I made this website because I couldn't find some Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) vegan recipes (such as in American Chinese restaurants) made with food "waste" (like nutritious banana peels) or foraged ingredients, and no plastic, palm oil, endangered species, or slavery.
How my 10 recipes on this site are different from my nine at VeganChineseFood.com (VCF)
As a board member of Food Empowerment Project (F.E.P.) from 2022 to 2024, I’d like to thank F.E.P. for the opportunity to create nine TCM recipes for their VCF website. It meant a lot to me to share vegan recipes that match F.E.P.'s mission to create a more compassionate society for animals. You can see my nine recipes (and recipes from other home chefs) in Simplified Chinese at VCF. My tenth recipe, red egg and ginger, is not at VCF.
Some Chinese people believe eight is a luck number. So I bet you $8 you haven’t seen some recipes on their site in English anywhere else. If I win this bet, please donate $8 or more to:
Please tell them Jessian Choy sent you!
See below for what couldn't fit in VCF and what I couldn't find in other recipe websites:
A vegan diet can still be consistent with TCM
That’s according to a vegan, registered Chinese medicine practitioner Vincent Lee Yu-ming who received his Ph.D. in Chinese medical science at the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine. Also, The China Study was a 20-year study that looked at mortality rates from cancer and other chronic diseases in 6,500 people in 65 counties in China. The authors concluded that people who eat a predominantly whole-food, vegan diet and reduce their refined carbohydrates will reduce or reverse the development of many diseases.
I would not do justice to a vegan Chinese food website if I didn’t talk about TCM. It took many hours for me to find vegan TCM recipes featuring dishes I hadn’t seen in Chinese restaurants in the USA.
TCM includes too many tips to list here. But I do have time to share that TCM suggests eating food grown during the same season with a temperature that’s helpful for your body. For example, eat food with higher temperatures in colder weather. For vegans, warming foods are recommended since vegan foods are often considered cooling, even if they’re served at a hot temperature. So you might consider eating leeks, onions, garlic, ginger, fennel, garlic chives, scallions, shallots, hot peppers, and cilantro. And if you feel cold, maybe avoid cooling foods (dairy, gluten, raw food) or cold-temperature foods.
TCM also suggests eating according to your phase in life, with a big emphasis on eating warming foods (different from warm temperature foods) before and during menstruation and especially the whole month after giving birth. People who give birth are often pressured by family to eat mostly only animals for at least 30 days after they give birth, called Sit for a Month. But a vegan diet can be safe for new parents. For example, a 2023 study showed milk from vegan people has enough vitamin B2 and carnitine. So I created a vegan TCM recipe for that time.
Studies and precautions for TCM ingredients
Unlike many TCM recipes I combed through, TCM recipes on this website list the latest studies and precautions for TCM ingredients.
Links to the history of Chinese veganism
Shaolin kung fu martial artists eat vegan. Most Mahayana Buddhists are vegans or vegetarians because of their compassion for animals. And some Chinese women still live in vegetarian houses to live outside the patriarchal and classist society, as they have done so since the 1600s. Some are secular and communally run and grow their food. These vegetarian halls provide women with food, lodging, and college education.
Food that I wish was at Chinese restaurants in the USA
Food in Chinese restaurants in the USA doesn’t fully represent the diversity of food of people of Chinese descent. I wish Chinese restaurants in the USA served food from more regions, such as Yunnan fresh jasmine flower stir-fried eggs. And I wish they served food based on TCM. TCM influences almost everything many Chinese people do whether or not they know it or not. And so I fell down rabbit holes to find all that and recipes for people that want to avoid gluten, soy, sugar, canola oil, MSG, and plastic.
How to avoid plants that are endangered, harvested, or processed with slavery
Recipes exclude ingredients in international treaties and in WildCheck’s dirty dozen list that go beyond other lists. I try to avoid wildcrafted ingredients (such as cordyceps fungus) because of overharvesting and sometimes deadly conditions for workers, licorice because of high rates of slavery where it’s grown in Iran and Turkmenistan, and black moss (which is banned from export from China because it contributes to desertification).
