Our 12 Favorite Recipes For Chinese New Year

Start off the year with a feast of Long Life noodles and whole steamed fish, which are supposed to guarantee you with a long, prosperous life but are probably both just better at tasting delicious. Whip out the wok, break out the duck sauce and buy yourself a bottle of Ban Jiu (if you dare) because it's time to celebrate. This is the time to forget about the carton box, and opt for authentic — meaning "homemade." Scroll through the gallery below for our 12 favorite Chinese recipes.

How do the Chinese do it? How is their food so reliably tasty? Without getting into any nitty-gritty details, of course. Who doesn't love lo mein? The answer is nobody.

Coconut and pork may sound unusual together, but one bite of these crispy egg rolls and you'll be hooked! Serve them as appetizers with a sweet and sour plum sauce or your favorite dipping sauce. 

This recipe welcomes experiment when it comes to spices.

Get familiar with this easy yet sophisticated ginger fried rice recipe from Anthony Ricco, Chef de Cuisine at Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Spice Market. Topped with garlic and ginger-crusted fried (dragon) eggs, fried rice has never looked so fierce. 

Make these in bulk, freeze them and be set for the rest of the season.

Your sandwich needs this sweet and tangy side.

Crispy, delicious dumplings perfect for your next cocktail party.

Leviton's homemade XO sauce, a salty-savory-sweet Chinese condiment made from caramelized dried seafood and sausage, is a great match for pork belly, scallops and a range of other Chinese dishes. You'll notice that the XO sauce calls for house-dried seafood, but the home chef can buy this all at a well-stocked Asian market.

You'll want these noodles to be as long as possible.

Give roast chicken the peking duck treatment.

Store-bought hoisin sauce and canned plums make this Asian take on chicken wings extra easy. Fire up the sauce by adding 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper to the plum mixture before cooking.