Chinese Sausage has a unique flavor, a delicious mix of sweet and savory. Serve it up with some rice and slathered in a rich and sweet soy sauce – so good!
Why This Chinese Sausage And Rice Is So Good
- A delicious way to cook Chinese sausage
- An addictive savory sweet soy sauce
- A quick alternative to take out
- Only a handful of ingredients needed
Ingredients
- Long grain jasmine rice
- Water
- Chinese sausage
For The Sweet Soy Sauce
- Cooking oil
- Garlic cloves, shallots
- Soy sauce, dark soy sauce
- Chinese rice wine or dry sherry
- Sugar
- Water
- Asian sesame oil
How To Make This Chinese Sausage And Rice – Step By Step
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Let’s wash the raw rice grains fist. Fill a pot with the rice and cold water to cover. Use your hands to swish the rice grains, loosening any extra starch and dirt. Rice (like beans) is a raw ingredient and it is important to wash and rinse! Washing also rids the rice of extra starch, which will give us light, fluffy, airy rice – not heavy, sticky and starchy. Tip the pot and carefully pour out the water. Repeat two more times. Drain as much water as possible from the pot.
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Measure and add in the 2 3/4 cups of water.
Snuggle the sausage in the rice grains. Turn the heat to high. When the water near the edge of the pot starts bubbling, cover the pot and reduce the heat to low. Cook for 18 minutes. Note: While the rice is cooking, make the Sweet Soy Sauce.
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When the rice is finished cooking, turn off heat and keep covered – no peeking! Let it sit with the lid on for 5 minutes to finish the steaming process.
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Remove the sausages (careful, they are hot!) and slice them on the diagonal into 1/2-inch-thick pieces. Arrange the sausages on top of the rice and drizzle the Sweet Soy Sauce on top. Serve extra Sweet Soy Sauce at the table for drizzling.
Sweet Soy Sauce
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In a small saucepan, add in the oil, garlic and shallot. Turn heat to low and let the garlic and shallot cook slowly until they begin to brown but not burn. Use a slotted spoon and remove the shallots and garlic and discard, leaving the flavored oil. Add remaining ingredients and simmer until thickened, about 2 minutes.
What Is Chinese Sausage?
Sweet-salty, smokey, savory and unctuous with little pockets of fat that just melt during cooking. Think of candied bacon. Or when maple syrup from your pancake pools onto your thick bacon. That’s about the closest I can get to a description.
Chinese sausage – 臘腸 lap cheong (Cantonese) làcháng (Mandarin) is a cured sausage usually steamed or diced and stir-fried in a wok.
Chinese sausage is unlike any meat you’ve ever eaten before. “Lap Cheong” 臘腸 is made most popularly from pork and fat. The sausage is marinated, salted and smoked. You can also find Chinese sausage made from duck liver or pork liver too (darker deep reddish/brown color).
How to Store This Sausage
Most Asian supermarkets will stock Chinese sausage – since it’s dried, cured and smoked, the package will last for over a year if unopened (also check the expiration date on package). You can also freeze the package for a long time If you’ve opened a package and only use a few links, wrap the remaining tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 6 months or store in freezer.
I prefer Chinese sausage WITHOUT liver. Read the package carefully – the liver sausage is darker, like a blood-red color. Regular pork-based Chinese sausage is a dull-brick red color.
If you’ve got a Chinatown in your area, sometimes you’ll find Chinese sausage hanging by string like the photo above! (photo source)
Easiest Way to Cook Chinese Sausage
The easiest way to cook Chinese sausage is to snuggle the links into the same pot (or rice cooker) you are cooking rice. The fatty sausage will cook and flavor the rice at the same time.
Sweet Soy Sauce to Drizzle over Rice
Years ago, Mom taught me her recipe for a simple sweet soy sauce. This is a sauce that you’ll find drizzled on Chinese Clay Pot Chicken & Rice. We love this sweet soy sauce just with Chinese Sausage and rice.