Chinese words and characters, which can help you source ingredients
Dishes and ingredients are spelled in English the way they’re pronounced in Mandarin, then if available, in the dialect of the region or people where dishes are from, followed by simplified (not traditional) Chinese characters (because that’s what mainland China uses), and Latin names. Also, instead of using non-Chinese words (e.g., adzuki bean, congee, jujube, mochi, tamale), I’d like to help preserve our language. In the same vein, I wish my people did not feel they have to give themselves English names that might be more convenient or familiar to others.
Easy-ish recipes with seasonal and more nutritious ingredients
For example, this website features:
Where to get possibly more affordable and plastic-free ingredients, some you can forage or find organic
Unlike Chinese and TCM recipes I collected over the years, this website lists where you can get ingredients without plastic packaging, such as foraging them in nature or at co-ops, natural foods, herb shops, or Asian grocers. You might be able to get ingredients below more affordably and without plastic packaging from bulk bins at places below. Also, it’s legal to put unpackaged food in your own containers at food providers, such as stores, restaurants, farmer’s markets, and food trucks (at least in California and Maine). Or if you can’t shop locally, if you order online, you can ask for used packaging like boxes and padding. Unless you like to wash plastic bags so they don’t get bugs, use washable containers.
If a product says it’s organic, ask for its certification.
If you need to speak Mandarin at a Chinese herb or grocery store with bulk bins, here’s what I found helpful to say before you put food in your containers, “To protect everyone's health and environment, I'd like to put your ingredients in my own container. Can you weigh it first now? (Wèile bǎohù dàjiā de jiànkāng hé huánbǎo, wǒ xiǎng bǎ nǐmen de shícái fàng zài wǒ zìjǐ de róngqì lǐ. Xiànzài kěyǐ xiān chēng yīxià ma 为了保护大家的健康和环保，我想把你们的食材放在我自己的容器里。现在可以先称一下吗)?”
I earn no money for listing plastic-free brands.
Where to get palm oil-free groceries
Though recipes on this site don’t call for food made with palm oil. But if you choose to use substitutes, here are more reasons and ways to avoid palm oil in food and skincare because it’s bad for your health, orangutans, and human rights.
Where to recycle plastic food packaging
If you can’t reuse your containers when buying ingredients, here’s where to recycle food packaging, such as plastic bags and shipping padding (bubble wrap, insulated boxes, freezer gel packs, styrofoam, etc.).
Why I photographed my recipes in repaired ceramics
Some of my dishes are photographed in repaired cups. If you've ever broken ceramics like plateware or planters, it's your lucky day! Ask me how to repair them by joining them together with gold seams. Kintsugi in Japanese means to repair with gold and meditate on appreciating the beauty of life's scars Gold-seamed ceramics were found in history from China, Vietnam, Korea, and Japan.
Why I talk about appetizing things like how to avoid toxic cookware
I use a cast iron wok (naturally non-stick). If you can, avoid other non-stick cookware because they can have toxic PFAS.
When cooking with herbs, such as ones in this recipe, try to use ceramic or clay (first choice), stainless steel, or glass cookware. Herbs can react to other cookware. Glazed and unglazed clay pots can have toxic heavy metals. The only ceramic cookware that Mamavation tested and found no toxic chemicals is Xtrema. If you can, avoid non-stick pots because they can have toxic PFAS.
If you need parchment paper, ones that have no toxic PFAS include If You Care.
How to sync Chinese holidays with your calendar to make your ancestors happy
I include names of Chinese holidays at the beginning of relevant recipes to remind people like me how to make my ancestors happy. There are so many holidays. And they’re in the lunar calendar. So dates change each year in the Gregorian solar calendar used outside some Asian countries like China. I can’t keep it all straight. So here’s how to sync Chinese holidays to your Google Calendar.
