7 easy-to-make but delicious dried jujube fruit, or Chinese red date recipes, including soups, drinks and desserts.
What are red dates?
Chinese red dates are also known as Ziziphus jujuba (scientific name), hong zao and jujubes (not to be confused with jojoba, which is entirely different!) and belong to the Rhamnaceae buckthorn family. They are a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) ingredient that is also commonly used in Chinese and Korean cooking, and can be eaten fresh or dried.
Most Asian families will have a store of dried Chinese red dates in their pantry to cook with, as they can last for quite some time in this form. (As dried jujubes are more common, the recipes here all use them instead of fresh.)
Where to buy
In Asia, you can get them at most major supermarkets. Outside of Asia, you will need to buy them online, at a Chinese medicine hall or at an Asia grocery store.
FAQ
Chinese people have traditionally removed the seed before cooking jujubes, as they believe that the seed makes the dish heatier (i.e. you will be prone to getting sore throats, fevers or acne if you eat too much). However, it is possible to cook with the whole fruit (i.e. seed inside)- just remember to remove the seed before you eat the fruit.
Savory soups
Dried jujubes, as well as goji berries, are often added to soups as a natural sweetener and for their health benefits, which I've described in this jujube tea post. It is, for example, found in the famous Korean ginseng chicken soup.
Besides this black chicken soup, you can add a couple of red dates to most soups or even rice porridge that you make- simply wash them, then remove the seed and either slice them up, or make a few gashes in the flesh to increase the surface area when cooking so that the flavour can better permeate the soup.
Drinks
Chinese red date tea is a healthy and warming tea with no caffeine. For more traditional Asian teas without caffeine, you can try:
For other Chinese New Year recipes, click here.
Desserts
Red dates are also sometimes added to sea coconut tong sui:
Which is your favourite out of all these Chinese dried jujube fruit recipes? Before you go, you may also be interested in these recipes which use other Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) ingredients:
ray says
Have a whole bag in the freezer, will have to make some of these over the weekend
Zen says
Thanks Ray, let me know how you find them!