How to Cook a Chinese Meal with Just One Wok!

This is one of the questions that we see at The Woks of Life most often—especially around this time, with Chinese New Year and more family gatherings on the horizon.

Cooking one dish in a wok might seem daunting, let alone 2, 3, or 5 dishes. Not only can weeknight cooking be stressful, the pressure ratchets up even more when preparing dinner for a special occasion.

A couple months ago, we published an article on How to Plan a Chinese Meal, which included guidance on creating a balanced and varied menu, determining the number of dishes for your group size, setting the table, and drink pairings. If you read it and thought, “but how do I actually get the meal on the table?” then this part 2 article is for you! 

In this guide, you’ll find our expert tips on how to cook a Chinese meal with just one wok and stove. With these tips in hand, you’ll become a pro at sequencing and pacing your dishes in the wok, preparing ingredients, maximizing your stove, and making your next Chinese meal a success! 

Maximize Your Stove: Start by Identifying Dishes that Don’t Require a Wok

Generally, there’s only one wok in a home kitchen, rather than a small army of wok chefs. Even at our house, we take turns at the big wok when we all pitch in to make dinner. 

If you were to try cooking every single dish in that wok for a large dinner, you’d end up with some dishes getting cold, some lukewarm—and likely only one or two still hot. 

The wok is one of the most versatile kitchen tools out there, and while you can get great results with one across many dishes, the key to a successful multi-dish Chinese spread is realizing it’s not always necessary to use it. This is especially true when you’re preparing a number of dishes that DO require a wok.

We suggest limiting your wok dishes (i.e. stir-fries, fried rice, stir-fried noodles) to just two or three and adding other types of dishes to the menu that you can have cooking on the stove at the same time. 

Here are some other ways to make full use of your kitchen so you can (wo)man the wok in peace! 

How to Cook A Chinese meal without overworking your wok:

• Steamed dishes add variety to your meal and also free up wok space. If steaming lots of items, (e.g. dumplings, mantou, eggs, fish, chicken, pork), you may want to invest in a metal steaming pot or a steamer ring that allows you to set a bamboo steamer on virtually any pan, like Jon Kung demonstrates here. If you’re new to steaming, we have an entire guide to setting up a steamer 3 different ways. Virtually anything can be steamed (see our collection of Steamed Recipes), so it’s a good idea to spread the load around your stove and cook a steamed recipe or two, like my dad’s Steamed Garlic Ribs with Taro or my Hunan Steamed Tofu with Mushrooms & Chilies.  

As you can see, there are many Chinese dishes you can make without a wok! You can be judicious about what you WILL use your wok for, like a seafood stir-fry, longevity noodles, or a batch of leafy greens with garlic, oil, and salt. 

Serving Temperatures

And now, to the question of how to cook a Chinese meal while getting everything to the table at the same time, and at the proper serving temperature. 

First, determine what doesn’t have to be piping hot.

Last year, we made more dishes for our Lunar New Year’s Eve dinner than ever before (FIFTEEN, to be exact). At the time, I took to Instagram to inform you all that not everything would be hot when we sat down to eat. Say it with us folks—That’s! Oh-Kay!

Most things were served hot, because we were able to make use of the rest of our stove real estate, but some dishes were warm, and some were actually ideal served at room temperature. 

Dishes that are perfectly delicious served warm, room temperature, or even chilled include our Chinese Spiced Braised Beef Shank, Chinese Drunken Chicken, Braised Wheat Gluten (Hongshao Kaofu), or a Cantonese Poached Chicken with Ginger Scallion Oil!

You can prepare these dishes ahead of time, or at least at the beginning of your preparations, Then you can concentrate on your wok dishes closer to dinnertime. 

Cook in parallel to what’s going on in the wok:

• Soups should be simmering on the stove just until you’re ready to serve. Some soups can be made in advance, reheated, and thickened if needed (as in egg drop soup or hot and sour soup) before hitting the table. In the case of soups with final additions like egg drop, watercress, or other vegetables, you can make the stock / soup base and then finish it off the next day.
• Cook braises and stews in advance in the wok (or separate pot), then reheat in a pot just before dinner.
• Steam seafood, like fish or shrimp quickly in a metal steamer pot while the last dishes come together. 
• Time oven-roasted dishes so that they’re cooked, rested, and carved at about the same time as dinner.
• Frying something? Serve those deep-fried goodies before the meal as an appetizer, or have a trusted helper deep-fry items in a small pot while you’re at the wok. 
• Make anything that doesn’t require cooking (like cold dishes or salads) in advance. If you must serve it immediately after assembling, make the components in advance. Then quickly toss everything together at the last minute, just as you would with a regular salad. 