How to say you're vegan in Mandarin because it sounds too similar to "vegetarian"
Also, food providers sometimes assume vegans:
So always tell them all of the following:
Updated August 23, 2026
This content is not available for artificial intelligence (AI) or AI training.
All rights reserved. Copyright © Jessian Choy 2023-present
How my 10 recipes on this site are different from my nine at VeganChineseFood.com (VCF)
As a board member of Food Empowerment Project (F.E.P.) from 2022 to 2024, I’d like to thank F.E.P. for the opportunity to create nine TCM recipes for their VCF website. It meant a lot to me to share vegan recipes that match F.E.P.'s mission to create a more compassionate society for animals. You can see my nine recipes (and recipes from other home chefs) in Simplified Chinese at VCF. My tenth recipe, red egg and ginger, is not at VCF.
Some Chinese people believe eight is a luck number. So I bet you $8 you haven’t seen some recipes on their site in English anywhere else. If I win this bet, please donate $8 or more to:
- Support F.E.P.’s work to invite people to be vegan for the animals, fight for farm workers' rights and food access, and avoid avocados, bananas, chocolate, coffee, and tea from where child labor and sslavery are the most prevalent, and enjoy recipes by home chefs at VCF, VeganLaoFood.com, VeganFilipinoFood.com, VeganMexicanFood.com!
- Get an upcoming F.E.P. VCF recipe booklet printed by a union or worker-owned organization on vegan paper that's toxic chlorine-free, 100% post-consumer waste recycled with vegetable inks.
Please tell them Jessian Choy sent you!
See below for what couldn't fit in VCF and what I couldn't find in other recipe websites:
- Why food is the first medicine
- How to be a malnourished vegan: Joke! Vegan athletes and doctors, daily protein and omega amounts, sexy reasons to eat vegan
- You’re doing it wrong: soy edition (Studies: Hormone mythbusting. How it’s comparable to some animal protein, more sustainable. Healthier, cheaper ways to eat soy.)
- How a vegan diet can still be consistent with TCM
- Studies and precautions for TCM ingredients
- Links to the herstory of Chinese veganism
- Food that I wish was at Chinese restaurants in the USA
- How to avoid plants that are endangered, harvested, or processed with slavery
- Chinese words and characters that can help you source ingredients
- Easy-ish recipes with seasonal and more nutritious ingredients
- Where to get possibly more affordable and plastic-free ingredients, some you can forage or find organic
- Where to get palm oil-free groceries
- Where to recycle plastic food packaging
- Why I photographed my recipes in repaired ceramics
- Why I about talk appetizing things like how to avoid toxic PFAS when you cook
- How to sync Chinese holidays with your calendar to make your ancestors happy
- How to say you're vegan in Mandarin because it sounds too similar to "vegetarian"
A vegan diet can still be consistent with TCM
That’s according to a vegan, registered Chinese medicine practitioner Vincent Lee Yu-ming who received his Ph.D. in Chinese medical science at the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine. Also, The China Study was a 20-year study that looked at mortality rates from cancer and other chronic diseases in 6,500 people in 65 counties in China. The authors concluded that people who eat a predominantly whole-food, vegan diet and reduce their refined carbohydrates will reduce or reverse the development of many diseases.
I would not do justice to a vegan Chinese food website if I didn’t talk about TCM. It took many hours for me to find vegan TCM recipes featuring dishes I hadn’t seen in Chinese restaurants in the USA.
TCM includes too many tips to list here. But I do have time to share that TCM suggests eating food grown during the same season with a temperature that’s helpful for your body. For example, eat food with higher temperatures in colder weather. For vegans, warming foods are recommended since vegan foods are often considered cooling, even if they’re served at a hot temperature. So you might consider eating leeks, onions, garlic, ginger, fennel, garlic chives, scallions, shallots, hot peppers, and cilantro. And if you feel cold, maybe avoid cooling foods (dairy, gluten, raw food) or cold-temperature foods.
