A question that has plagued the corporate worker for years

Foodthink’s Take

In the previous edition of our “Eat Well” column, dozens of Foodthink readers shared their “moments they wanted to avoid takeout”. Many expressed their frustration; although there are times they are tired of takeout, the frantic pace of work, a lack of culinary skill, or poor kitchen facilities keep them trapped in the habit.

If not takeout, then what? This seems to be a problem that has plagued office workers for a long time, yet has never been seriously discussed. Fortunately, the wisdom of the crowd is infinite. In this edition of “Eat Well”, friends from all walks of life have contributed their own tips for “eating properly”, creating a “meal survival guide” that is fast, efficient, and affordable. Come and see if any of these tricks work for you!

Start with the simplest meals

For many who rarely cook, the anxiety and feeling of helplessness standing by the stove might be worse than enduring takeout… But there is no need to be so hard on yourself; just start with simple dishes. Life in the rat race is exhausting enough; be kinder to yourself when it comes to cooking.

@Danlin (Female, 38, Shanghai): I haven’t had takeout for at least a year and a half. I make my own breakfast, eat at the company canteen for lunch, and dine in at restaurants for dinner. I cook very quickly, and I don’t wash the dishes immediately—I leave them until the next morning, which makes the workload feel smaller. My secret to speed is “one-pot fried rice”: I cook a large batch of rice, divide it into small containers, and freeze them. I defrost them slightly before frying and add whatever ingredients I fancy: eggs, sausage, sweetcorn, peas, carrots, broad beans, greens—anything goes.

@Nanxiangzi (Female, media professional): I haven’t had takeout once this year. I recently learned how to make clay pot rice on Xiaohongshu and found it to be a time-saving, convenient, healthy, and delicious method. I highly recommend it! First, get a small clay pot and rinse a cup of rice (one person’s portion; two cups for two people), then soak it for about 10 minutes. Bring it to a boil on high heat, then turn it down to low. When the water is almost gone, drizzle some oil around the edges. Place pre-cut sausage and cured meat on top of the rice, cover with a lid, and simmer on low for two or three minutes. Finally, crack in an egg, add some vegetables and a bit of sauce, then turn off the heat. A fragrant bowl of clay pot rice is complete. The whole process takes about 15 minutes and avoids the greasy smoke of stir-frying. Very nice.

@Sloth (Female, Shenzhen): Here are three dishes I’ve developed recently. Free of charge, you’re welcome!

Chop vegetables and meat into large chunks, throw them into a high-pressure rice cooker with a spice packet, vinegar, and soy sauce. Fifteen minutes later, it’s ready to eat—absolutely delicious. Stir-fry eggs, ham sausages, a bit of greens, and alkaline noodles together to recreate the taste of street-stall fried noodles. Whisk two eggs with boiling water and steam them for fifteen minutes to get an egg custard with a mirror-smooth texture!

@Vino (Female, 34, Editor, Hangzhou): I stock up on plenty of semi-finished products—river snail rice noodles, xiaomian, Dingxi wide noodles, and Fuzhou fish balls. Boiling these with some fresh vegetables is always tastier, healthier, and more hygienic than takeout.I’ve told my friends many times: if you want to give a gift, give food; it’s practical and solves a problem. I have no use for things that are beautiful but useless. As a result, friends from all over the country send me local specialties!

● Fuzhou fish balls and meat wontons. Boil for about 5 minutes; once the fish balls float to the surface, they’re ready to eat. Photo: Chen Yan

@Xiang Qianjin: I try to plan my menu for the week in advance and buy fresh ingredients accordingly. Even simple “light meals” like salads or sandwiches are fine; it gives me the motivation to cook. I also sign up for cooking classes or find simple recipes online to learn new dishes, making the process of cooking more enjoyable.

@Mr Wang (25, Kunming): The main reason I stopped ordering takeout is that it tasted terrible. This awakened my Sichuanese genes, and the food I cook myself has become tastier and tastier—even my partner loves it. The combination of negative factors and positive reinforcement has created a virtuous cycle; I now find a great sense of satisfaction and achievement in cooking.