The sauce starts with flavoring oil with garlic and shallots in the wok, and adding a combination of soy sauce, dark soy sauce and rice wine.
Dark soy sauce is a dark, thick, sweeter, less-salty soy sauce used in braises and sauces.
If you don’t have dark soy sauce, that’s okay. Substitute with regular soy sauce and a teaspoon of honey or molasses.
Top Tips For Chinese Sausage And Rice
- Rinse the rice before cooking, to remove the starch.
- The sweet soy sauce is optional, this dish has a lot of flavor on it’s own.
- When the rice has finished cooking, don’t open the lid right away, let the rice steam for 5 mins.
- You can use rice wine or dry sherry.
Chinese Sausage and Rice Recipe Video
Featuring “Cupcake Marshall” courtesy of Bluedot
More Chinese Sausage Recipes
- Pressure Cooker Chinese Sausage and Brown Rice
- Brussels Sprouts with Chinese Sausage
- Chinese Sweet & Sour Spare Ribs Recipe
- Chinese Bird’s Nest Soup Recipe
Have you tried this Chinese Sausage and Rice recipe? Feel free to leave a star rating and I’d love to hear from you in the comments below!
Chinese Sausage and Rice Recipe - with Sweet Soy Sauce
Ingredients
For the Chinese Sausage and Rice
- 1 1/2 cups long grain rice jasmine rice preferred
- 2 3/4 cups water
- 4 Chinese sausage links or more
For the Sweet Soy Sauce
- 1 tablespoon cooking oil neutral flavored (vegetable, canola)
- 2 cloves garlic smashed
- 1 shallot roughly chopped
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons dark soy sauce for substitute, see notes at top of recipe
- 1 tablespoon Chinese rice wine or dry sherry
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 2 tablespoons water
- 1/4 teaspoon Asian sesame oil
Instructions
Cook the Chinese Sausage and Rice
- Let's wash the raw rice grains fist. Fill a pot with the rice and cold water to cover. Use your hands to swish the rice grains, loosening any extra starch and dirt. Rice (like beans) is a raw ingredient and it is important to wash and rinse! Washing also rids the rice of extra starch, which will give us light, fluffy, airy rice - not heavy, sticky and starchy. Tip the pot and carefully pour out the water. Repeat two more times. Drain as much water as possible from the pot.
- Measure and add in the 2 3/4 cups of water. Snuggle the sausage in the rice grains. Turn the heat to high. When the water near the edge of the pot starts bubbling, cover the pot and reduce the heat to low. Cook for 18 minutes. Note: While the rice is cooking, make the Sweet Soy Sauce.
- When the rice is finished cooking, turn off heat and keep covered - no peeking! Let it sit with the lid on for 5 minutes to finish the steaming process.
- Remove the sausages (careful, they are hot!) and slice them on the diagonal into 1/2-inch-thick pieces. Arrange the sausages on top of the rice and drizzle the Sweet Soy Sauce on top. Serve extra Sweet Soy Sauce at the table for drizzling.
Sweet Soy Sauce
- In a small saucepan, add in the oil, garlic and shallot. Turn heat to low and let the garlic and shallot cook slowly until they begin to brown but not burn. Use a slotted spoon and remove the shallots and garlic and discard, leaving the flavored oil. Add remaining ingredients and simmer until thickened, about 2 minutes.
Did you try this recipe? Please leave a star rating in the recipe card below and leave a review in the comment section! I always appreciate your feedback and I know other readers do, too!
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My favorite delicious Chinese-style sausage and rice recipe! It’s filled with flavorful sausage, fluffy white rice, and a savory sauce. Loved your recipe!!
– Jack from Skilletguy.com
yummy
Thanks for this recipe! I tried it last night and it was wonderful. I used chopped onion instead of shallot because I didn’t have any, I upped the garlic because I’m obsessed, added some chopped cilantro, and I kept them in while I was reducing the sauce. I did keep it on the burner for more like 10-15 minutes because mine was not thickening after 2 minutes. Paired with some boiled gai lan, it was a delicious dinner!