TCM also suggests eating according to your phase in life, with a big emphasis on eating warming foods (different from warm temperature foods) before and during menstruation and especially the whole month after giving birth. People who give birth are often pressured by family to eat mostly only animals for at least 30 days after they give birth, called Sit for a Month. But a vegan diet can be safe for new parents. For example, a 2023 study showed milk from vegan people has enough vitamin B2 and carnitine. So I created a vegan TCM recipe for that time.
Studies and precautions for TCM ingredients
Unlike many TCM recipes I combed through, TCM recipes on this website list the latest studies and precautions for TCM ingredients.
Links to the history of Chinese veganism
Shaolin kung fu martial artists eat vegan. Most Mahayana Buddhists are vegans or vegetarians because of their compassion for animals. And some Chinese women still live in vegetarian houses to live outside the patriarchal and classist society, as they have done so since the 1600s. Some are secular and communally run and grow their food. These vegetarian halls provide women with food, lodging, and college education.
Food that I wish was at Chinese restaurants in the USA
Food in Chinese restaurants in the USA doesn’t fully represent the diversity of food of people of Chinese descent. I wish Chinese restaurants in the USA served food from more regions, such as Yunnan fresh jasmine flower stir-fried eggs. And I wish they served food based on TCM. TCM influences almost everything many Chinese people do whether or not they know it or not. And so I fell down rabbit holes to find all that and recipes for people that want to avoid gluten, soy, sugar, canola oil, MSG, and plastic.
How to avoid plants that are endangered, harvested, or processed with slavery
Recipes exclude ingredients in international treaties and in WildCheck’s dirty dozen list that go beyond other lists. I try to avoid wildcrafted ingredients (such as cordyceps fungus) because of overharvesting and sometimes deadly conditions for workers, licorice because of high rates of slavery where it’s grown in Iran and Turkmenistan, and black moss (which is banned from export from China because it contributes to desertification).
Chinese words and characters, which can help you source ingredients
Dishes and ingredients are spelled in English the way they’re pronounced in Mandarin, then if available, in the dialect of the region or people where dishes are from, followed by simplified (not traditional) Chinese characters (because that’s what mainland China uses), and Latin names. Also, instead of using non-Chinese words (e.g., adzuki bean, congee, jujube, mochi, tamale), I’d like to help preserve our language. In the same vein, I wish my people did not feel they have to give themselves English names that might be more convenient or familiar to others.
Easy-ish recipes with seasonal and more nutritious ingredients
For example, this website features:
- Sugar-free monkfruit (a fruit grown in China) instead of other sweeteners. It’s safe for diabetics. The only plastic-free and organic monkfruit I could find is by SweetLeaf.
- Carbs like purple sweet potato noodles
- Fresh produce that’s in season, so snow pea sprouts in spring
- Minimally processed foods like beans, nuts, seeds, and seaweed
- Oil safe for medium to high heat, such as untoasted sesame oil (which is rich in polyunsaturated omega-6 fatty acids)
Where to get possibly more affordable and plastic-free ingredients, some you can forage or find organic
Unlike Chinese and TCM recipes I collected over the years, this website lists where you can get ingredients without plastic packaging, such as foraging them in nature or at co-ops, natural foods, herb shops, or Asian grocers. You might be able to get ingredients below more affordably and without plastic packaging from bulk bins at places below. Also, it’s legal to put unpackaged food in your own containers at food providers, such as stores, restaurants, farmer’s markets, and food trucks (at least in California and Maine). Or if you can’t shop locally, if you order online, you can ask for used packaging like boxes and padding. Unless you like to wash plastic bags so they don’t get bugs, use washable containers.
If a product says it’s organic, ask for its certification.
