Best Congee Toppings

Congee is the ultimate comfort food. Although it's good on its own, the right toppings make it even better! Here are the best congee toppings, including traditional and modern ideas, to take your home-made Cantonese rice porridge to the next level.

Jump to:

• What is Congee?
• Expert Tips
• FAQ
• Congee Recipes
• Garnishes
• Traditional (Meat)
• Traditional (Veg and Tofu)
• Traditional (Eggs)
• Traditional (Fried)
• Modern
• 💬 Comments

What is Congee?

Congee is so popular in Asia, all the Asian countries have their own version. The one I'm writing about is also known as jook, a type of Cantonese rice porridge which has a thick, slightly starchy but also silky texture.

One of the most iconic and popular Cantonese recipes, it is eaten by Asians for breakfast, lunch, dinner or even as a snack!

Ingredients

The key to a bowl of Cantonese congee is its texture.

Other than rice, the rest of the ingredients are negotiable. You could have a bowl of totally plain congee that just consists of silky white rice, or a pimped up version cooked with seafood. Dried scallops are often added to congee to give them umami, as in this fresh and dried scallop congee & this abalone jook.

You can cook the rice in plain water, chicken stock or vegetable stock. The options are endless!

Congee is often served with small side dishes and toppings to complement the ingredients and make it look more attractive. Scroll down for a list of suggested toppings & garnishes, that will make even a bowl of plain white porridge irresistible!

Note: savory rice porridge is more common but there is also sweet congee.

Expert Tips

Tip #1: You can use brown rice, or add other grains such as barley, to make the bowl of rice congee healthier, but it will make the jook consistency less smooth.

Tip #2: If you have an instant pot, it can make the process of cooking congee less tedious! You can also make it in the rice cooker, but the texture won't be as good as the one cooked the traditional way.

Tip #3: When a Cantonese congee recipe calls for pepper, they're asking for white pepper and not black!

FAQ

Congee Recipes

Garnishes

Spring Onions

Spring onions form part of the Holy Trinity of Chinese cooking and they're not only stir-fried but also used as garnishes. They provide bursts of freshness, especially when accompanied with a drizzle of sesame oil or light soy sauce, and also make the bowl of rice congee look more attractive.

Note: if you end up with too many green onions/ scallions, why not make this easy, less than 5 ingredient Asian spring onion pancake? They go really well with a lot of side dishes!

Coriander

If you don't have scallions on hand, coriander or sawtooth coriander helps to provide a the pleasing pop of green when added to a bowl of jook.

Garlic Chives

Alternatively, you can also use garlic chives, which look fairly similar to spring onions.

Shredded Ginger

Ginger is used when cooking most congee and adding a few pieces of julienned fresh ginger helps to complement the flavour of the rice broth.

It goes especially well with meat and seafood congee, as it helps to minimise any unpleasant smells.

Note: in some parts of China, pickled ginger is added instead of fresh.

Traditional (Meat)

Some of these traditional congee toppings may also be considered side dishes.

Chinese Pork Jerky

In Singapore and Malaysia, the same shops sell bak kwa and ba hu (pork floss), and both are often eaten with porridge.

Pork floss

Although pork floss is the most common, there is also fish floss, chicken floss etc- these are all very popular congee toppings in Singapore, and many tourists in Singapore buy packets to give to friends at home.

Chinese Sausage

Sliced and pan-fried lup cheong are another scrumptious addition to jook.

Traditional (Veg and Tofu)

Fermented Tofu

Also known as furu, some people think of fermented tofu (bean curd) as Asian cheese, due to its very savoury and sometimes funky flavour. Not for the faint-hearted, it is delicious with a bowl of plain white jook.

Pickled vegetables

Chinese preserved vegetables can take the form of pickled lettuce, bamboo shoots, preserved mustard greens, zha cai etc. These are often served with or on top of a bowl of porridge.

