Food forms a very important part of Chinese culture. We have real passion for eating and cooking. Authentic Chinese food goes way beyond chow mein, spring rolls and dumplings. In this blog post, I would like to share with you some of the trendy YouTube Channels for Chinese cooking. In this way, without leaving your house, you may be able to try out some of the most popular and authentic Chinese dishes, and from the language learning perspective, these youtube videos, recorded in Mandarin with English subtitles, can be a great learning resource.
李子柒 Liziqi （11.3M subscribers）
This channel is about food as well as the idealised and poetic Chinese countryside lifestyle. Li Ziqi and her team have a deep understanding of food, nature and traditional Chinese handicrafts. It is absolutely therapeutic to watch her cooking from scratch. Mapo Tofu for example, she starts by showing us how to turn fresh soybeans into Tofu!
小高姐的 Magic Ingredients （1.81M subscribers）
Xiao Gao Jie has never told us what she does for a job in real life. But I assume she could be a scientist. Illustrated in a calm and soothing voice with Beijing accent, her recipes are very precise and reliable. She shares with us her secret tips from many years of experience and experiments. Northern wheaten food is her speciality. If you want to learn how to make dumplings from scratch, this channel has got some very helpful clips.
美食作家王刚 （1.49M subscribers)
Wang Gang is a very experienced Sichuan Cuisine chef with amazing skills and techniques. At the end of each video, he would always give us a useful summary of the tips to take away. His videos resemble the authentic learning experience at the local culinary schools. He always reminds me of my old time cookery teacher in Chengdu : )
曼食慢语 Amanda Tastes (1.2M subscribers)
The UK based Amanda, like many overseas Chinese, lives a cosmopolitan lifestyle, which is reflected in the variety of cuisines she makes. Her playlists go far beyond Chinese food; we can also find videos on European food, Japanese food, bakery and ect. What I enjoy most is her Chinese New Year’s Eve Dinner series.
老饭骨（448K subscribers）
Compared to the aforementioned channels, this one has not yet reached the one million subscribers milestone as it is still quite new. This channel was started by two retirees, Zheng Xiusheng and Sun Lixin, who used to cook for state banquets and their recipes are really intriguing to me. Their speciality is Northern cuisine.