Choose a target serving time, and work backwards from there to put all your dishes on a parallel schedule. After doing that, you’ll see the importance of identifying dishes that don’t require a wok! Which brings us to our next topic: wok sequencing!

Wok Sequencing 

Cooking wok dishes in the proper order is something the four of us have learned over many years. It’s honestly something that you pick up with trial and error, and by following your own preferences. We’ve distilled some of our better shortcuts and basic principles:

Your favorite dish should be cooked last! This is a rule of thumb that I personally use. Naturally, the thing that you’re most looking forward to should be served the hottest and freshest from the wok. You could also substitute “favorite dish” for “centerpiece dish.” Whatever you want people to ooh and ahh over is the one that should hit the table piping hot! 

That’s a decidedly inexact way of going about things, though, so here are the more specific guidelines: 

1. Identify components of dishes that can be done in the wok ahead of time (pre-frying, presteaming, blanching, etc.) 
2. Sturdy foods that hold up well or foods that take longer are cooked first or early on. 
3. Delicate foods (like fish, delicate vegetables, etc.), foods that cook exceptionally quickly, or those that don’t hold up well the longer they sit are cooked later or last. 

Let us elaborate: 

Get your partial cooking out of the way first.

Recipes sometimes require foods to be deep-fried first before heading into the final dish.

There are also instances where something needs to be blanched or pre-steamed. Perhaps your lo mein noodles can be boiled, tossed in oil, and set aside before stir-frying. This is sometimes most conveniently done in the wok, and should be done early as part of your prep.  

Cook sturdy vegetable dishes earlier. By sturdy vegetables, we’re talking potatoes, squash, okra, lotus root, carrots, etc.—anything that won’t wilt or turn lackluster the longer it sits. 

Cook sturdy stir fries (meats and tofu) first or early on. These are dishes that are going to hold up well to sitting on the table for 10 or so minutes while other dishes come together. 

Fried Rice or Noodles happen in the middle of your wok sequence. The “favorite dish” rule of thumb can supersede this, but generally it’s a good idea to have something like fried rice or noodle stir-fries be warm to hot when served. 

Cook delicate vegetables second to last, or if there’s no seafood, last. Leafy greens hot from the wok taste radically different from leafy greens that are cold and wilted. They also cook really fast—in a matter of a few minutes—so these are usually last last or second to last. 

Cook seafood dishes last. As in any cuisine, seafood cooks quickly and is best fresh. So in most cases, you’ll want to bring seafood dishes to the table right when people are ready to sit down and eat. That said, in our Ginger Scallion Lobster recipe, you shallow-fry the lobster pieces in the wok before completing the dish, giving you some wiggle room. When it comes to something like a seafood stir-fry or fish stir-fry, however, cook it last. 

There are obviously exceptions to this rule. For example, our Chinese Boiled Shrimp with Ginger Scallion Dipping Sauce is delicious hot, warm, room temperature, or chilled. Judy’s Shanghai Shrimp Stir-Fry (You Bao Xia) is delicious warm or at room temperature. At our grandma’s house, we often enjoy Red Braised Fish (Hong Shao Yu) warm, and it’s still delicious. 

All that said, your seafood should already be ready and waiting to cook. So before you start cooking your last couple of stir-fries, the fish can go into the steamer or the shrimp can go into the pot of boiling water. Serve them hot when the last dish comes out of the wok. 

Cook egg dishes later or last. Eggs are similar to seafood. You want to eat them hot. (Particularly if you have the double whammy of seafood and eggs, as in our Cantonese Shrimp and Eggs.)

Mise En Place & The Importance of Preparation

We can’t overstate the importance of prepping your ingredients when it comes to learning how to cook a Chinese meal. Since we measure wok cooking steps in seconds and minutes rather than hours, you could argue the real “cooking” part is all in the prep.

Mise en place is a French culinary term meaning “everything in its place.” It refers to the practice of organizing and preparing ingredients and equipment before cooking begins. This methodical setup ensures efficient workflow in the kitchen, with ingredients measured, chopped, and arranged in easily accessible containers.

As it happens, mise en place is also incredibly important to Chinese cooking. If you’ve been cooking with us a for a while (we know many of you have!), you’ll remember that when cooking a Chinese meal, you should have all your ingredients washed, chopped/sliced, and ready to go before you ever turn on the stove. This shortens the time it takes to wok-fry those last remaining dishes. It ensures they’re still hot by the time everyone sits down. 

