Chinese New Year food is mostly wordplay you can eat. A dish earns its place at the table because its name sounds like a wish: higher, surplus, reunion, long life. For Chinese New Year 2027, which falls on Saturday 6 February 2027, the eating starts at the reunion dinner on the eve and carries on for fifteen days, through house visits, tins of CNY goodies and the toss of yusheng.
This guide takes the symbolic dishes first and then the goodies Singapore households set out for visitors. It describes tradition as families keep it. There are no recipes here, and every family adds and drops dishes in its own way.
Symbolic Chinese New Year food and the wordplay behind it
Most of the meanings rest on a sound. Once you hear the pun, the dish explains itself.
年糕 niángāo, the year cake
A sticky rice cake whose name repeats 年 (nián, year) and carries 糕 (gāo), which sounds like 高 (gāo), “high”. Eating it is a wish to rise higher each year, whether at work, at school or simply in the children’s height marks on the door frame.
Fish 鱼 yú
鱼 (yú) sounds like 余 (yú), “surplus”. The whole point is having more than enough, which is why many families leave some of the fish on the plate rather than finishing it: the surplus carries over into the new year.
Dumplings 饺子 jiǎozi
Dumplings are a northern custom. Their crescent shape resembles the old silver ingots once used as money, so a plate of dumplings is a plate of small fortunes. Northern families often fold them together on the eve.
汤圆 tāngyuán
Glutinous rice balls in sweet soup. The round shape and the word 圆 (yuán, round, complete) stand for reunion and a family made whole. They are eaten especially at the close of the season, at the Lantern Festival.
Long noodles and mandarin oranges
Long noodles stand for long life, and the custom is to avoid cutting them. Mandarin oranges are part food, part greeting: their Cantonese name sounds close to the word for gold, and they are exchanged in pairs when visiting.
Many of these appear at the eve’s meal itself. For the dishes of that one evening, with their meanings set out side by side, see our reunion dinner guide rather than repeating it here.
CNY goodies: what Singapore households set out
In Singapore and Malaysia the New Year has a second food tradition: 年饼 (niánbǐng), the CNY goodies. These are the cookies and snacks kept in lidded jars on the coffee table for the stream of relatives and friends who come visiting during 拜年 (bàinián), the New Year rounds. A host with a full table of goodies is a host ready for guests.
Pineapple tarts
The best-known of the CNY goodies. The Hokkien word for pineapple, “ong lai” (旺来), sounds like “prosperity comes”, so the tart carries the wish in its name. Some are open tarts, some are rolled with the jam inside; families argue happily about which is better.
Bak kwa 肉干
Sweet dried meat, cut in flat squares and grilled. It is a gift as much as a snack, and in the weeks before New Year it is one of the most familiar smells in the city.
Love letters 蛋卷
Thin egg rolls, folded or rolled into delicate tubes. The English name is a local one, and the crumbs on the sofa are part of the experience.
Kueh bangkit and peanut cookies
Kueh bangkit are small tapioca cookies that melt on the tongue. Peanut cookies are crumbly and rich. Neither carries a famous pun; they are simply part of the jar collection most families expect to see.
Yusheng and lo hei
The other Singapore food custom of the season is yusheng, the raw fish salad that everyone at the table tosses together with chopsticks while calling out wishes. The toss is lo hei, and the higher the toss, the better the wishes are said to rise. It is traditionally tossed on 人日 (Rénrì), the seventh day, everyone’s birthday, which in 2027 falls on Friday 12 February 2027, though many families toss it at any gathering through the season. Our lo hei page covers the phrases and the order of the ingredients.
Chinese New Year food across the fifteen days
The food follows the calendar. The eve, Friday 5 February, belongs to the reunion dinner. New Year’s Day and the days after belong to visiting, oranges and goodies. The seventh day brings lo hei, and the fifteenth, Saturday 20 February 2027, closes the season with tangyuan. The Chinese New Year greetings page has the phrases to say over all of it.
None of this changes the year a person is entering. In Ba Zi (八字 bāzì), the 丁未 (Dīng Wèi) Fire Goat year begins at Li Chun (立春 lìchūn) on 2027-02-04 at 09:45, and how it meets you depends on your own chart, not on how many pineapple tarts you eat. The Chinese New Year 2027 guide covers the dates and the year pillar. After the reunion dinner, find out what the Goat year brings to your own Day Master: plot your chart free with the calculator.