When I don’t feel like fussing but still want a nutritionally balanced meal, I mix meat, vegetables, and staples together—for example, fried rice, rice noodles, or dried noodles with meat, eggs, and veg. With just a few simple seasonings, it can be incredibly fragrant and delicious. The secret is to adjust the timing of when ingredients enter the pan based on their nature; the staple must always go in last. However, for meat that takes longer to cook, I process it until it’s about half-done, set it aside, cook the eggs and vegetables separately, and then add the meat and staples back in. This practical act of cooking allows one to discover the truth and order of gastronomy; it easily draws one into a world of “day and night, kitchen and love”.

“Cook Once, Eat for a Week”: Homemade Ready-Meals

Many people have neither the time nor the energy to cook after work. What can be done? Why not try “homemade ready-meals”? By pre-processing ingredients in batches or preparing a week’s worth of food in advance, you can save a lot of time.

@Sitang: Generally, when vegetables are in peak season and there’s too much to eat, I either freeze them or ferment them. Then I can just take them out whenever I need them—very convenient. Firmer vegetables like peas, edamame, sweetcorn, and broccoli are particularly suited for freezing. I froze some peas last year, which I can now defrost to make rice or a tagine. I also make natural yeast bread once a week, slice it and freeze it; I just take a few slices for breakfast and toast them for a delicious treat. Fruit can be frozen too; I’ve frozen bayberries, cherries, longans, mulberries, blackcurrants, raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries. I still have some longans left in the freezer from last year. Homemade kombucha or sparkling water with longan and other fruits is incredibly refreshing in hot weather; the sweet and sour taste is just as good as any store-bought fruit drink!

● Natural yeast bread made by Sitang. Photo: Sitang

@Rourou (Female, 33, Langfang): Before the pandemic, I ordered delivery all the time. But the lockdowns forced me to quit cold turkey and start cooking for myself. When my skills were still basic, I bought an automatic stir-fry cooker; I just had to prep the ingredients and throw them in. The food turned out quite well, and I could make four or five days’ worth in one go, then portion it out and freeze it.

@LTT (Female, 30, Beijing): My approach is to marinate the meat and leave it in the fridge the night before, then steam or quickly stir-fry it when I get home the next day. I highly recommend looking into Cantonese cooking; there are plenty of recipes for marinated dishes you can learn from. For vegetables, just wash and stir-fry them quickly, or blanch them and drizzle over some soy sauce or oyster sauce. If you can eat salads, that’s even easier.

@DolphinMomMi (Female, Beijing, 47): I order delivery no more than three times a year, and only when there’s a special situation at home. I once went over a year without ordering in. When commuting, I wake up early every day to cook and take an insulated lunch box to the office. When working from home, I use my weekends to buy meat in bulk and make home-made meal prep to be frozen in portions. Suitable dishes for freezing include braised pork ribs, stewed beef, and so on.

Taking stewed beef as an example: I’ll stew 1.5kg at once and divide it into three boxes. This allows me to quickly enjoy various meals over the next two months, such as beef brisket with radish, braised beef noodles, or beef stewed with cabbage and potatoes. By defrosting the braised beef the day before, all I need to do the next morning is add water, salt, vegetables, and an egg to have a nutritious bowl of beef noodles—convenient and delicious. I also pre-make beef sauce, minced pork, and mushroom sauce to add variety to my daily diet. If eating at home every day feels too monotonous, I occasionally dine out to change the pace and enjoy some relaxation.

