is full of warm spiced flavor. It's well- spiced but not spicy and can be bulked up with healthy veggies, all in one pot. Plus it's super flexible: it can be made with coconut cream, regular cream, pumpkin puree or none of the above!
Click here for the aromatic chicken curry with pumpkin bites.
Note: Curries are often cooked for parties with family friends in South East Asia because they keep well and actually taste better the day after they're cooked!
Hong Kong Poached Chicken
If you are cooking for just 1 or 2 people, a Thanksgiving turkey may be too much meat. (Also, in my opinion, roast turkey breast can be on the dry side!)
Soy Sauce Chicken is 1 of the most popular dishes in Cantonese cuisine and it's not difficult to make a better version than the 1 you can get at Chinese restaurants! The juicy and tender meat make it just right for your Chinese Thanksgiving celebration.
Note: you can add some dried shiitake mushrooms to the stock, but don't go overboard as they have a very strong taste. Extra meat can be used to make leftover chicken congee.
Best Poached One Pot Chinatown Soy Sauce Chicken Recipe
This Cantonese classic chicken is an easy-to-recreate-restaurant dish that can be made in 1 pot! It's also the gift that keeps giving as the leftover poaching liquid can be used for so many things (see post above). (Inspired by 4 recipes: Woks Of Life, SCMP, Burning Kitchen and Red House Spice)
Click here for the one pot chinese chicken recipe.
Vietnamese Chicken Wings
Chicken wings, in my opinion, are great for both small and large parties! These Asian style wings are amongst my favourites thanks to the tangy, mouthwatering sauce and crisp texture.
Note: For other Asian chicken wing flavours, click here.
Crispy Fish Sauce Wings Recipe (Baked)
Inspired by the famous Pok Pok wings, this Vietnamese Crispy Fish Sauce Chicken Wings Recipe has big, punchy flavors. Though baked and not fried, it is still super crispy, tangy and delicious with a fingerlicking, sweet, salty and tangy sticky glaze!
Click here for the Pok Pok-inspired wings.
Note: a friend whose family owned a restaurant once told me not to eat chicken wings though, as she said that the wing is where the farmers inject the antibiotics and other nasties into the chicken.
Anyone else know more about this?
🐖 Pork
12345 Chinese Pork Ribs
This 12345 pork rib recipe is literally life-changing!
It's delicious and the Easiest Meat Dish I've Ever Made. Moreover, it's a braise, so not much work is involved. Allowing you go get to work on the Asian side dishes below!
12345 Chinese Spare Ribs (5-ingredients)
These Chinese Spare Ribs are delicious, finger-licking Asian-style pork spare ribs that are as simple to cook as 12345 (a mnemonic device that will also help you recall the recipe.) Using only the Asian pantry staples of wine, dark soy sauce, vinegar and sugar to braise the meat, with only a few minutes of active cooking, this is the best easy sticky Chinese Spare Ribs for a lazy food lover.
Click here for the braised Chinese pork recipe.
Note: if you don't have the Shaoxing rice wine, you can use a dry sherry instead.
Pork Adobo
Filipino Pork Belly Adobo
Filipino food seems to be having its moment, and you can find lots of Filipino cookbooks and food bloggers in the limelight this year. If it's a cuisine you're not familiar with, pork adobo is a great place to start as it's one of their most famous dishes!
Char Siu
A tender char siu with charred sides is not just for the spring festival- it's perfect for American Thanksgiving as well!
Note: for something different, why not try Peking duck? Here are some side dishes that would go well with Peking duck.
🍖 Ham
Chinese Style Braised Ham Hock
Ham is 1 of the most popular Thanksgiving dishes.
This star anise and black pepper spiced version would be perfect for your Asian Thanksgiving Feasts!
Chinese style Ham Hock
Chinese people love their pork, and the flavours in this braise complement the ham wonderfully.
Note: This recipe requires 5 spice powder, and homemade 5 spice powder is much more aromatic than shopbought. If you have extra, here are some recipes to use up your Chinese 5 spice.
🥗 Side Dishes
Pumpkin Rice
This Chinese pumpkin rice recipe is a terrific Thanksgiving side dish as it's cooked in the rice cooker, leaving your hands and stove free for other dishes!
Chinese Pumpkin Rice
This Chinese Pumpkin rice is a super easy and flavorful rice cooker recipe: the soft pumpkin cubes melt in your mouth, contrasting with the firm bite of the white rice grains. Moreover, it only takes 10 minutes to prepare and the rest of the work is up to your rice cooker!
Click here for the Chinese pumpkin recipe.
Oven Roasted Broccoli
Oven roasted broccoli in a soy and sesame sauce
I find that vegetables like broccoli, brussel sprouts and cauliflower always taste better after a nice hot roast in the oven!