I used to make my own soy preserved cucumbers when I lived in London and they were super easy to make yet ever so tasty- must get round to sharing the recipe one day! (You can make it perfectly the very first time as it's just a slice and soak recipe.)

Preserved Radish (Chye Poh)

Chye Poh, or Chinese preserved radish, comes in both sweet and savoury forms. This taste good with congee, or when fried with eggs. Many famous savoury carrot cake stalls in Singapore use them in their recipes!

Traditional (Eggs)

Salted Duck Eggs

You can easily make your own salted eggs with just 3 ingredients! Simply steam or boil the whole salted ducks eggs then serve with the porridge.

Alternatively, these salted eggs are actually prized for their rich yolks, which is used to make a delicious salted egg sauce e.g. salted egg tofu - don't toss the whites away, as many recipes ask you to- it's super wasteful as the whites on their own go very well with congee.

Century Eggs

Another popular egg topping for this traditional Chinese breakfast is century eggs (pi dan). (This condiment hasn't literally been preserved for 100 years, in case you were wondering.)

The flavor is strong and quite an acquired taste, especially with the scary looking black and green colors!

Egg Yolks

Some Cantonese eateries add a raw egg yolk to the bowl of congee to make it taste richer. The residual heat of the steaming rice soup will cook the egg yolk after stirring it in.

Note: When I do this at home, I always make sure to use pasteurised eggs for food safety.

Traditional (Fried)

You Tiao

Deep fried dough sticks are often cut into small slices and sprinkled on top of bowls of Chinese rice porridge in Hong Kong. They're actually 1 of my favourite porridge toppings!

Fried garlic

Slowly cook sliced garlic or minced garlic in hot oil till crispy and golden brown. These golden nuggets are crunchy and delicious- you can sprinkle them on your bowl of rice porridge, over noodles or on regular stir-fry dishes.

Tip: don't throw away the oil that the garlic was cooking in- it's full of flavour and is delicious spooned over noodle soups! Remember to keep it in the fridge and to use within 3-4 days for food safety.

Fried Shallots

As with the garlic, shallots are sliced thinly and fried till crunchy and golden brown. The crispy shallot are so good scooped on to Asian dishes! As with the garlic oil, the shallot oil is a delicious condiment that can be used to stir fry Chinese dishes.

Fried Dried Shrimp

These small dried shrimp, also known as Hei Bi are full of umami and, in my house, we often fry them, then sprinkle them on stir-fries and porridge.

They can last a long time but they do go bad- you'll know when they change color, develop a white powder around it and smell bad! (See below for an example of dried shrimp that has gone off.)

Fried Ikan Bilis and Peanuts

Ikan bilis and kacang are very popular in Singapore and Malaysia (Ikan bills is a small fish, sort of like an Asian anchovy.) They provide a nice pleasing crunch in contrast to the goo-ey congee texture.

Modern

Toasted Pumpkin Seeds

I loooove peanuts but after a friend told me that many peanuts contain aflatoxins, which can lead to cancer and other diseases, I decided we should cut back a little. (We usually eat a lot of peanuts in my household.)

Instead of always topping my congee with fried peanuts, I sometimes use dry fried pumpkin seeds or sunflower seeds, which have a similar pleasing contrasting texture.

Chili Oil

Now this is non-traditional, but I love my spicy food, so I like to drizzle my rice porridge with spicy chilli!

Pan Fried Spam

Spam, or luncheon meat is super unhealthy but very popular in Asia (especially Korea.) Rice congee can be quite light, as there's no oil in it (unless you eat fatty pork belly or sesame oil) so frying some spam pieces provides a deliciously savoury contrast.

Bovril

When I was a kid, we sometimes drizzled marmite or bovril over plain rice congee, but I think this may just be because my Father used to go to boarding school in England. I've not seen any other Chinese family eat Marmite with their porridge, but it does taste good- you should give it a try one day!

What are some of your favourite congee toppings? Let me know if I've missed anything out! If the list has been helpful, maybe you'd like to sign up for my Chinese cuisine newsletter?