Deep Dive: Shaoxing Wine
What this cooking wine actually does?
Hi! This is an ongoing series where I explore Chinese pantry staples, from black vinegar, Sichuan pepper, to fermented tofu. You can find the full list here.
I might have been putting off writing this piece for a while. The thing is: even though it’s quite common, Shaoxing wine doesn’t seem that essential when it shows up in a recipe. The most common question I get is some version of: “Can I substitute Shaoxing wine?” For years, I’d say, sure, use sherry, use water, or skip it.
A year ago, I visited Shaoxing and the Chinese Yellow Wine Museum. I left the beautiful town having rethought an ingredient I’d been cooking with for a decade. Before that trip, I used Shaoxing wine because recipes told me to.
This piece is my attempt to understand what it actually does to cooking. By the end, I hope you’ll want a bottle on your shelf, if you haven’t already.
What is Shaoxing Wine
Shaoxing wine is a type of yellow wine (huang jiu 黄酒), and one of the oldest brewing traditions in Chinese history. It’s a light golden or amber liquid, sold in dark glass bottles, with a deep, caramel-like aroma and a slight sweetness. Typically, it has an alcohol content of 12% to 18%.
Yellow wine is produced across several regions. Fujian laojiu (福建老酒), for instance, is another yellow wine used in cooking. But the most famous production region is Shaoxing, in Zhejiang province, which is where the English name comes from. In English, Shaoxing wine has become shorthand for Chinese cooking wine in general. In Mandarin, the broader term for cooking wine is liao jiu (料酒), literally “condiment wine”, while wines specifically from Shaoxing are called shaoxing huangjiu (绍兴黄酒) or shaojiu (绍酒).
Shaoxing wine is traditionally made from steamed glutinous rice, two types of fermentation starter, a rice-based wine yeast starter and a wheat-based koji, and water from the local lakes. The mixture ferments in large jars, stirred daily, then is transferred to smaller jars to continue fermenting for months. It’s then pressed, heated, and aged for years. The variety used for cooking is jiafan jiu (加饭酒), also known as huadiao jiu (花雕酒), named after its decorative jars: a semi-dry wine made with extra rice for more body.
Shaoxing wine is, first and foremost, a drinking wine. In the Jiangnan region, it's served alongside meals, sometimes warmed in small cups. After baijiu (grain liquor) has dominated modern Chinese banquet tables for so long, there are signs it's having a comeback again.
A Brief History of Shaoxing Wine in Cooking
By the Qin and Han dynasties, grain-based wines were already used in cooking as winemaking advanced. Cooks figured this out long before they could scientifically explain it.
Around the 6th century, the book Qimin Yaoshu recorded uses of wine that include marinating and preserving fish, where wine was said to “repel unwanted evil taste, speed up the process, and make the food taste better”1. By the Song Dynasty, recipes for drunken crab had already appeared in Zhong Kui Lu2.
The famous Qing Dynasty cookbook by Yuan Mei put it plainly: “a skilled cook’s wine should be jiu niang, fermented sweet rice wine, with the lees removed”3. It’s used in multiple recipes, such as stir-fried mussels, steamed fish, and meat marinades, which closely resemble how we use it today.
What does Shaoxing wine do?
Alcohol is used in cooking to add flavor across cultures. It adds flavor and sometimes acidity. As I learned from this video: alcohol is excellent at dissolving and dispersing flavor compounds. Because it’s also highly volatile, it carries those aromas into the air, shaping what we smell as much as what we taste.
In Chinese cooking, shaoxing wine is used for three main reasons: removing unpleasant flavors and odors (qu xing, 去腥), adding aroma (zeng xiang, 增香), and forming the base of drunken dishes (zui, 醉).
Remove the unpleasant odors
“Qu xing ” (去腥) or “chu shan" (除膻) describe something rarely named in Western cooking: the removal of gamey or fishy notes. These elusive off-flavors, xing and shan, show up in red meat, poultry, and seafood alike. During cooking, their odor compounds dissolve into the alcohol and evaporate along with it. What’s left behind is the ingredient’s natural aroma, simply cleaner and more focused.
That’s why Shaoxing wine appears so often in meat marinades and seafood dishes, and why it’s added to poaching liquids alongside ginger and Sichuan peppercorn, ingredients that further neutralize the unpleasant odors.
Add aroma
Compared to red or white wine, Shaoxing wine is less acidic and slightly sweeter, but deeply aromatic. It’s packed with flavor compounds (718 of them!), including stone fruit, dried fruit, nuts, and caramel, which deepen a dish and give it a distinctive fragrance. This is mostly used in braised and stir-fry dishes to add a complex aroma.
Beyond flavor, there’s a practical technique I picked up while making Beef Chow Fun, called “flashing the wine”: In a hot wok, cooks splash Shaoxing wine along the sides, where it instantly vaporizes into a burst of steam. That steam helps cook ingredients more evenly while carrying a faintly caramelized aroma through the dish. It’s a small step, but essential for achieving wok hei.