Miso Roasted Sweet Potatoes
Sweet potatoes are 1 of the traditional foods for North Americans at Thanksgiving. For a new take on an old dish, give yours a brush with some miso!
Miso and honey roasted sweet potato wedges
Miso adds a delicious savouriness to the sweetness of sweet potato. I love how this post gives an overview of the different types of miso, which is very helpful if it's a product you're not familiar with!
Note: If you like to bake your sweet potatoes plain (or just with salt), you can also jazz them up with this sambal mayonnaise dip or Gochujang Mayo.
Korean Candied Sweet Potatoes
Goguma Mattang, or Korean candied sweet potato wedges
If you've been binging on Squid Game and crazy about South Korea, try these delicious Candied Sweet Potato Wedges. (Koreans love their sweet potato, from roasting it plain to fancier recipes like this one.) It's a bit more work as you have to fry the sweet potato, but well worth the work. Not an everyday recipe as it's not the healthiest but, hey, it's Thanksgiving!
Roasted Kabocha Squash
Roasted kabocha squash
If you're tired of sweet potato, why not try kabocha squash? The seasoning in this recipe absolutely screams Autumn!
Note: For more Asian-inspired Japanese pumpkin recipes, click here.
Alternatively, extra squash can be cooked with Chinese sausage to make pumpkin rice.
Luncheon Meat Fries
Spam fries (2-ingredients)
Savoury and full of umami, these luncheon meat fries, or SPAM fries, will leave you wanting more! Crisp outside but soft inside, they're super simple to make and on the table in under 30 minutes! (I have tested them 5 different ways!)
Click here for the Spam recipe.
Chinese String Beans
Instead of green bean casserole, why not stir fry ground pork and string beans over high heat?
Tandoori Roasted Cauliflower
Indian style roasted Cauliflower Tandoori
I am NOT a fan of badly cooked cauliflower- don't get me started on cauliflower rice, urgh- but frying and roasting cauliflower works a magic on the vegetable, turning it from something unpalatable to something super scrumptious (Reminds me, I should share my har cheong cauliflower (prawn paste cauliflower) recipe soon!) - this roasted tandoori cauliflower is a must if you have cauliflower in your fridge!
And since most of the above recipes involve passive cooking, you have the bandwidth to make a salad with all that time on your hands whilst the food is in the oven!
Asian Salad
Asian Thanksgiving Salad
In Chinese medicine, frying and roasting food is very heaty (i.e. too much of such foods make you fall sick) so adding a non-heaty salad dish will be a good addition to your feast!
Cucumber Salad
Cold cucumber salad recipe
The easy Chinese cold cucumber salad recipe is delicious and full of spicy flavor. Best of all, it only requires 4-ingredients and takes 5-10 minutes to make.
Click here for a crisp cucumber side dish.
🥧 Desserts
Pumpkin Cake
Instead of pumpkin pie and ice cream, try this traditional Chinese pumpkin snack which is easy to make and delicious! Feel free to substitute with kabocha or sweet potatoes for more variety.
Chinese Pumpkin Cake
Crisp on the outside but soft, gooey and chewy on the inside, Chinese Pumpkin Cake or Nan Gua Bing is a must-make dessert in fall! If you've ever felt intimidated by the thought of making your own Asian street snacks, try this easy Chinese recipe to give you confidence! It's simple enough to make perfectly the very 1st time!
Click here for the Chinese glutinous rice cake recipe.
Osmanthus Jelly
Osmanthus jelly recipe
This osmanthus jelly recipe (Gui Hua Gao) is a refreshing, delicious, quick and easy Chinese dessert made from edible sweet osmanthus flowers. Its shimmering gold color and floral fragrance have kept it popular through the years- you can even find it at Michelin-star Chinese restaurants today!
Click here for the Chinese Gui Hua Gao Jelly recipe.
Fun fact: Osmanthus jelly is very popular during traditional Chinese holidays such as Chinese New Year.
Black Sesame Soup
Easy Black Sesame Soup Dessert
A sweet and creamy Chinese recipe, with nutty overtones giving this easy black sesame soup dessert a complex depth of flavour. Moreover, this 3-ingredient traditional Chinese Tong Sui is naturally vegan, gluten-free, delicious & very nutritious!
Click here for the classic Cantonese Tong Sui recipe.
Note: you can batch make the Black Sesame Paste in advance and keep it for some time in the fridge. Extras can be used to make a nutritious Roasted Black Sesame Latte!
If you cook any of these Asian and Chinese Friendsgiving recipes for the national holiday, do tag me in the photos- I'd love to see them. Let me know if I've missed out on your favourite Chinese food!
To receive more Asian recipes, do sign up for my recipes newsletter!