Nice recipe and well structure site
Made this for dinner last night! Delicious! I only added some snow peas to steam in the rice cooker basket while the sausage and rice cooked. Thank you for the delicious sauce recipe!
My rice turned out perfect. Last time I made this in the rice cooker and it was awful. Stove top is perfect. Thank you!!
Can you eat these sausages without cooking?
Straight out of the package? Thanks!
Will do this recipe tonight! 🙂
Yes, but slice and microwave for 30 seconds to melt the fat. The sausage doesn’t taste good cold.
My rice turned out all oily and the sausages were dry.
I’m trying to cook the sausages with the rice in the Nordic microwave container you recommended. I used the venting instructions provided by Nordic Ware and the microwave timing instructions from your microwave rice page. What adjustments should I make?
Hi Olivia – I use the Chinese sausage in rice cooker or on stovetop. I think the microwave dries out the rice too much. On the stovetop or rice cooker, the rice and sausage gently cook over low heat….in the microwave, cooking method is so different!
Just made the sweet soy sauce and I’m super happy with it. Was just wondering if leftover soy sauce should be stored in the fridge or at room temperature? I was keeping it in the fridge but all the oil congealed. Thanks!
Hi! Store in refrigerator. Let sit room temp for 30 minutes before using or you can spoon out to a bowl and microwave on low for 10 seconds.
I have some right now in a jar that my Mom made last week. Jaden
Hi,
Thanks for your awesome recipe. I try & love it.. Sausage with steam rice. I have to order your cookbook @ Amazon.com coz it’s unavailable in malaysia bookstore. Thanks a mile
I just cook the sausage in a pan on low until almost cooked through, and turn the heat up until done. While the sausages are cooking, I saute some peppers and onions. I eat the on either plain old hotdog buns, sometimes baked, or real sub buns. Sometimes with a little mustard. Simple and good.
My sauce never thickened
The timing of this recipe made me laugh. I saw this sausage in Costco today (Minnesota), thought about buying some, didn’t because I didn’t have a clue what to make with it. Now I know! Maybe you should out Costco, it was in the aisle by the spices here…
It can surely exist in a VEGAN version… no animal torture involved. EVOLVE to greater taste and health. A vegan whose mom died from Parkinson, aunt of colon cancer, grand-ma of Alzheimer…
yeah haha rock on! 😛
Sorry about your lost family members. Maybe try substituting cured tofu or dry mushrooms for the meat. Won’t taste quite the same, but a sprinkle of MSG for lost umami and some sesame oil for lost animal fat richness should round it out.
Jaden, your recipe looks amazing as is, and as an ardent omnivore, I look forward to trying your version! Reminds me of the clay pot rice I had in Hong Kong!
Thank you for this recipe! I had some Chinese sausage in the freezer and when I went to make some today, I had forgotten how to cook it!
I am also eagerly waiting for your salted fish fried rice recipe! Do you also have a recipe for how to make it or buy it in the store? My father always made it for me, but now that I am living so far from home I would like to get it from the Chinese market, but do not know the name for it.
Yum! I just cut up some lap cheong yesterday for today’s fried rice. Can’t wait for your salted fish fried rice recipe! My mom used to make it when I was young.
This is delish and super easy specially the sauce! I made a whole pack of the sausage so I quadrupled the sauce! I was able to use the cooked shallots & garlic in my tuna casserole that I was preparing to cook! I think the sauce can be used on all kinds of dry dishes! I’m planning to use the sauce on my salad with panko breaded chicken!!! Yumm! I will make this again! Thanks for the recipe! 😋
Thank you Mayra!
