Steamed Fish (蒸鱼)
Learn how to make this classic Cantonese seafood dish, a must-have for Chinese holidays and celebrations, yet perfect for easy weeknight meals!

Today, Daddy Lau will be teaching us his secret recipe and techniques for making the perfect steamed fish (蒸鱼).
What you'll be learning:
Steamed fish is not only a staple of my dad's "simple" dinners, but it's a required dish at traditional Chinese banquets, holidays, and celebrations (especially for Lunar New Year!)
In Chinese tradition, fish is intertwined with many sayings and superstitions of good fortune and abundance.
Even though my parents didn't have much meat growing up, this is one of the dishes my parents always ate on Lunar New Year's eve and other festivities.
Especially with auspicious foods, Chinese superstition involves a lot of creative word-play. The word for "fish", yùh 鱼 in Cantonese, sounds like the word for "surplus", yùh 余.
Just to name a few phrases that my parents shared with us:
more on this later - recipe works with most fish.
)Optional but recommended. Mince just a little bit. Rehydrate in water for 5 minutes before cutting.
)optional, minced to taste
)for garnish
)just a dash of pepper
)optional
)added at the end, to taste
)This recipe works with lots of different types of fish, and my parents elaborate on their favorites during meal time, and also how they buy fish in a separate video.
In general, you should try to buy fish that’s in season, since it will generally be fresher and cheaper. It’s also important to at least be aware of how we can support sustainable methods and sources of fish.
While it might not always be feasible to shop in this way, as consumers, an easy way to do our part is by making sure we vote with our wallets.
Monterey Bay Aquarium in California runs a free website called “Seafood Watch” which has a ton of recommendations on how to choose and purchase seafood in ways that have the least environmental impact.
This same exact recipe and technique works with fish fillets (subtract 2-4 minutes in the steamer, depending on the cut and the type of fish).
However, if you're making this in line with a traditional Chinese celebration, make sure you get a whole fish.
Especially for Lunar New Year, it's important that the fish is not missing anything. Having a complete fish on the dinner / prayer table is considered "yùhn méih 完美", which means perfect, consummate.
My parents will also pan fry a whole fish and place it on the table where we bai sun (pray). They talk about it more in the video, but it's also important that this fish has scales. This fish is traditionally prepared on Lunar New Year's eve, and meant to be eaten after the New Year.
This is one of the ingredients my dad always uses for fish to help combat some of the sometimes off-putting "fishy" taste.
Also known as "chenpi", this is a fragrant ingredient in Chinese cooking and medicine, believed to regulate our chi.
My dad uses these for a lot of dishes outside of steamed spare ribs - soups, steamed fish, medicines, and etc. He has a huge stockpile that he's been building for over 15 years.
According to my dad, the district of Xinhui in China makes the best damn peels the world has ever seen. This is their biggest export and a large economic driver for the famous district.
If you like eating mandarin oranges, you can just save the peels and leave them outside to dry in the sun for 2-3 days. They should snap in half pretty easily when dry. Store them in a bag in cool, dry place.
For ground bean sauce, it might get confusing since there are a few different types of Asian bean sauces out there.
In Cantonese, we call it “mihn sih jeung 面豉酱” or "mòh yùhn sih 磨原豉", but most brands call it “Ground Bean Sauce” in English.
This sauce is made with ground up fermented yellow soybeans, and is packed with umami flavors.
Some of these ingredients are hard to find in a typical grocery store.
If you don't live near an Asian market, most or all of what my dad uses in this recipe can be found on Amazon:
I've also included some other Chinese kitchen essentials, used in many of my dad's other recipes.
These links are affiliate links, which means that if you use our links to purchase these ingredients, Amazon pays my family a small amount for the sale - at no extra cost to you. If you use these links, we really appreciate the support!
If you're vegetarian or need to stay away from gluten, we have three alternatives for you!
