Chinese New Year or also known as the Lunar New Year is the time when families and friends gather to rejoice together. It is very important to note that the multi-day celebration focuses on eating delicious food that symbolizes certain blessings for the upcoming year. Each family bakes differentCNY goodies, however, there are some that really symbolizes and relates to the spirit of the Spring Festival. Here lists 10 snacks that people must eat while celebrating the Lunar New Year.

1. Mandarin Oranges

The CNY cannot be complete without this bright-colored fruit that symbolize prosperity and good luck – mandarin orange. Place a tower of seedless mandarin oranges on the dining table, or even using the oranges as centrepieces to bring in the luck. This is a Cantonese vice where the pronunciation of the word for orange sounds almost like the word for ‘wealth’. So to begin with right luck for the rest of the year, let’s start by biting into the lucky oranges which are sweet as honey.

2. Pineapple Tarts

The buttery pineapple tarts surrounded in the crumbly tender pastry is extremely famous during CNY celebrations. The pineapple symbolises good luck since the Cantonese phrase for ‘pineapple’ means ‘coming of good things.’ Take a bite on the lucky sweet tarts and expect a bountiful of harvest in a year. Prepare a spread where there are the staple pineapple tarts where the pineapple is placed on top of the pastry base, pineapple shapes into pineapples, ingots or flowers.

3. Bak Kwa (Barbecued Pork)

The scrumptiously smelling sweet and salty barbecued tender pork jerky is a CNY staple. A popular snack famously known as the king of jerkies, bak kwa is pretty popular, primarily because of it’s sweet and smoky flavor profile. It is best when savoured on its own, but lovely when served alongside pineapples, seasonal fruits or ornian crackers. Bak kwa is appropriate for a gift as well since pork and meat signifies wealth in Chinese culture.

4. Chinese Sausages

Make a trip to your Chinese grocery store to pick up items such as lap cheong and/of liver sausages — add a salty, savory dimension to the snacking table. For Christmas and New Year, these representative sausages also symbolise a desire for prosperity and a happy year ahead. They can be used in hot pot, clay pot rice, fried rice or even just plain congee. Buy only sausage from known manufacturers as Lee Kum Kee that complies to our demand of quality ingredients for our specialty, Cantonese recipes.

5. Cashews and Other Nuts

Those who are addicted to snacks usually have the crunchy peanuts, cashews, almonds and walnuts coated with five spices or sugar during CNY. They are called this way to mean fertility and many children, the word ‘zhai’ sounds similar to ‘birth’ when translated from various Chinese dialects. Roasted and seasoned nuts as it represents prosperous for the coming Lunar year. It is stored beautifully in cute serving dishes to put all over your house to serve your guests.

6. Niangao (Sticky Rice Cake)

Niangao rice cake is chewy and sticky and is consumed all year round but particularly during CNY to symbolize better things or improvement year after year. Steamed or fried buns enclosing red bean paste that’s preferred during occasions symbolizing good luck. The held over Cantonese fried niangao with custard or yam paste filling is definitely Dek’s choice. Eat this slightly sweet, carby cake and deny yourself implicit wishes that your dreams will come true one day!

7. Chinese Candy Boxes

Welcome the New Year in style by giving your Chinese candy boxes containing the Chinese New Year treats such as the White Rabbit sweets, orange slices, dried prunes, ginger and sesame candy. They make lovely packed CNY gifts. Such treat boxes are also attractive to children as these have foods which indicate everything will be well and happy for the new year. Members of the family are therefore conveyed through candy boxes since togetherness is the base of CNY.

8. Melon Seeds

Savoury spiced crunchy melon seeds are popular munching delights during CNY reunion dinners. The meaning of the seeds of watermelon is ‘Birth of sons’ which relates to wishes for progeny hence fertility as well. The occasional bursts of flavors and nutrients contribute to the celebration process and personalities. Use melon seeds as a snack alone, along with nuts, candies and tidbits put into artistic candy boxes.

9. CNY Biscuits and Cookies

Celebrate the coming of the Spring Festival and share batches of homemade CNY cookies including pineapple balls, almond cookies, cassava cookies and many more. In its goût naturel version the shortbread cookies crumble lightly when biting and can be eaten with Chinese tea or coffee. Other convenience store Chinese New Year snacks include factory-made festive cookies such as pineappled sandwich cookies and red wrappers. They are pleasantly suited to be given as gifts to relatives, neighbors and friends in order to increase the exposures to CNY delights.

10. Chinese Tea

A perfect way to spend CNY is with steaming mugs of delicious Chinese tea and as I said let the aroma of tea warm your home this season too. Premium Chinese teas like longjing dragon well green tea, tie guan yin oolong tea, pu erh tea and chrysanthemum flower tea symbolize the ideas of purity, harmony and good luck. Savor the aroma of flower or roasted of the great Chinese tea. Crushed chrysanthemum flowers are other dreamy additions that are popular with magicians and symbolize eternal youth. Have choice teas available for last minute tea parties to the visiting relatives and friends all through the Spring Festival.

In Conclusion

Traditional Chinese New Year is about adding your house and mouth with varieties of CNY snacks to welcome the Lunar New Year with good luck or an auspicious one. It is ideal that this list of ten blissful CNY goodies including oranges, pineapple tarts, nuts and more should help to encourage auspicious wishes during the entire period of celebration with families and friends. Keep your pantry filled with tasty Chinese biscuits and snacks now and bring happiness and a generation’s worth of heritage to your festive season.

This article discusses ten famous traditional CNY snacks, including sweet and salty snacks, with their significance to CNY and how they make CNY food and gifts more festive. It ends with 1200 words to be a complete reference source on essential Chinese New Year Delicacies/edibles that symbolize the desired blessings of each and every household during the especial- festive Spring season.