I’d also like to know where I can buy gluten free lap cheung. I read on another site that you can buy them in San Francisco. If anyone has any info, that would be great
Hi;
LOVE your site! Can you recommend a brand of Chinese sausage that is free of soy, dairy and gluten? I am allergic to these, but SO want to try some of this sausage you make look SO Delicious! Thank you and thanks for all the time and energy you and Scott put into this DELIGHTFUL site!
I cook my lap cheong in the rice cooker too, except I put them in 1/2 way thru the cooking cycle. This way, when you take the sausage out, you don’t have rice sticking all over it. The rice has the nice flavor of the sausage
This recipe is so delicious. I just love your cook book, thanks!
I’m curious why the recipe says it’s 4 servings, yet calls for 2 cups of dry rice. Rice bags say a serving is 1/4 cup, and that’s what I always use for meals for my husband and me. With whatever meat and vegetables are in the dish, it always seems to be enough rice. Am I missing something here? I hope I hear back, b/c I’m genuinely confused, and want to learn more about Asian cooking.
(P.S. just found a market (via phone) here in Tucson that carries Chinese sausage. Can’t wait to try this!)
any less than 2 cups of rice is really hard to cook with that much Chinese sausage. You’ll have leftovers, but that’s a good thing! For leftovers, make Chinese Fried Rice with Chinese Sausage – you’ll find the recipe on my site.
lap CHeung ! omg I am craving it now! This was one of our staples in our house 🙂 My grandfather was a chef from China.So I grew up with amazing Asian food.I so miss those days where I was well fed 🙂
I bought the sausages because the lady in front of me at the grocery checkout had about 20 pkgs. I asked her how she cooked them and her description of the dish was very similar to this recipe. I just tried it tonight and both my husband and I really liked it. Thanks so much!
Hi, thank you for sharing how to cook chinesse..
My introduction to Chinese sausage is from my niece’s MIL’s Christmas brunch. It was so tasty I needed to know how to make it. She put the sausage along with mushrooms & shrimp. She cooked it altogether. And varies the ingredients. She uses a stickier rice than I have. So here I am, going to try it today. Bty, found at local Costco, double pack.
Love this recipe! Thank you so much.
My favourite way to cook Chinese sausages is to boil them in a pot and then take the casing off. A bit more work but sausages are more tender and flavourful. In addition to helping to releasing the casing for easy removal, boiling them also helps to release some of the fat.
These chinese sausages need at least just little experience to make them something different..I often cook them without any difficulties procedures.
Hi Ni Hao and Aloha!
I lived several years in Guangzhou and I really forgot all about the dried sausage. I now live in Hawaii and we have a pretty decent China Town, so this next week I am going down to buy a bunch of this to put in the cupboard, as it keeps so well. I have recently been trying my hand at some authentic Chinese dishes. I even bought two packages of salted duck eggs to have with my morning congee! =)
The thing I want to find or possibly make myself is a wonderful spicy, salted fish. My girlfriend’s father brought a huge burlap sack with him on the train from Hubei full of chopped up fish pieces, each piece about 2″-3″ in size. It had a bouncy feel, and seemed a bit oily. It had been salted somehow, as well as covered with a type of lajiao. I loved this stuff, but I am not sure how to make it, or where to get it, as most Chinese here (as are most everywhere west of China) Cantonese, who don’t like spicy food. Any ideas?
China Mike –
When we visited Guangzhou, I had chicken stir fried rice with salted fish that I loved. I thought how hard can that be to make. We lived in England at the time but had a good grocery close by. When I took a recipe, they recommended a salted fish but my it did smell! Now we are back in US but still have several good Chinese grocery’s. I was asking some friends about salted fish and they got a good laugh about getting the stinky kind. One said she has substituted anchovies for the salted fish in stir fried rice and that it worked quite well. I would love to learn more about the salted fish and what kind to use for this dish.