Vegetarian Oyster Sauce
Since oyster sauce is made out of oyster extract, here are some alternatives that have a similar taste without using the actual oyster:
Gluten Free Oyster Sauce
Wok Mei has a gluten-free oyster sauce, but it still contains oyster extract, so it's not vegetarian friendly.
Vegetarian + Gluten Free Oyster Sauce
Unfortunately, we don't know of a vendor that sells an oyster sauce that caters to both dietary restrictions, so you'll need to DIY the sauce.
Mix equal parts gluten free soy sauce and gluten free hoisin sauce. This isn't exactly the same as oyster sauce, but it's pretty close.
You'll need a good wok, which provides a ton of versatility for the classic Chinese cooking methods: steaming, stir frying, deep frying, and etc.
You'll need a steamer rack to steam your spare ribs in the wok. These are generally inexpensive, ranging from $2-6.
You might want a food scale. It's not absolutely necessary for this recipe, but helpful if you want to get your proportions right.
In our video, I mentioned that we have an industrial grade infrared thermometer. Ken, my soon-to-be brother-in-law, also an engineer, got one for me for Christmas because he kept watching me ask my dad how hot his wok gets. Thanks Ken!
If you want to nerd out like us, here's a link to get your own: https://amzn.to/3bSkebB
While we mainly focused on fish preparation in our video, it goes without saying that you should wash your green onions, cilantro before using them.
Aside from fish prep, here's what you will likely need to do:
Generally speaking, when you buy fish from the market, most of the gutting and de-scaling has already been done for you (or someone can do it for you before you check out.)
My dad still prefers to do some additional prep work:
If you do need to remove the fish scales on your own, my dad showed us 3 methods:
Traditionally, aside from the fish, the core ingredients are ginger (0.50 oz) and green onion (3 pieces).
For the ginger, we'll be cutting them into slices, strips, and then mincing them into small bits.
For the green onions, we'll be cutting the shoots into little circles (for the sauce), and we'll be cutting the stems into little strips (see video) for the garnish.
We'll also be mincing small amounts of our rehydrated mandarin orange peel ()and dried chili pepper ().
We'll be using cilantro but we don't need to do anything to it.
To a bowl, we'll add our minced ginger and chopped green onion shoots (not the stems), and:
We'll mix it for 20-30 seconds.
We'll need a few items to steam:
Before we start steaming, we'll need to:
The water needs to be boiling before we start steaming.
Note: many other recipes involve sticking ginger and other things in the fish cavity before steaming. This is effectively the same thing but with more flavor.
Once the water is boiling, carefully transfer the plate of fish on top of the steamer rack, and cover the wok.
You may need to do some trial and error, but on my dad's setup at home, he's steaming this tilapia (1 lb) for about 12 minutes + 1 minute for extra sanitation.
Some notes on timing and cues:
My dad said there's no magic formula for timing based on weight (watch the video - he laughed at me when I asked lol), but 12 minutes is a good starting point. You can adjust up and down by 60 seconds depending on the size and type of fish.
If it's overcooked, the meat will be too tough. The skin may also break.
If it's undercooked, then there will be blood / red juices in the meat (which my dad said some people prefer, actually.) In this case, you can still steam it again for another 1-3 minutes, or cover it and zap it in the microwave.
For heat transfer, the main variable is how much water you're steaming with and how big your steaming vessel is.
We'll start heating corn oil (2 tbsp) in a pan until it's shimmering (ripples should start forming across the surface).
Carefully remove the plate from the wok, and add the green onion strips along the top of the fish.
Once the oil is hot enough, pour it onto the fish. You should hear a nice sizzle.
Then add the cilantro (3 pieces), and some sesame oil () to taste.
Removing the bones from a fish is one of my dad's skills that I've always wanted to document. He always does it so gracefully, and especially for big feasts, you can always make out a subtle, proud grin on his face as he removes the bones and serves his guests.