@DouDou: Many people around me think it’s incredibly hard to quit delivery, and they’re curious as to why I can “persist” in cooking and bringing my own lunch. Actually, I don’t feel like I’m “persisting” at all. You only “persist” when you’re overcoming a hardship. In the process of experimenting with home meal prep, I’ve felt a strong sense of fulfilment; I even enjoy the entire process and the results. If you decide to try it, I suggest starting with minimally processed frozen ingredients or shelf-stable convenient foods. The most common are frozen mixed vegetables, frozen prawns, and the pre-cooked corn on the cob that many people like lately. I love browsing the frozen aisles in supermarkets; the ready-meals there are a great reference. Established frozen foods have usually passed market tests and aren’t taste-less, so we can use them as a guide to replicate the dishes at home, including the level of cooking.

Eating isn’t something you do alone

Sometimes, it really is hard to keep up the habit of cooking by yourself. It becomes much easier if you have the care of a family, the company of friends, or a “cooking buddy” to support one another. The emotional bonds between people can be the motivation that encourages us to eat well, while also easing the burden of preparing the food.

@Miantuan Jingjing: When I worked in Shenzhen, I used to order delivery constantly due to inescapable work pressure. Later, for a while, my father was also in Shenzhen, and I tried my best to go home for dinner every evening. Once, before he returned to Xi’an, he left me a stash in the freezer: wrapped dumplings, hand-rolled noodles, *sozi* (minced meat sauce), fresh tomatoes, and blanched cowpeas. This meant that even if I didn’t have time to shop, I could still have a simple bowl of noodles and some vegetables when I got home. Eventually, these quick vegetarian dishes weren’t enough for me—I’m a greedy little cat, and one day I suddenly craved meat. I started trying to make dry-fried ribs, which kicked off my journey of culinary advancement.

@Chongchong: Besides cooking for myself, I also take turns having dinner parties with friends. We really need to find a way to live communally; cooking alone is just too difficult.

@qiqi: I remember when I went to view a flat before moving, my new flatmate asked me with a grin: “Do you usually cook?” I saw that the kitchen counters in the new place were clean and bright, and the pots, pans, oils, and sauces all had their own designated spots. What was even more surprising was that the fridge had no “fridge smell”; the vegetables were arranged neatly inside, as if they knew they wouldn’t be forgotten.

My new flatmate loves tinkering with steamed buns, baozi, dumplings, and all sorts of flour-based foods. I’m often lucky enough to be fed, which naturally gives me more motivation to research new recipes to share. In the two years since I moved in, I’ve learned so many dishes I couldn’t make before, and I’ve almost stopped ordering delivery entirely. Eating has changed from a problem that needed solving into something I look forward to every day.

● Dumplings made by qiqi and her flatmate. Photo: qiqi

@ZhangYike: I now make some of my own meal prep or pre-process my ingredients, trying to balance nutrition with the need for simplicity and efficiency. I’ve also found a colleague to be my “lunch buddy,” and we take turns cooking to solve the problem of making portions that are too large for one person.

Is the work canteen appealing again?

The work canteen is a place people love and hate. Some complain that the food is tasteless, while others envy this dining perk provided by the workplace. After years of suffering through “cheap delivery”, how do people view the work canteen today?

@BeanPotato (Male, 32): After working all morning, having a fixed place to go and walking there in small groups with colleagues gives me a sense of routine, which to some extent relieves fatigue. If I’m sitting at my desk ordering delivery, I feel a bit despondent. However, our canteen is buffet-style and unlimited. When work pressure is high, I eat a lot at lunch to relieve stress, which has led to a frustrating spike in my weight.

@cutedog (Male, 24, Researcher): The few organisations I’ve worked for all had canteens, and because they’re subsidised, the food is relatively cheap. Although after a while my colleagues often complain that the flavours are monotonous, it’s still far better than being forced to order delivery. Thinking about it carefully, the food is actually quite diverse. Once inside, you can see standard stir-fries, as well as specialty noodles, pastries, and braised goods, such as braised duck heads and pork knuckles. After getting your food, there’s fruit and yoghurt at the checkout, making the diet fairly balanced.

@Vino (Female, 34, Editor, Hangzhou): Two years ago, I worked in a big city, and there were only two restaurants downstairs from the office. I still insisted on going down to eat. Later, I made a suggestion to the company, and the boss hired a cook whose salary was paid by the firm. We each paid 20 yuan a day for the ingredients, and we got five dishes and a soup every meal. It was pure bliss!