At Chinese New Year at our house, you’ll see lines of plates, all with little piles of prepared vegetables, chopped garlic, sliced ginger, marinated meats, and bowls of sauces and seasoning mixtures, ready to go into the wok in quick succession.  

How to prep sauces 

Many stir-fries involve quite a few sauce and seasoning ingredients—soy sauce, oyster sauce, white pepper, sesame oil, etc. Measuring them and mixing them in advance is a huge time saver, and will make cooking a less harried experience. You could even mix your sauces a few days in advance (as long as they contain only shelf-stable, non-perishable ingredients) and store them in jars. 

Just be sure to stir any sauce mixtures containing cornstarch as a thickener right before using, as the cornstarch will settle. 

How to prep vegetables for the wok

Most vegetables and aromatics like ginger, garlic, and scallions can be washed and then sliced, diced, chopped, or otherwise prepared hours in advance. That said, avoid pre-cutting any vegetables that are prone to oxidization (like potatoes, lotus roots, eggplant, or certain mushrooms), saving these for later in the process. Or if you do want to cut them in advance, submerge them in a bowl of cold water. Rehydrated mushrooms can also be stored this way. 

Leafy greens can take a while to wash, so doing so in advance is a good idea. If you’re washing greens a day in advance, run them through a salad spinner before storing them in the refrigerator. Washed greens can rot quickly even in the fridge. 

How to prep meats for the wok

You can marinate and velvet meat usually a day in advance (not much longer than that). Seafood should generally be as fresh as possible; prepare it on the day you serve it.

If you’re 2 hours or longer away from cooking, keep marinated proteins in the refrigerator. Otherwise, you can keep them at room temperature.

Conversely, don’t panic if it feels like you’re marinating your proteins last minute. Most of our recipes call for a minimum 15-minute marinating time. The fact that you’re usually cutting the meat or seafood into small pieces means that the marinating time is dramatically shorter than with a large cut of meat.

Wok Tips for Success

Now let’s zoom in on the wok itself. Here are a few tips to ensure the dishes you’re juggling each turn out fantastic. 

1. Properly preheat your wok. If you properly preheat your wok before adding oil and other ingredients, you’ll avoid timely mistakes. (Like food sticking to an improperly heated wok surface.) So that’s number one. Once the wok is just smoking, you’re ready to add oil and ingredients. No wonder there’s a Chinese saying that goes, “hot wok, cold oil!”

1. Manage your heat well. The hotter your wok, the quicker your food will cook. Don’t rush things or accidentally burn your food. But pay attention to heat regulation at each step so the cooking process doesn’t take longer than it should.
2. Move with intention and efficiency! Cooking with a wok is a more physical endeavor than letting a pot bubble away unattended on the stove. Usually, you don’t want to stray away from it at all during cooking. Be mindful to add ingredients in the right order, at the right pace. Imagine yourself to be a professional chef, and try to minimize unnecessary steps and actions. Economy of movement and kitchen efficiency allow you to stay focused and cook food faster. Briefly visualize the steps before turning on the stove, and work smoothly, without wasted motion. Clean as you go during prep so you don’t have a cluttered kitchen while cooking. All you should be left with is a beautiful plate of food and some prep dishes that can go straight into the dishwasher. We know we’re not all professional chefs, so just do your best and challenge yourself within reason. With each meal, you’ll improve your skills! 
3. Scrub your wok with hot water between dishes. Annoying, yes, but the results will get worse and worse from one dish to the next if you don’t. All you need is a scouring pad and a steady stream of hot water to clean the wok between dishes. Then you put the wok back on the stove, reheat it until it just starts to smoke, and keep cooking!

This is overwhelming!

We get it. We’re not suggesting you start your Chinese cooking journey with a fifteen-dish Lunar New Year dinner. 

Instead, start with one dish. Prepare your mise en place, and see how efficiently and smoothly you can get it to the table. Then try making two: maybe a meat stir-fry and a vegetable side, or perhaps a cold appetizer and a main. Work your way up to three dishes. 

If you’re making a larger meal than that, share the load! Assign dishes to different people in your family, so that they can improve their cooking skills too. 

Or, if you’re looking to serve a Chinese spread with less work, try a hot pot dinner! Your guests will cook their own meal!

We hope this guide on how to cook a family-style Chinese meal has been helpful. Hopefully we’ve given you insight into how Chinese chefs and home cooks do it!

If you ever find yourself losing your nerve, remember that advanced planning is key. If you have specific questions about a meal you’re planning, drop us a line in the comments!