This is more clear and narrated in the video, and it varies slightly from fish to fish. But in essence, you'll:
There will still be some stray bones, so just remind yourself and your guests to eat carefully. (My mom accidentally swallowed a fish bone as a kid, and had to slowly drink vinegar for hours to dissolve it.)
more on this later - recipe works with most fish.
)Optional but recommended. Mince just a little bit. Rehydrate in water for 5 minutes before cutting.
)optional, minced to taste
)for garnish
)just a dash of pepper
)optional
)added at the end, to taste
)Aside from fish prep, here's what you will likely need to do:
Generally speaking, when you buy fish from the market, most of the gutting and de-scaling has already been done for you (or someone can do it for you before you check out.)
My dad still prefers to do some additional prep work:
If you do need to remove the fish scales on your own, my dad showed us 3 methods:
Traditionally, aside from the fish, the core ingredients are ginger (0.50 oz) and green onion (3 pieces).
For the ginger, we'll be cutting them into slices, strips, and then mincing them into small bits.
For the green onions, we'll be cutting the shoots into little circles (for the sauce), and we'll be cutting the stems into little strips (see video) for the garnish.
We'll also be mincing small amounts of our rehydrated mandarin orange peel ()and dried chili pepper ().
We'll be using cilantro but we don't need to do anything to it.
To a bowl, we'll add our minced ginger and chopped green onion shoots (not the stems), and:
We'll mix it for 20-30 seconds.
We'll need a few items to steam:
Before we start steaming, we'll need to:
The water needs to be boiling before we start steaming.
Note: Many other recipes involve sticking ginger and other things in the fish cavity before steaming. This is effectively the same thing but with more flavor.
Once the water is boiling, carefully transfer the plate of fish on top of the steamer rack, and cover the wok.
You may need to do some trial and error, but on my dad's setup at home, he's steaming this tilapia (1 lb) for about 12 minutes + 1 minute for extra sanitation.
Some notes on timing and cues:
My dad said there's no magic formula for timing based on weight (watch the video - he laughed at me when I asked lol), but 12 minutes is a good starting point. You can adjust up and down by 60 seconds depending on the size and type of fish.
If it's overcooked, the meat will be too tough. The skin may also break.
If it's undercooked, then there will be blood / red juices in the meat (which my dad said some people prefer, actually.) In this case, you can still steam it again for another 1-3 minutes, or cover it and zap it in the microwave.
For heat transfer, the main variable is how much water you're steaming with and how big your steaming vessel is.
We'll start heating corn oil (2 tbsp) in a pan until it's shimmering (ripples should start forming across the surface).
Carefully remove the plate from the wok, and add the green onion strips along the top of the fish.
Once the oil is hot enough, pour it onto the fish. You should hear a nice sizzle.
Then add the cilantro (3 pieces), and some sesame oil () to taste.
Removing the bones from a fish is one of my dad's skills that I've always wanted to document. He always does it so gracefully, and especially for big feasts, you can always make out a subtle, proud grin on his face as he removes the bones and serves his guests.
This is more clear and narrated in the video, and it varies slightly from fish to fish. But in essence, you'll:
There will still be some stray bones, so just remind yourself and your guests to eat carefully. (My mom accidentally swallowed a fish bone as a kid, and had to slowly drink vinegar for hours to dissolve it.)
I have so many memories eating this with my family, especially during all of our epic holiday feasts and Chinese banquets.
Now, hopefully, you can create your own memories with this tradition with your loved ones.
Also, I cordially invite you to eat with us and learn more about the dish, Chinese culture, and hang out with our adorable son. We get into a lot of detail about Chinese symbolism and superstitions, and what life was like for my parents growing up in China.
Cheers, and thanks for cooking with us!
Feel free to comment below if you have any questions about the recipe.
We started Made With Lau to honor and share the legacy of our wonderful parents, Jenny and Chung Sun Lau.
Our hope is that these posts give you (and our future generations) a glimpse into how great they are!