My mom once forced a close family friend to bring a whole Chinese BBQ duck on the plane with him when he came to visit me at university. The plane ride was 5 hours and he had to hand-carry it.
this is a great recipe! i can’t wait to try! my favorite brand of sausages is the one made by venus foods – they also make amazing fish balls (YUM) and other chinese foods. i think their sausages have a good balance of sweetness and fat and it makes sausage rice super good
I also tuck these Chinese sausages in the rice. If I want to make Chinese sausage salad, I just fry them in low fire.
Here is the recipe for Chinese Sausage salad:
Sliced Chinese sausages – cut diagonally (I use half package)
2 cups of chopped tomatoes
1 cup of red onions
1 cup of chopped cilantro (sometimes I use basil – fresh)
1/2 cup of chopped bell peppers
3 tbsp of malt vinegar (just because I love it)
1/2 tsp of black pepper
(Do not add salt – the sausages are salty enough)
I serve this with smoked fish or grilled pork or beef.
I absolutely love this stuff! Thanks for posting. Never new the name of this delicious chinese sausage but now that i know i’m going right to stock up on some 🙂
Hi
Thanks to you I have learned to make some of the best recipes. I was so glad to see the sausage you had here. It is the one that I have been getting. I am now looking forward to Chinese Fried Rice with Salty Fish. I first had it when we adopted our second daughter from China and would love to learn to make it. The type of fish to use is the tricky part for me.
Thanks so much.
99Ranch. 4155 Spring Mountain Road 89146
168 Market 3459 Jones Blvd 89146
Greenland Market 6850 Spring Mountain 89146
SF Market 4801 Spring Mountain 89146
Glaziers Marketplace 8525 Warm Springs 89113
International Marketplace 5000 S Decatur 89118
There’s also Laos Market, Nakata Market (Japanese) and Japan Creek Market
Ugh nevermind. I watched the video -_-
Great recipe! Just wondering if this could be done in a rice cooker?
Yum! This is something I grew up eating, but as an adult, I forget about it for long periods of time until I happen to come across the sausages and then I’m all over them! Thanks for the reminder, I’ll have to go hunt down a package of sausages sometime soon. Oddly enough, in my little town they are easiest to find in the mexican grocery store!
Great story about your parents, yes, that risk is true love. Could have been horrible on the plane.
Simply yum. I definitely gonna try this and put a version of mine in my blog. And surely will link to your post mentioning my inspiration! Keep up the good work!
Love love lap cheung. I remove the casing before steaming in rice. The rice comes out heavenly. For fried rice I sliced diagonally and render it like bacon bits. Use the drippings to continue cooking tradiitional fried rice recipe and I never have leftovers from a fresh made batch.
Rice turned out great with tons of flavor! The sweet sauce recipe was a bit off cause mine turned out way too salty (even w/ Kikkoman Low-sodium soy sauce) and not sweet enough. I suggest to taste while you adjust the sauce flavor.
That is the same brand I buy! Love these sausages. I have used them in fried rice, eggs, pizza and even sprinkled them over roasted veggies. Soooo good.
I grew up eating lap cheong sliced and fried along side freshly sliced garlic. I have no idea if this was something my mom made up, or if my dad grew up eating it like this (Hawaii) or if they discovered it in Taiwan (my Dad was in the Army).
I love it and haven’t had it in years!
I buy Chinese sausage from my local Asian grocery store all the time. They taste amazing. I have never tried them in fried rice. Must do that next time!
Looks like a lovely ingredient that I will have to keep my eye out for 😉
This is a great tutorial- I have so often seen these sausages and just not known how to prepare it. Is it precooked, should I boil, sautee? This post and video will help me write my post on how to EAT Chinese sausages.
Sounds great! Can I lay the sausages on top of my rice in a rice cooker and get the same result?
Hi,
I have tried stemming my lap cheong with Shan xing wine for half an hour before laying the, atop the rice. It gives more fragrant 🙂
Hey, I buy the same brand of Chinese sausages! I cook them like you would, steamed in the rice cooker while the rice is cooking, or diced for fried rice.