Drunken dishes
Along the southeastern coast and around Shanghai, there’s a whole cooking method built around Shaoxing wine: “zui,” meaning “drunken.” It uses a braising liquid of yellow wine, soy sauce, and spices to marinate raw (生醉) or cooked seafood (熟醉) and other proteins.
The most famous dishes include drunken shrimp (zuixia, 醉虾), crab (zuixie, 醉蟹), and chicken (zui ji, 醉鸡). For this method, more premium wines aged for over 10 years are used. You can find ready-made versions, zui lu (drunk-braising liquid), in some Chinese supermarkets.
How to Cook with Shaoxing Wine
Shaoxing wine appears across China, but it’s most at home in southern cuisines, Jiangnan (Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shanghai) and Cantonese cooking in particular. Except for drunken dishes, it’s almost always used with heat. Of course, not every Chinese dish needs it, especially those that aim to keep flavors light and fresh.
In Marinades
Add Shaoxing wine to meat or fish before cooking, such as pork, chicken, beef, whole fish, or fillets. In velveting (coating protein in starch and liquid before stir-frying), it pulls double duty: adding moisture and aroma while removing unpleasant odors. Use it sparingly, usually less than 1 tablespoon per dish.
In Braises and Stir-Fries
For braises, the amount is flexible, anywhere from 1 tablespoon to ½ cup. In dishes like red-braised pork (Hong Shao Rou), it’s used generously. In braises, it’s normally added at the start of braising. The alcohol cooks off over time, leaving an aroma behind.
It can also act as a thinning liquid for thick pastes like fermented tofu or soybean paste, adding more flavor than water. In Beijing-style fried sauce noodles, zhajiangmian, it’s used to thin out dry soy bean paste (干黄酱).
In stir-fries, especially vegetables, add a small amount along the wok wall toward the end of cooking over high heat, so it evaporates quickly, and the steam helps cook the dish.
In Poaching Liquids and Lu Shui
For dishes like Sichuan mouth-watering chicken or husband-and-wife beef slices, add 1–2 tablespoons to the poaching or braising liquid (lu shui, 卤水). This helps reduce gamey flavors, especially in cuts like ox tongue, chicken feet, or heart.
Choosing Shaoxing wine
At a Chinese grocery, you’ll likely see a few different options. The main thing to know: there’s a difference between pure Shaoxing wine (绍兴黄酒) and condiment cooking wine (liaojiu, 料酒). I cooked with liaojiu for years before switching to pure shaoxing wine, and the difference is noticeable.
My recommendation: a pure, aged Shaoxing wine with a short ingredient list: wheat, rice, water, and possibly salt and caramel (Note that wines imported to the US are often salted to be sold as a condiment rather than alcohol). The bottle I use most is aged three years and costs about 3–4 euros at my local Asian grocer in Berlin (the middle one in the picture below).
If you want to go further, Guyue Longshan (古越龙山), one of Shaoxing’s heritage producers, makes wines aged up to 20 years.
I tested three types of Shaoxing wine side by side: a 5-year-aged Gueyue Longshan wine from Shaoxing, a 3-year-aged wine, and “zero additives” Liaojiu (probably aged less than a year) from Berlin’s Asian grocery stores. The color tells you a lot; liaojiu is the palest and mildest, with a faint spice undertone despite the “zero-additives” label. The other two are darker and more complex.
All three can work in most Chinese recipes (liaojiu is too mild for drunken dishes), but the first two, 3, and 5-year-aged wines are better and can be consumed as a drink, while you wouldn’t want to drink the liaojiu on its own. A good rule of thumb is this: if you wouldn’t drink it, don’t cook with it.
Substitutes
If you’ve read this far, just buy a bottle. It’s inexpensive, keeps well, and nothing else quite replicates it. Buwei Yang Chao suggests dry sherry as a substitute, and it’s the most reliable option I’ve seen.
If you’re avoiding alcohol entirely:
For marinades (1 tsp–1 tbsp): skip it or replace with water
For braises (¼ cup or more): use water or low-sodium stock
That said, speaking as someone with a low alcohol tolerance (I can barely handle a small glass of wine), I’ve never felt any effect from using Shaoxing wine in cooking.
“酒辟诸邪，令鲊美而速熟” (Qi Min Yao Shu, 《齐民要术》). This can mean that alcohol helps prevent spoilage and improve flavor. An English translation is available as Qimin Yaoshu: Essential Techniques for the Welfare of the People, translated by Ethan Lin.
Zhong Kui Lu (《中馈录》) is translated into English as Madame Wu’s Handbook on Home-Cooking by Sean J. S. Chen and Eugene N. Anderson
“酒用酒娘，应去糟粕” (Suiyuan Shidan, 《随园食单》). Yuan Mei’s work is also available in English as The Way of Eating, translated by Sean J. S. Chen.
Thanks for this. Do you know if there are any good gluten free substitutes? Unfortunately my partner has celiac so the wheat koji in shaoxing makes it unsafe. Ive been using taiwan rice wine but unsure if theres a better alternative. Thanks!
Thank you for such valuable information.