Random Chinese Food Generator – 55 Dishes to Cook or Order

How it works

This random Chinese food generator picks one of 55 Chinese dishes, from Sichuan's mapo tofu and Beijing's Peking duck to Cantonese dim sum and hand-pulled noodles, with a line on what each one is.

Read the full guide

Tonight's takeaway, decided

Press once and order what comes up, or set the count to 3 and share them round the table. The line under each dish says what is in it, so a name like shuizhu or disanxian is not a mystery.

Noodles, dumplings, mains or sweets

After the first press, the list beside the button keeps the draw to noodles and rice (13 dishes), dumplings, buns and breads (14), mains and soups (24) or sweets (4).

Tips

Want it hot? Sichuan dishes such as mapo tofu, dandan noodles and laziji are all made with chilli.
New to Chinese cooking? Stir-fried tomato and scrambled eggs is a simple home dish from everyday ingredients.

Questions and answers

Which dishes are dim sum?

Har gow, shumai, cheung fun, turnip cake and spring rolls are served as dim sum, the small dishes eaten at Cantonese brunch. Egg tarts and char siu are Cantonese too.

What is the difference between jiaozi, wontons and baozi?

Jiaozi are thin dough folded round a filling and pressed shut. Wontons are dumplings often served in soup. Baozi are soft yeast-raised buns, usually steamed, with meat or vegetables inside.

Where do the lines come from?

Each line is ours, written from the opening of the dish's own English Wikipedia article, read on 24 September 2026. The dishes were chosen from Wikipedia's list of Chinese dishes and its dim sum article.

All 55 dishes

Noodles and rice 13

Biangbiang noodles Broad hand-pulled noodles from Shaanxi.
Chongqing noodles Spicy noodles from Chongqing, known there as xiaomian.
Chow mein Stir-fried noodles with vegetables and sometimes meat or tofu.
Congee Savoury rice porridge, boiled in plenty of water until soft.
Crossing-the-bridge noodles A rice noodle soup, one of the best-known dishes of Yunnan.
Dandan noodles Sichuan wheat noodles in a spicy sauce. The name means "carrying-pole noodles".
Hainanese chicken rice Poached or roasted chicken with seasoned rice and chilli sauce, first made by people from Hainan.
Lamian Soft wheat noodles pulled by hand, common in northern China.
Liangpi Cold noodles of wheat or rice flour, a speciality of Xi'an.
Lo mein Noodles tossed with a topping, in Cantonese style often char siu.
Yangzhou fried rice Egg fried rice with mixed vegetables, pork and shrimp.
Zhajiangmian Thick wheat noodles topped with a fermented soybean sauce.
Zongzi Sticky rice with a filling, wrapped in leaves.

Show all 55 dishes (42 more)

Dumplings, buns and breads 14

Baozi Soft yeast-leavened buns, usually steamed, filled with meat or vegetables.
Cheung fun Steamed rice noodle rolls from Guangdong, a dim sum favourite.
Har gow Cantonese dim sum dumplings of shrimp, steamed.
Jianbing A crêpe-like street food eaten for breakfast.
Jiaozi Dumplings of thin dough round a meat or vegetable filling, sealed by pressing the edges.
Mantou Plain white steamed buns from northern China.
Scallion pancake A chewy, flaky, savoury pancake made with spring onions.
Shengjian mantou Small pan-fried buns, a speciality of Suzhou and Shanghai.
Shumai Dumplings of ground pork, served as dim sum.
Spring rolls Rolled starters of vegetables or ground meat in a thin wrapper.
Turnip cake Steamed rice flour and shredded daikon radish, often served as dim sum.
Wonton Dumplings found in every regional Chinese cuisine, often served in soup.
Xiaolongbao Soup dumplings steamed in a small bamboo basket.
Youtiao A long golden strip of deep-fried dough.

Mains and soups 24

Ants climbing a tree Sichuan bean thread noodles with bits of ground meat clinging to them, like ants on twigs.
Beggar's chicken Stuffed chicken wrapped in lotus leaves and clay, then baked slowly.
Buddha's delight A vegetarian dish of many vegetables, from Buddhist cooking.
Char siu Cantonese barbecued pork from Guangdong.
Chinese steamed eggs Beaten eggs steamed into a soft custard.
Disanxian "Three treasures of the earth": stir-fried potato, eggplant and sweet pepper.
Dongpo pork Hangzhou pork belly, pan-fried and then red-cooked in thick squares.
Egg drop soup Wisps of beaten egg in chicken broth.
Hot and sour soup A peppery, sour soup that began in Henan.
Hot pot A pot of stock simmering on the table, for cooking raw meat and vegetables yourself.
Kung Pao chicken Spicy stir-fry of diced chicken, peanuts, vegetables and chilli.
Laziji Sichuan chilli chicken: small pieces fried, then stir-fried with dried chillies.
Lion's Head Large meatballs stewed with vegetables, from eastern China.
Mapo tofu Sichuan tofu in a spicy red sauce of fermented broad bean and chilli paste.
Peking duck Roast duck from Beijing, prized for its thin, crisp skin, sliced at the table.
Red braised pork belly Hong shao rou: pork belly red-cooked with ginger, garlic and spices.
Shuizhu "Water-boiled" meat from Sichuan, served in chilli and oil.
Stinky tofu Fermented tofu with a strong smell and a mild, savoury taste.
Sweet and sour pork Fried pork with sweet and sour sauce, sometimes with pineapple.
Tea egg A boiled egg, cracked and simmered again in tea and spices, so it comes out marbled.
Tomato and scrambled eggs A simple home dish of stir-fried tomato and egg.
Twice-cooked pork Sichuan pork belly, simmered, sliced, then stir-fried: "returned to the wok".
White cut chicken Cantonese poached chicken, served sliced.
Yuxiang shredded pork Sichuan shredded pork in the yuxiang flavour, often called pork with garlic sauce.

Sweets 4

Egg tart Cantonese custard tart, from the English custard tart and Portuguese pastel de nata.
Mooncake A baked cake eaten at the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Nian gao "Year cake" of glutinous rice flour, eaten at Chinese New Year.
Tangyuan Balls of sticky rice, often filled, served in hot broth or syrup.

How this list was compiled: Dishes chosen from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_dishes and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dim_sum, fetched through the MediaWiki API on 2026-09-24. Each line is ours, written from the opening of the dish's own English Wikipedia article, read the same day (address in x.src). Licence: own work