@Yuyang (Male, 29, Beijing): The biggest change since joining Foodthink is that I cook much more frequently. On office days, colleagues take turns cooking for everyone. Because there are so many of us, there are at least six dishes every time, which has really helped me hone my skills. The most comforting thing is that regardless of whether the food is good or bad, everyone is quite forgiving, which gives colleagues with average skills the space to improve.

So, unlike a typical work canteen, what we gain here isn’t just a dining perk, but the ability and habit of cooking. These skills and habits extend into your home life, allowing you to cook more for your family. Although it’s often a bit clumsy and I occasionally have a disaster in the kitchen, looking back, those braised tofu with spring onions, pork rib and seaweed soups, spinach with nuts, and braised tofu slabs were all made by my own two hands!

● Braised tofu with spring onion made by Yuyang. Photo: Zhou Xuan

The quiet rise of community canteens

In order to eat well, many young people are choosing to blend into community canteens meant for the elderly; this is perhaps a new trend. Which cities have these community canteens? Where are they tucked away in the corners of the city? We urgently need a community canteen guide!

@Chen Tingting: A community canteen opened near my place a while ago. I often head there when I can’t face cooking but don’t want to order delivery. It doesn’t seem to be the kind geared towards the elderly; there’s a wide variety of refined dishes and the service is excellent. Although the Wuchang rice is free to refill, the prices are on the higher side. For two people, three dishes can easily cost 100 yuan—I wonder if this qualifies as an ‘upscale’ community canteen? I initially thought the price would put people off and it would close quickly, but I was wrong; it’s actually quite busy! On weekdays, it’s full of people after work, and on weekends, it’s mostly parents with their children. It’s quite touching; I feel like this canteen has subtly liberated parents from the kitchen. I really hope it makes enough money to stay open.

@Road: There’s a community canteen near my complex. It primarily caters to the elderly, though they’ve explicitly stated it’s open to all ages. The variety is great, with prices ranging from 7 to 15 yuan. I don’t have huge demands for variety in flavour; what I truly appreciate is how clean and refreshing the food tastes—it’s not overloaded with oil or salt, and it doesn’t have that stale smell you get when food is trapped in a plastic container. Most importantly, compared to the dry, undercooked rice from deliveries, the rice here is so good I could eat a bowl of it on its own. Sometimes I feel the biggest difference between eating at home and eating out is simply that bowl of steaming hot rice! This community canteen gives me that feeling. My only gripe is that it’s not very friendly to the working crowd; dinner is only available until shortly after 6 pm, but many of us don’t get home until after 7.

● One day after finishing work, Road noticed a notice at the entrance of the complex announcing the opening of a community canteen. It was a wonderful surprise, as it meant another way to eat besides ordering delivery or cooking for oneself. Photo: Road

@Brown Sugar Ciba (Male, Shanxi): I’ve grown used to living alone in the city. Aside from cooking, ordering delivery, or eating at restaurants, I couldn’t think of any other way to get a meal. When I first heard about community canteens, I imagined them as something quite high-end, until one suddenly and unexpectedly appeared right downstairs from my home. They serve simple home-style dishes, and their noodles are actually better than those at the local noodle shops. More importantly, having a canteen so close to home gives me a sense of control over the pace of my life; it’s a place you can just go to whenever you see it, which removes the anxiety of waiting for a delivery.

@lislie: The first community canteen I tried was located near an exemplary renovated wet market. It had an open kitchen, and while the variety wasn’t much more than a self-service fast-food joint, the plates looked fresh and balanced, with a good mix of meat, fish, soup, vegetables, and grains. The space was large and offered a la carte options; there was even a notice next to the rice offering discounts for delivery drivers. The lunchtime crowd consisted mainly of two groups: local elderly residents and office workers (I heard many companies provide meal cards for their staff to use here).

