A guide to traditional Chinese New Year snacks and what they mean

Literally translating​​ to ‘oil corner’, yau kok, also known as kok zai, are traditional fried pastries typically enjoyed during the CNY holidays. These bite-sized morsels are made with a glutinous rice dough and contain fillings such as diced peanuts, sesame, and coconut. These pastries are folded into crescent shapes and finished with pleated edges, giving them the appearance of gold and silver ingots. That means, the more yau kok you eat during the festive period, the more money will come your way!

During Chinese New Year, most people typically nibble on roasted red watermelon seeds or black watermelon seeds as a savoury snack, but pumpkin seeds or sunflower seeds have also become popular alternatives. It’s generally believed that cracking into these seeds represents earning lots of money, so if you want to be rolling in the dough by the end of the year, you’d better get a crack on!

Translating to ‘smiling mouth dates’, siu hau jo are dough balls that look like faces with wide smiles. Made from glutinous rice dough and coated with white sesame seeds, these dough balls are fried over low heat until they expand, giving them their signature look. Unsurprisingly, these treats symbolise being jovial and cheerful, so chow down on these bites to smile your way through the year.

To the untrained palate, the idea of candied vegetables might be bizarre, but we promise these treats taste better than their names suggest. These old-school snacks are cooked in sugary water until tender, then they’re left to dry out before being generously dusted in icing sugar. But what do they mean? The long, uniform shape of candied winter melon represents a good start and end to the year. As for candied lotus root, its Cantonese name (lin ngau) is a homophone to ‘lin lin doe yau’, an auspicious saying which means to have everything in every year. Finally, candied lotus seeds (lin zi) sound like ‘lin sang gwai zi’, which means to have children one after another, and it’s usually said towards newlywed couples. 

It’s no surprise that candies and chocolates are eaten during Western holidays like Valentine’s Day and Easter, but did you know they're also symbolic during Chinese New Year? There aren’t strict rules on what sweets you should put in your candy box, but popular choices include Sugus, White Rabbit, chocolate coins, Ferrero Rochers, and lucky candies that look like mini lai sees. Regardless of what you choose, munching on candies and chocolates during CNY represents having a year that’s just as sweet.