Fried rice with lap cheong on the top will be ok..but a half tea spoon of butter will make it more delicious..the key of fried rice recipe depending how many chili, soya bean sauce, red onion and garlic that u put them into the fried rice and more of them than ussual will make different quality taste u could get ever..
I’ve never heard of the brand Happy Meat. However, like Kirsten said above, the Kam Yen Jan brand is available at Costco, 99 Ranch, and Chinatown.
Lap Cheong with fried rice is awesome! I recently made fried rice (replacing the rice with quinoa) with the lap cheong. =)
Is there a brand of Chinese sausage that specifically uses duck liver? I’d love to try it. I think I have your pictured brand of sausage in my fridge right now! I’ll be trying this recipe very soon. Also, I’m in Vegas too, going to school. There’s at least one Asian market here that pretty decent, but I can’t find szechuan peppercorns there. Maybe I’m not looking in the right aisle, or maybe I don’t know how to ask for it by a more commonly known and used name. Can you help? And I’ll be trying BBQ King too.
Thanks,
KC
Jaden, I’m not sure whereabouts in Florida you live. From the photo’s, I’m guessing North Florida. In Orlando, on East Hwy 50 (Colonial), we have an
“Asian Quarter”. There are a few different groceries, most specialize in Vietnamese, but they also have Chinese, Japanese and Korean foods. There’s one other store that is out on Edgewater Drive near Lee Road. I’ve never been in that one, so I’m not sure what they have. If you are looking for anything special, you might try these groceries.
You’ve reminded me of how much I love Chinese sausage! I grew up on it and will have it at dim sum restaurants now and then but not very often and I haven’t cooked with it…time to correct that. I’ll pick up a pack soon and tuck it into my rice cooker. : )
Oh I have some lap cheong in my food storage and I want to make it right now! I was always taught to put it in the rice cooker with the rice so it naturally steamed it as well as flavor the rice a little bit. My Caucasian husband LOVES lap cheong too!
I have had it in Chinese restaurants, and liked it. But, the Lap Cheong I have found, even in Asian markets, has too strong of the flavor of 5 spice…it s too dominating, and over powering.
Does the Kam Yen Jan brand have a strong 5 spice flavor?
Thanks
Oh I just love Chinese sausage and so does my family esp. when I cook it with garlic fried rice, the Filipino “sinangag”. Thanks for this recipe and including your favorite brand “BBQ King”. It is so hard to find the right kind of flavor we like. Often it’s ‘hit or miss’ when I get a pack of Chinese sausages, which btw is not cheap. So I’m so happy to have found a kindred soul in this ingredient. Thanks and have a great weekend, Jaden!
I’ve had a love affair with Chinese sausage for years, and fried rice is my favorite vehicle for its use. I like this new recipe, thanks for sharing, Jaden!
My Filipino Grandmother made what I’ve always called Lap Cheong Fried Rice all the time when I was growing up. I’ve been able to find the package you show at our local Costco here in California as well as our local Filipino grocery store.
We usually just slice it diagonally and fry it in a dry non-stick pan, like bacon. 🙂 Steamed is good too though.
Oh and I love to eat it with slices of raw garlic 🙂
i love Chinese sausage. My favorite is the “night market” way, with raw garlic. Yum!
Here in the Bay Area, we can get that exact brand at Costco. Costco! In a double pack! Can’t cook fried rice without it in our house. I am really looking forward to trying it this way. So easy! Thanks for another great idea.
Yep, they have it at the Raleigh, NC Costco, too. But it’s a HUGE package!
Can you please ask your mom where she gets her Chinese groceries in Vegas? I haven’t been able to find a place and would love to locate a Chinese supermarket in Vegas!
Yes, I’ll ask her when she returns from vacation!
You can get them from amazon
or on square marketplace, you can get them direct from the manufacturers. venus is my favorite brand, the flavor and fat to lean ratio feel authentic to me!
https://squareup.com/market/venus-foods-inc/venus-chinese-sausages
costco sells this sausage . must be one in vegas .