Vegetarian and Vegan Travel in China

China is simultaneously one of the easiest and one of the most frustrating countries in the world to be vegetarian in.

Easy, because it has a genuine Buddhist vegetarian tradition going back over a millennium, a vast repertoire of vegetable and tofu dishes, and temple restaurants that do this seriously.

Frustrating, because in ordinary everyday cooking the concept does not map onto the Western one. A dish of stir-fried greens may be cooked in lard. A vegetable soup is very often chicken stock. A plate of tofu may arrive with minced pork through it, and the cook will not consider that a meat dish, because the pork is a seasoning rather than the point.

The gap is not about willingness. It is about a different set of assumptions about what counts.

The words

Getting these right is most of the battle.

素 (sù) — vegetarian. The general term. A restaurant advertising 素食 (sùshí) is a vegetarian restaurant.

全素 (quán sù) — completely vegetarian. Stronger, and closer to vegan in practice. Use this rather than 素 alone.

斋 (zhāi) — Buddhist vegetarian. Implies no meat, no fish, no eggs, no dairy, and traditionally no alliums either — no garlic, onion, leek, chives or asafoetida. This is the strictest version and the one temple kitchens follow. If you say 斋, expect no garlic.

我吃素 (wǒ chī sù) — "I eat vegetarian." The basic declaration.

我不吃肉 (wǒ bù chī ròu) — "I don't eat meat." Necessary, and not sufficient, because 肉 is often understood to mean pork specifically.

The phrase that actually works:

我吃全素。不要肉、不要鸡、不要鱼、不要海鲜、不要鸡蛋、不要高汤、不要猪油、不要蚝油。

I eat completely vegetarian. No meat, no chicken, no fish, no seafood, no eggs, no stock, no lard, no oyster sauce.

Screenshot it. Show it rather than saying it. Listing the categories individually is not pedantry — it is the only way to close the gaps, because each one is a separate assumption.

The phrases guide has cards for this and the eating guide covers how to raise it with a server.

The four hidden ingredients

In rough order of how often they catch people out.

1. Stock (高汤 gāotāng). Chicken or pork stock is the default liquid in a very large share of Chinese cooking — soups, braises, noodle broths, and often the sauce on a vegetable stir-fry. A "vegetable noodle soup" is usually meat broth with vegetables in it.

2. Lard (猪油 zhūyóu). Still used for frying in many regional cuisines, particularly in the south and in older establishments. A plate of stir-fried greens is not automatically vegetarian.

3. Oyster sauce (蚝油 háoyóu). In an enormous number of vegetable dishes, especially Cantonese. Almost nobody thinks of it as an animal product.

4. Small quantities of meat as seasoning. Minced pork through tofu, ham in a vegetable braise, dried shrimp in a sauce, lardons in a green vegetable. This is the category that produces the most confusion, because the cook genuinely does not think of the dish as containing meat.

For vegans, add: eggs, which appear in unexpected places, and milk, which is rare in traditional cooking but common in modern café food and new-style tea drinks.

Where to eat well

Buddhist temple restaurants

The best vegetarian food in China, and it is not close.

Major Buddhist temples run restaurants — 素斋馆 — serving the temple tradition, often including elaborate mock-meat dishes made from wheat gluten, tofu skin and mushrooms. This is a serious cuisine with a long history and it is worth seeking out even if you eat meat.

Where: Wenshu Monastery in Chengdu has an excellent and very cheap canteen. Lingyin Temple in Hangzhou, Jade Buddha Temple in Shanghai, Yonghe Temple and other Beijing temples, Nanputuo in Xiamen. Most large temples have something.

These are 斋 kitchens — no alliums, and reliably no hidden stock. The safest food in China for a strict vegetarian.

Dedicated vegetarian restaurants

Every major city has them, and the scene has grown substantially. Search Dianping for 素食 or 纯素 (chún sù, vegan) — see the Chinese apps guide for how to search effectively.

Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Guangzhou and Shenzhen all have good modern vegetarian and vegan restaurants. Smaller cities have temple canteens rather than restaurants.

Muslim (清真) restaurants

Not vegetarian, but useful. Halal restaurants use no pork and no lard, which removes two of the four hidden ingredients. Hand-pulled noodles with vegetables, and flatbread, are usually straightforward. Ask about the broth.

Ordinary restaurants, with care

Perfectly possible with the written card and a specific order.

