Chinese food is one of America’s fav cuisines due to its rich flavors and diversity of ingredients. Typically, it serves as a comfort food for takeout, and numerous cafés and restaurants offer it in their menus.

At the same time, Chinese cuisine is associated with unhealthy meals. That’s partially true due to the huge amounts of fat and salt characteristic of its prep. Well, are there any healthy meals in Chinese food? Let’s learn more about its traditions and cooking methods and discover a couple of truly healthy Chinese meals for your dining.

The Main Traditions in Chinese Meal Preps

The first thing to consider about Chinese cuisine is that it is as diverse as the whole of China. There are various provinces with their specific culinary traditions. Thus, Sichuan cuisine staples on baking and the use of high amounts of chili peppers, while Cantonese cuisine refers to spicy and rich in soy sauce dishes. The list of local Chinese culinary styles is almost endless and there are specific overseas Chinese cuisines, with American Chinese meals as the most popular among US gourmets.

As for the specific features of Chinese food, typically they are as follows:

  • The use of sauces, especially soybean sauce, salt, pepper, and various spices to enrich the flavors to the maximum.
  • A diversity of vegetables and greenery added to various meals.
  • The use of sesame and chili oils for meal preps.
  • Diverse protein sources which include chicken, pork meat, various fish and seafood, and even insects in some provinces.
  • Chinese cuisine typically uses steaming, deep frying, boiling cooking methods and specific food preservation techniques (i.e., odious century eggs, dried shrimps and scallops, fermented food, etc.)
  • Complex multi-stage cooking procedures. Some meals can be cooked easily yet some require long and complex preparation (like Peking duck).

The result is that Chinese cuisine offers truly rich flavors and tastes meals which also often are high-calorie foods. Yet, not all of them are unhealthy! Let’s prove this fact by making examples of Chinese meals we can call healthy.

Which Chinese Meals Are Healthy?

The main reason why Chinese meals are often considered unhealthy is just because its most popular examples are typically served as fast food. Various noodles and stir-fried meals certainly have lots of fats, salt, and sugar in their recipes. Besides, one more reason for such a poor reputation is the tradition to serve truly giant food portions. In Chinese cuisine, a single portion can be hard to eat even for a couple of eaters.

Large portion in Chinese cuisine

 

Yet, there are healthier meals you can try to enjoy the fabulous flavors without any dietary risks and negative impact on health.

  1. Soups are staples for Chinese cuisine. There are various soups with hot and sour soup or egg-filled soup as the most popular ones.
  2. Stir-fried rice with meat and vegetables can be also healthy if the recipe contains more vegetables and meat than rice and soy sauce seasoning.
  3. Chicken is one of the most popular ingredients in Chinese and particularly American Chinese cuisines. Among various recipes containing chicken meat, we offer you to try General Tso’s Chicken as an example of a balanced lunch or dinner option. One more healthy lunch made of chicken in Chinese tradition is Kung Pao Chicken.
  4. Dumplings are especially popular Chinese meals. Yet, they can be diverse as there are fried and thus, unhealthy ones, and there are steamed dumplings which are much healthier. In terms of calorie intake, one steamed dumpling with shrimp and cabbage stuffing is only 40 calories. If you prefer dumplings with a covering made of cabbage leaves, calorie levels may be even lower.
  5. Beef and broccoli are among the healthiest components, and they are both used in Chinese meals of the same name. Here you can also select between more yummy and flavored stir-fried broccoli and beef and a healthier steamed meal.
  6. Buddha’s Delight is also based on stir-fry but it’s totally vegetarian as it is made of tofu cheese with green vegetables like cabbage, bok choy, and broccoli.
  7. Chop Suey is an American-Chinese meal prepared of vegetables with chestnuts, and bean sprouts, and served with healthy brown rice.
  8. Chinese desserts are typically rich in calories but there are also healthy options to enjoy. For example, Ma Lai Gao – Chinese steamed sponge cake, or Chinese steamed egg pudding in its sweet version.
  9. Shrimp with lobster sauce is an example of a meal rich in proteins and containing fermented soybean sauce which is useful for digestion. It contains stir-fried shrimps with veggies and black sauce and it provides over 31 g of protein in a 1-cup portion.
  10. Spring rolls are also the best HLS idea for Chinese kitchen appreciators. They are made of thin rice paper wraps with vegetable filling and served either raw or quickly fried.

As you can see, Chinese food also offers quite healthy options and the main thing to maintain when enjoying it is to reduce portion size and add more vegetables to your meals. At 95 Nutrition, we support our customers’ love for Asian and particularly Chinese meals and you are welcome to select some of them from our menu. Let’s eat healthily and enjoy the best flavors from all over the world with us!