Good Spices for Chinese Food: Ginger, Garlic, Sichuan Pepper, Chiles, Star Anise and Five-Spice

There’s no single Chinese way to season food. China has many regional cuisines, and they season very differently: Cantonese cooking is mild and fresh, built on scallion, ginger and garlic, while Sichuan and Hunan cooking are built on chiles.¹ Still, a handful of seasonings keep turning up. Ginger, garlic and scallion make the aromatic base, soy sauce and Shaoxing wine do much of the seasoning, and Sichuan pepper brings a tingle that isn’t heat at all. One caution if you’re buying star anise: make sure it’s the Chinese kind, sold as food.

At a glance

Regional styles side by side

Michael A. Gardiner’s guide to regional Chinese food for Tasting Table argues that Chinese food is many cuisines, not one, and describes them this way:¹

Farther west, cumin is the defining spice of Xinjiang’s cumin lamb. The Woks of Life’s version uses 2 tablespoons of cumin seeds.⁵ See cumin uses.

The aromatic base: ginger, garlic and scallion

Gardiner calls scallions, ginger and garlic the holy trinity of Cantonese cooking.¹ The Woks of Life’s glossary of Chinese aromatics says ginger is used extensively in Chinese cooking, calls garlic a universal ingredient, and notes that most of the family’s green vegetables are simply stir-fried with oil, garlic and salt.⁸ Chinese cooks use fresh ginger both boiled and fried. See garlic vs. ginger, cooking with ginger and chives vs. green onions.

Sichuan pepper: the numbing spice

What Sichuan pepper gives you is a sensation, not heat. Katzer describes a strangely numbing, almost anesthetic feeling on the tongue, names the combination with chiles ma la, “hot-and-numbing,” and says the two kinds of hotness complement each other.²

Mapo tofu is the best-known example. You’ll often read that the ma in its name means “numbing,” but The Woks of Life translates the name roughly as “pockmarked grandma’s tofu.”⁹ Kaitlin’s recipe for The Woks of Life uses ground Sichuan peppercorns with fresh and dried red chiles, minced ginger and garlic, and spicy bean sauce (doubanjiang). See Szechuan pepper and Szechuan pepper substitute.

Chiles and chili oil

Gardiner describes Hunan cooking as built on chile heat, especially from dried chiles, along with sour flavors and garlic.¹ The Woks of Life calls red chili oil a popular condiment for noodles, fried rice and dumplings that you can also cook with,⁶ and its own chili oil recipe infuses the oil with whole spices including 5 star anise.¹⁰ Doubanjiang, made with chiles and fermented broad beans, is another chile seasoning. The same glossary describes it as chunky, savory, spicy and salty. See red pepper flakes.

Star anise and the braising spices

Kew’s species profile says star anise generally goes into pork and chicken dishes in China.¹¹ Judy Leung’s red-braised pork belly for The Woks of Life uses 2 star anise and calls it an indispensable spice for the dish.³ Red braising with soy sauce and rock sugar is also how Gardiner sums up Anhui cooking. See cooking with star anise and star anise uses.

Buy Chinese star anise (Illicium verum) sold as food. The FDA has warned that Japanese star anise has long been recognized as toxic, and in 2003 it linked teas made from star anise to illnesses in about 40 people.¹²

Five-spice powder

Britannica describes five-spice powder as a blend of Chinese origin, typically fennel seeds, cassia (Chinese cinnamon), cloves, star anise and Sichuan pepper, though there are many variations. It has licorice base notes, sweet top notes and the slightly numbing effect of Sichuan pepper.¹³ The Woks of Life’s homemade version uses 2 tablespoons of fennel seeds, 1 tablespoon each of ground cassia and Sichuan peppercorns, 4 star anise and 1 teaspoon of cloves, and calls the fifth spice a bit of a wild card between ginger, white pepper and Sichuan peppercorns.¹⁴

The Woks of Life says five-spice is best on meat, especially fatty cuts, and often shows up in Chinese marinades and dry rubs. Cantonese restaurants also mix it with salt.⁴ It’s strong, so start small. It often gets compared to India’s garam masala. Both are blends of warm spices, but they’re different blends and you can’t just swap one for the other. See Chinese five-spice substitute and garam masala.

Liquid seasonings: soy, Shaoxing wine, vinegar and sesame oil

Several of the most important Chinese seasonings are liquids, not dry spices:

• Soy sauce. The Woks of Life separates light soy sauce from dark soy sauce, which is thicker and darker and is the go-to for darkening noodles and fried rice.⁶ See too much soy sauce and soy sauce powder.
• Shaoxing wine. A rice wine from Shaoxing in Zhejiang Province, and the best-known Chinese cooking wine. It goes into meat marinades, dumpling and wonton fillings, sauces and braises, and The Woks of Life says that in meat marinades it takes away some of the gaminess for a cleaner flavor. Bottled cooking versions have added salt.⁷
• Black vinegar. Chinkiang vinegar is more aromatic than regular rice vinegar, with a complex, malty taste and faint sweetness.⁶
• Toasted sesame oil. When The Woks of Life calls for sesame oil, it means toasted sesame oil, dark in color, and says it usually goes in in small amounts toward the end of cooking.⁶ Katzer notes that dark sesame oil isn’t suitable for frying unless it’s diluted with another oil.¹⁵ So stir-fry in a neutral oil and finish with sesame oil.

A note on traditional medicine

Some of these spices have traditional medicinal uses. Kew records star anise in traditional Chinese medicine as a stimulant and expectorant,¹¹ and Britannica notes five-spice is often used there as a remedy for indigestion.¹³ Those are traditional uses, not evidence that the spices treat anything, and nothing here suggests that’s why they end up in the wok.

Related

• Chinese five-spice powder
• Szechuan pepper
• Star anise
• Cassia cinnamon
• Japanese spices