Beyond government-run canteens, I’ve also eaten at privately run community shops. They post their lunch and dinner sets in a WeChat group daily—usually a Yunnan-style main and a dessert (you can also order homemade wine or drinks made by the owner on the day). It costs around 40 yuan; those who want a meal join a sign-up list in the group, then collect their food from the kitchen and find a seat. There’s a tacit understanding that everyone returns their plates to the kitchen afterwards. The owner told me that while some people initially came just to check it out, it’s now mostly regulars whom they know by name. Most of the customers are small groups of young people who exchange greetings or small gifts with the owner when they leave; the atmosphere is warm and cosy.

Discovering tasty and affordable budget eateries

Compared to branded chains, budget street-side eateries are the true sanctuaries that meet the daily dining needs of the working crowd. Do you have any such spots nearby? Feel free to share them in the comments and let’s map out budget eateries across the country together.

@Carrie: It’s quite hard for Southerners to order delivery in Beijing, isn’t it? Sometimes you just want a balanced set meal with meat, veg, and soup, but the apps are full of things like poached beef in chilli oil or Mao Xue Wang; you end up feeling overheated, spicy, and irritable. A few years ago, there was a weight-based chain called Joule Canteen in Beijing that I loved because you could choose your own dishes, but unfortunately, it closed. It seems these kinds of self-service, balanced fast-food spots struggle to survive in Beijing.

When I worked near Zhongguancun, I couldn’t afford the high-end fast food geared towards corporate professionals, so I went to a weight-based eatery downstairs. It had a very casual name and was tiny, but it was packed at lunchtime. I ate there every day, and I still think of it often. I made a point of eating there one last time on my final day of work as a memento. Now, when I’m occasionally in the area for errands, I still go out of my way to eat there. Seeing that it’s still open and busy makes me happy. It’s a form of resistance, and a way of protecting something. A giant city should be able to accommodate a small fast-food shop and a group of ordinary people.

● A food street near Zhichun Road in Beijing, home to many budget eateries. Photo: Carrie

@poplar (Male, 29, Table Tennis Enthusiast): Every time I finish training with my coach, I stop by a little shop called “Xianghe Meat Pies” near Chedaogou Metro Station for a meat pie and a bowl of egg with fermented glutinous rice. It is always the most satisfying meal of my week; that tiny restaurant holds all the joy and contentment I feel after playing. If I just stayed huddled at home ordering delivery on the weekend, the day would pass without anything happening.

@I don’t want to be a food influencer: If you stop ordering delivery, you can just eat at the little restaurants downstairs. I’m not sure if it was my desire to order less delivery that led me to discover all these local spots, or the other way around. Anyway, once I decided to walk or cycle to nearby places to eat, I found all sorts of dumpling shops, stir-fry joints, and noodle shops (one of which has some of the most authentic Roujiamo in Beijing)… there are even three Chongqing noodle shops, some of which are frequently recommended on Xiaohongshu. When I used to order delivery, I completely overlooked these shops; I had no idea what they served and assumed they were just unhygienic stalls. After passing by a few times, I realised they aren’t “hole-in-the-wall” joints at all! They are actually very clean and bright little shops. The excitement of discovering these delicious, affordable spots is wonderful—better even than finding the “best xxx in the city”. After all, you can only afford to visit those high-end places once a month, but the little restaurants nearby are what actually sustain your daily life.

Find your local market

Sometimes, people who cook often don’t necessarily know what they’re going to make in advance; they often decide on their menu as they wander through the market. That creative sense of ease is something to be envied. However, we first need to find a market with a wide variety of produce and fair prices before we have the space to exercise that creativity.

@Wet Market Beginner: Actually, the alternative to delivery is just cooking for yourself! But getting home late after work and then having to prep ingredients is exhausting just to think about; sometimes I really can’t face it. Washing and chopping is fast enough, but thawing meat takes forever. I tried ordering from Hema, so the groceries arrived just as I got home. But the portions of meat at Hema are really strange—one portion is too much for one person but not enough for two; two portions are too many for two. So, I’m not a fan of ordering from them.