If you need to speak Mandarin at a Chinese herb or grocery store with bulk bins, here’s what I found helpful to say before you put food in your containers, “To protect everyone's health and environment, I'd like to put your ingredients in my own container. Can you weigh it first now? (Wèile bǎohù dàjiā de jiànkāng hé huánbǎo, wǒ xiǎng bǎ nǐmen de shícái fàng zài wǒ zìjǐ de róngqì lǐ. Xiànzài kěyǐ xiān chēng yīxià ma 为了保护大家的健康和环保，我想把你们的食材放在我自己的容器里。现在可以先称一下吗)?”
I earn no money for listing plastic-free brands.
Where to get palm oil-free groceries
Though recipes on this site don’t call for food made with palm oil. But if you choose to use substitutes, here are more reasons and ways to avoid palm oil in food and skincare because it’s bad for your health, orangutans, and human rights.
Where to recycle plastic food packaging
If you can’t reuse your containers when buying ingredients, here’s where to recycle food packaging, such as plastic bags and shipping padding (bubble wrap, insulated boxes, freezer gel packs, styrofoam, etc.).
Why I photographed my recipes in repaired ceramics
Some of my dishes are photographed in repaired cups. If you've ever broken ceramics like plateware or planters, it's your lucky day! Ask me how to repair them by joining them together with gold seams. Kintsugi in Japanese means to repair with gold and meditate on appreciating the beauty of life's scars Gold-seamed ceramics were found in history from China, Vietnam, Korea, and Japan.
Why I talk about appetizing things like how to avoid toxic cookware
I use a cast iron wok (naturally non-stick). If you can, avoid other non-stick cookware because they can have toxic PFAS.
When cooking with herbs, such as ones in this recipe, try to use ceramic or clay (first choice), stainless steel, or glass cookware. Herbs can react to other cookware. Glazed and unglazed clay pots can have toxic heavy metals. The only ceramic cookware that Mamavation tested and found no toxic chemicals is Xtrema. If you can, avoid non-stick pots because they can have toxic PFAS.
If you need parchment paper, ones that have no toxic PFAS include If You Care.
How to sync Chinese holidays with your calendar to make your ancestors happy
I include names of Chinese holidays at the beginning of relevant recipes to remind people like me how to make my ancestors happy. There are so many holidays. And they’re in the lunar calendar. So dates change each year in the Gregorian solar calendar used outside some Asian countries like China. I can’t keep it all straight. So here’s how to sync Chinese holidays to your Google Calendar.
How to say you're vegan in Mandarin because it sounds too similar to "vegetarian"
Also, food providers sometimes assume vegans:
- Are Buddhist and don’t eat alliums (chives, garlic, leeks, onions, and scallions)
- Eat eggs, dairy, or sea life.
So always tell them all of the following:
- "I am vegan (我是纯素食者 wǒ shì chún sùshí zhě)."
- "I eat only products of plant origin so I don't eat animals, sea life, dairy, eggs or honey (我只吃植物性产品，所以不吃动物、海洋生物、乳制品、鸡蛋或蜂蜜 Wǒ zhǐ chī zhíwù xìng chǎnpǐn, suǒyǐ bù chī dòngwù, hǎiyáng shēngwù, rǔ zhìpǐn, jīdàn huò fēngmì).
- "I’m not Buddhist so I eat chives, garlic, leeks, onions, and scallions ( 我不是佛教徒，所以我吃韭菜、大蒜、韭菜、洋葱和大葱 Wǒ bùshì fójiào tú, suǒyǐ wǒ chī jiǔcài, dàsuàn, jiǔcài, yángcōng hé dàcōng)." Or "I’m Buddhist or 'pure vegan' so I don’t eat chives, garlic, leeks, onions, and scallions (我是佛教徒或“纯素食主义者”所以我不吃细香葱、大蒜、韭葱、洋葱和大葱 Wǒ shì fójiào tú huò “chún sùshí zhǔyì zhě”) suǒyǐ wǒ bù chī xì xiāng cōng, dàsuàn, jiǔ cōng, yángcōng hé dàcōng)."
Updated August 23, 2026
This content is not available for artificial intelligence (AI) or AI training.
All rights reserved. Copyright © Jessian Choy 2023-present