Dishes that are usually safe with the right instruction:

• 地三鲜 (dìsānxiān) — potato, aubergine and pepper. Ask for no meat.
• 干煸四季豆 (gānbiān sìjìdòu) — dry-fried green beans. Usually has minced pork; ask for it without.
• 麻婆豆腐 (mápó dòufu) — has minced beef as standard; can be made without.
• 鱼香茄子 (yúxiāng qiézi) — "fish-fragrant" aubergine, contains no fish, often contains pork.
• 炒青菜 (chǎo qīngcài) — stir-fried greens. Ask for no lard, no oyster sauce.
• 凉拌黄瓜 (liángbàn huángguā) — smashed cucumber. Cold, garlicky, usually safe.
• 蛋炒饭 — egg fried rice, for ovo-vegetarians. Ask for no ham.

Hotpot works well. Order a clear mushroom or tomato broth — check it is not chicken-based — and vegetables, tofu, mushrooms and noodles to cook yourself. A split yuanyang pot lets you share a table with meat-eaters.

Breakfast is easy: soy milk, youtiao (fried dough sticks), mantou (plain steamed buns), congee — ask for plain — and vegetable baozi.

By region

Best: Yunnan, where vegetables, mushrooms and fresh herbs are central and the mushroom season from roughly June to September is extraordinary. Also Jiangnan — Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou — where the Buddhist tradition is strongest and the cooking is vegetable-forward.

Good: Sichuan, surprisingly. A large vegetable and tofu repertoire, and the strong seasoning means dishes do not depend on meat for flavour. Ask about stock and lard.

Harder: the northeast and the far north, where the cuisine is meat-heavy and the vegetarian concept less familiar. Xinjiang cuisine is built on lamb.

Variable: Cantonese. Enormous vegetable repertoire, and oyster sauce and stock are everywhere.

Practical strategy

Have the card ready before you land. Screenshot it, save it to your photos, and have it as the first thing in a notes app.

Show, do not explain. Handing a phone to a server works. A halting spoken explanation across a noisy dining room does not.

Say 全素 rather than 素. The difference matters.

Order specifically rather than asking "what's vegetarian?" Naming a dish and asking for it without meat gets a better result than an open question that invites a shrug.

Be gracious about mistakes. A dish will arrive with pork in it at some point. It is not a hostile act, it is a different definition. Set it aside and order something else.

Carry snacks for travel days. Long train journeys, remote areas and late arrivals are where you will struggle. Nuts, fruit, instant noodles — check the flavour — and biscuits from any convenience store.

Learn to read 肉, 鸡, 鱼, 虾, 蛋. Meat, chicken, fish, shrimp, egg. Recognising five characters on a menu is a couple of hours of effort and it transforms the experience.

Supermarkets and self-catering

The fallback that makes the difference on a long trip, and the argument for booking a serviced apartment rather than a hotel room if you are staying somewhere a while.

Chinese supermarkets are excellent for this. Tofu in half a dozen forms, fresh vegetables at low prices, mushrooms, noodles, rice, peanuts, sesame paste, chilli oil, black vinegar, soy sauce. Everything you need to cook is cheap and everywhere.

Wet markets are cheaper still and more interesting. Point and hold up fingers.

Convenience stores carry soy milk, plain buns, tea eggs — for ovo-vegetarians — nuts, and fruit.

Delivery apps will bring groceries to a hotel in half an hour. See the delivery guide.

Check instant noodle flavours. Most are meat-based. 素 or 香菇 (mushroom) varieties exist and you will need to read the packet.

A card to screenshot

Being vegan specifically

Harder, and workable.

The Buddhist 斋 tradition is effectively vegan — no eggs, no dairy — which makes temple restaurants the single best resource.

Traditional Chinese cooking uses very little dairy, which helps enormously. Milk, cheese and butter are largely absent outside Yunnan, Inner Mongolia and modern café food.

Eggs are the main obstacle, and they appear in fried rice, noodle dishes, soups and pancakes without being mentioned.

Say 纯素 (chún sù) — pure vegetarian, understood as vegan by anyone in the vegetarian scene — or use 斋, which conveys the same restriction through a familiar frame.

Modern tea and coffee shops use dairy heavily. Plant milk is available at the larger chains and less so elsewhere. See the tea and coffee guide.

Related

• Eating in China: Ordering Food, Allergies and Dietary Requirements
• Regional Cuisines of China: A Traveller's Map
• Chinese Phrases and Translation Tools for Travelers
• Street Food Safety in China

Last reviewed: 30 July 2026.