A FOOD TRADITION
Yunnan cuisine
Yunnan cuisine reflects the province’s varied plateaus, river valleys, and borderlands, together with the food traditions of Han, Yi, Bai, Dai, Hani, Naxi, and other communities. Ingredients include mushrooms, herbs, flowers, sour bamboo shoots, rice, potatoes, cured ham, freshwater fish, goat cheese, and chilies. Grilling, steaming, pickling, fermenting, pounding, and cooking over charcoal are common. Representative examples include crossing-the-bridge rice noodles, steam-pot chicken, and grilled or stuffed mushrooms. Yunnan shares ingredients and techniques with neighboring parts of Southeast Asia and the Himalayan region, making it a particularly diverse cultural cuisine rather than a single uniform local style.
Dishes linked to this cuisine
1–5 of 5
Dali sour-papaya fish
A Dali fish dish whose broth balances sour papaya and vinegar with tomato and pepper.
Jianshui toasted tofu
Small pieces of Jianshui fermented tofu grilled until yellow, crisp and lightly cracked outside.
Nuodeng ham with celtuce
Air-dried Nuodeng ham from Dali fried with crisp slices of celtuce.
Yunnan crossing-the-bridge rice noodles
A Yunnan rice-noodle meal assembled at the table by adding thinly sliced ingredients to a very hot chicken-and-pork broth.
Yunnan steam-pot chicken
Chicken gently cooked in Yunnan's distinctive earthenware steam pot with mushrooms and ginger, producing tender meat and a concentrated broth.
Catalogue preview Cuisine connections may be unreviewed. Regional comparisons include their food references and do not establish the ingredients of a particular meal.