10 Lunar New Year Dishes That Symbolize Prosperity, Luck, and Togetherness

It’s all about celebratory food that gathers together family and friends.

By
Mimi Young
Mimi Young
Mimi Young
Editor
Mimi Young is an editor and pastry chef. She has also curated and written numerous recipe roundups for Serious Eats.
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Published January 16, 2026
A wooden steamer basket holding steamed, translucent pork and chive dumplings.

Serious Eats / Qi Ai

Like many Chinese kids, I almost exclusively thought of Lunar New Year in terms of families gathering around celebratory foods, sweet offerings, and red envelope money—I mean, let’s be real, what kid wouldn’t? Certainly, as I’ve grown older and have moved up the family hierarchy with the passing of my mother and the elders of her generation, I see a deeper meaning in all the traditions associated with Lunar New Year, and in particular, the foods we prepare and reunite around the dinner table to share, such as whole steamed fish, steamed turnip cake, and tuan yuan or sweet rice dumplings.

So rather than seeing Lunar New Year celebrations as what Serious Eats contributor Shao Z. once jokingly referred to as “Thanksgiving part deux,” I like to think of it as Thanksgiving part une—a big, bold, festive, weeks-long celebration that spans across Asia, honoring family, friends, life, and hopes for the year ahead. Since there is no singular dish that fully represents the holiday, we’ve included recipes of different cultural origins, including China, Vietnam, and Korea, to help you make your Lunar New Year party unique to you. 

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  • Chinese Steamed Whole Fish With Fermented Black Beans and Garlic

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    Shao Z.

    Whole steamed fish has always been a dinner staple in our household, but my parents would go the extra mile to procure the absolutely freshest (by that I mean still swimming) sea bass or rockfish for Lunar New Year, as it is a symbol of prosperity. Whichever fish you choose, tell the fishmonger to keep the head and tail intact (don’t judge, but as a kid, I was fascinated by getting to the eyeballs first). Stuff the cavity with plenty of fresh ginger slices to offset any fishy flavors, and let the steamed fish rest while you prepare the garlicky fermented black bean topping.

  • Pork and Chives Dumplings

    A wooden steamer basket holding steamed, translucent pork and chive dumplings.

    Serious Eats / Qi Ai

    Any dumpling aficionado, including my grandmother, would tell you that the key to supremely juicy dumplings is about having the right ratio of fat to meat. Fatty pork is the secret sauce in this recipe, which can be made with store-bought or homemade wrappers and customized with any vegetable you like, such as Napa cabbage, chives, shiitakes, or spinach. Great creative and make different batches, then invite friends over for a Lunar New Year dumpling-making party.

  • Stir-Fried Chow Mein With Four Vegetables

    20140411-soy-sauce-vegetable-noodles-13.jpg
    Shao Z.

    This deceptively simple dish of stir-fried thin noodles, glistening with an almost caramelized sheen of soy sauce, wok-tossed with a mixture of bean sprouts, carrots, tofu, and scallions, is a complex layering of flavors and textures—sweet-savory from the concentrated soy sauce, crispy noodles, smoky from wok hei, and freshness from the vegetables—that come together in under 10 minutes.

  • Lunar New Year Banh Chung

    These tightly wrapped banana leaf bundles of steamed sticky rice packed with fatty pork and mung beans are traditionally eaten to celebrate the Vietnamese Lunar New Year or Tet—with the square-shaped banh chung typically eaten in North Vietnam and the conical or cylindrical-shaped banh tet favored in the South.

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  • Hand-Pulled Lamian Noodles

    Closeup of hands holding a portion of hand-pulled lamian noodles

    We’re first to admit that hand-pulling noodles requires practice and is not for the faint of heart (or arm muscles). However, with the help of nutritional yeast, which contains glutathione, a naturally occurring dough reducer that makes the dough pliable and remarkably forgiving, you can successfully pull it off (pardon the pun).

  • Tang Yuan (Chinese Glutinous Rice Balls)

    Overhead view of finished Tang Yuan on two bowls with one opened on a soup spoon

    Serious Eats / Jen Causey

    Although you can find a dazzling array of tang yuan in the frozen food section of Asian markets these days—from the classic black sesame and peanut to the more specialized durian and ube—making it from scratch for Lunar New Year feels particularly celebratory. The sweet glutinous rice flour dough comes together easily enough, then all you have to do is choose your fillings or experiment with different flavor combinations. Maybe chocolate, pistachio, and tahini?

  • Chả Giò (Vietnamese Imperial Rolls)

    Side view of Imperial Rolls on a plate

    Serious Eats / Vy Tran

    Because Vietnamese rice paper is much thinner than other styles of rice paper you’d find at your local Asian market, it needs nothing more than a quick dip to barely moisten, or it’ll get too soft and sticky and become impossible to work with. Adding a little sugary soda to the water also helps boost browning.

  • Japchae (Korean Glass Noodles With Pork and Vegetables)

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    Japchae’s growing popularity is reflected in its omnipresence on restaurant menus and in Asian market ready-to-go aisles, but the best version is the one made at home, with thin slivers of vegetables, egg, mushrooms, and meat tossed with springy sweet potato glass noodles, flavored with sweet-savory soy sauce and sesame oil. While it does take a bit of time to prep the components to give this dish its vibrant mix of colors, flavors, and textures, the japchae itself is quick to assemble and can be up to a day in advance.

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  • The Momofuku Cookbook's Kimchi Stew with Rice Cakes

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    Two ingredients I almost always stock in my fridge are kimchi and frozen rice cakes, so this adaptation of chef David Chang’s kimchi stew recipe is right up my alley. You can change up the proteins, add tofu and egg instead of pork, and use any kind of flavorful stock—chicken, beef, or a good vegetable-based one (along with some miso). Just be sure to add a generous amount of young kimchi and plenty of rice cakes to absorb all that spicy, umami-charged soup.

  • Law Bok Gow (Chinese Turnip Cake)

    Overhead view of finished turnip cakes

    Serious Eats / Antonis Achilleos 

    In the weeks leading up to Lunar New Year, my late mother would pull out the large bamboo steamers from storage and begin prepping ingredients for a variety of sweet and savory steamed rice-based specialties. Her law bok gow or Chinese turnip cake (a misnomer since it's actually made with daikon radish) was everyone’s favorite. Like this version, it was fully-loaded with finely shredded fresh daikon, along with Chinese sausage, Chinese bacon, dried shrimp, and shiitake mushrooms—it's a dish we will be making this Lunar New Year, in honor of her.

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