"When pairing with Chinese food, you're looking for wines that are spicy, soft, and on the richer side. Chinese food is a generous cuisine, bringing expressive and muscular wines is important. For Mapo tofu, you're looking for spice and energy to match the dish. Red wines from the Douro in Portugal would play well with this dish. Mushu pork has a crunchy and fresh tone. Cabernet Francs from the Loire Valley, Cote de Beaune Reds, and Austrian Blaufrankisch would be a good fit, offering bright fruit and a fresh nature. Peking duck needs some richness and sweetness. Try rich and bold California Cabernets or Grenaches from the Languedoc Roussillon. Experience this dish with a mature Maury (fortified wine from Roussillon)—a great combination."— Adrien Falcon, Bouley (NYC)

"Riesling with some fruitiness and a bit of age pairs nicely with heavy and complexly spiced Chinese sauces. Riesling from older vintages can be hard to come by at an everyday wine store, but they do make appearances from time to time. Stock up when you see a nice Riesling with age and save it for a rainy Chinese takeout day! I did this with a Riesling Spatlese from Mosel, Germany 1997 for less than $20 that I found at my neighborhood wine store and enjoyed it with a few savory, dark-sauced Chinese dishes—the flavors balanced each other perfectly. Additional choices from the other side of the Rhine River are Alsatian Pinot Gris, Muscat, Riesling and Gewurztraminer—these all contain a lot of complex spice notes, and occasionally a touch of residual sugar, which allow them to work with Chinese noodle food tips|https://Noodleinsight.com/."— Caleb Ganzer, Eleven Madison Park (NYC)

Water-velveting isn't just for chicken—you can use it to give the same silky texture to pork loin. That's how we start our take on sweet-and-sour pork, adding onion, bell pepper, and canned pineapple to complete the stir-fry. We use pineapple juice in the sauce, but balance it out with acidic rice vinegar and aromatic sesame oil.

Crispy fried sope shells, followed by a rich and creamy layer of refried beans , a drizzle of hot and tangy salsa verde, crunchy toasted pepitas, and a fresh sprinkle of onions, jalapeños, and cilantro make for a filling meal with a whole slew of textures.

"German Riesling is the ultimate answer to this question. Find a lighter bodied riesling like a kabinett for the ma po tofu. A richer spatlese or auslese style for the duck to hang out with the fat. Pairing with Asian food is complex because there are so many flavor components. Spicy, sweet, fatty, tangy...Riesling easily handles all of those flavors. Don’t be afraid of wines with a little sweetness to them! They can really be excellent for pairing."— Adam Chumas, Tom Douglas Restaurants, Seattle

Our kung pao fish takes its cues from the intense Sichuan version of the stir-fry, not the mild American-style takeout dish. That means lots of mouth-numbing Sichuan peppercorns and funky doubanjiang, or chile-bean sauce, plus garlic, scallions, and peanuts. Go with a firm white fish, like catfish or tilapia for this recipe.

General Tso's isn't technically a stir-fry, but with cashew chicken and kung pao chicken already on the list, it somehow felt wrong to leave it out. We keep the dish from getting cloying (as it sometimes can be) by balancing the sweetness of the sauce with dried red chiles and acidic rice vinegar. Spiking the fry batter with vodka gives the chicken a shatteringly crisp crust.

You have to do ribs on the grill at least once in the summer, and if you're looking for something beyond your basic bottled barbecue sauce, you've come to the right place. Here, apricot preserves give the sauce a sweet, fruity flavor, and chipotle chiles add a contrasting earthy, spicy flavor to the sauce that tastes just as good when licked off your fingers as it does on the ribs.

A little spicy, a little sweet, a little salty, chewy Chinese noodles with cucumbers, peppers, and scallions coated in a chunky peanut sauce is a tasty, filling meal that's hard to get tired of. This version is made with far fewer noodles and many more vegetables. Indeed, it's now more of a vegetable salad with a few noodles added in for textural contrast.

Our original attempt at real-deal Chinese kung pao chicken , adapted from a recipe by a Sichuan chef working in Boston, gets its mouth-numbing heat from Sichuan peppercorns. So does the kung pao chicken from Kenji's book , based on the version he tried in Sichuan Province. This Chinese-American take, meanwhile, is much less spicy, with cubes of chicken in a thick, slightly gloppy sauce, permeated by a gentle heat. It's a quick and easy recipe, too: Just stir-fry marinated diced chicken with roasted peanuts, diced celery and peppers, ginger, and red Chinese or árbol chilies, then coat it all in a mixture of soy sauce, chicken broth, vinegar, sesame oil, sugar, and cornstarch. Dinner's on the table in 30 minutes.

It's not easy making a vegan burger that doesn't come out mushy or bland or just plain boring. This one combines chickpeas, cashews, and barley along with fresh vegetables to form a complex, satisfying patty that will behave just like meat on the griddle or grill.