Recently, I found a wet market near my office. You can buy exactly as much meat as you want, and they can even slice or shred it based on my needs. I never knew this was possible! If I want to make a dish but don’t know which cut to buy, I can just ask the vendor, which saves me from scrolling and obsessing over it on my phone. This is much more convenient for me; I get home and start cooking immediately, without having to worry about thawing. I’ve become a bit addicted to browsing the market lately; I always wander through after work and have found that they really have everything. As a Southerner, seeing vegetables I used to eat as a child in a Northern market was a real emotional moment. The wet market is ‘what you see is what you get’—it’s worth a stroll when you have time.

● Wudaokou Wet Market, where everything from fruit, vegetables, meat, eggs and milk to grains, oil, wine and fresh produce is available. Photo: Ning Chen

@噬可可 (Female, 28, Researcher, Tianjin): I have plenty of breakfast stalls near my home, as well as Tianjin’s largest vegetable market; on weekend mornings, I often cycle to the morning market to pick up fresh and affordable ingredients. Later, I discovered the sustainable markets organised by Tianjin’s ‘Green Footprint’, which put me in touch with several local small-scale organic farmers, making it easy to order vegetables weekly. With vegetables delivered straight to my door, the friction of cooking has diminished. I also have like-minded colleagues at work, so we order together and share cooking tips and culinary inspiration.

@管老师 (Male): There are two reasons why I avoid takeaways. First, I developed a habit of cooking for myself whenever I’m not away on business. My vegetables are delivered fresh from a nearby organic farm, allowing me to curate my own selection; my staples and grains come from farmers near my workplace or through organic platforms—everything is kept simple. Having cooked for myself for so long, I’ve even cut back on salt (a jar of soybean paste from the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market has lasted me two years). Second, while I cannot cook when travelling, it provides a wonderful opportunity to explore local flavours. Small-town eateries and farmers’ markets might not always tout themselves as ‘organic’ or ‘ecological’, but they excel in using clean ingredients and honest methods. Now, whenever I visit a new place, I love wandering through the farmers’ markets. When I find a local specialty that appeals to me, I add the vendor on WeChat so I can order from them remotely in the future, and occasionally chat with them to learn about local produce and traditional techniques.

● Tofu sausage purchased by Mr Guan in Mangshi, Yunnan, this year. Photography: Mr Guan

@Bubble Bear: In 2018, while I was a visiting scholar in the US, I discovered a Farmers’ Market held every week in a park not far from the university. My mother was accompanying me on my studies at the time and was very keen to experience it. In her words: “I want to see for myself whether foreign markets are any better than the one at the head of the slope in Xintianzhai Zhongpo.” We bought okra, tomatoes, pumpkins, green beans, and aubergines—mainly vegetables. Most vendors had pre-weighed the produce into small boxes; once you’d chosen, you just tipped them all into a bag and left. It was brisk and efficient, very characteristic of the American South.

One day after returning to China, my mother told me that while browsing a shopping centre, she found a small organic food shop on the lower ground floor. The girl in the shop was very warm and even gave her two bunches of slightly wilted bok choy. They were a bit wilted, but that didn’t matter—a soak in water fixed them right up. That evening, I had the stir-fried bok choy my mother made; it was sweet and fresh, tasting just like my childhood. The next day, I rushed to the shop. It turned out to be a little place called “Ji Shi Tang”, a liaison station for various farms around Beijing, specialising in direct sales from organic farms and hosting the “Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market” every week. I later became a member of Ji Shi Tang, witnessed the shop’s relocation, and even volunteered there. Come to think of it, it’s been nearly seven years now.

From Farm to Table

There are others who have extended the act of eating beyond the table and back into the fields, seeking to understand how food grows from the earth. In this process, they have discovered new ways of living and have even helped more people build more resilient life-support systems.

@Qingran: I am a ‘study-companion mum’, so I spend a lot of my time cooking. When I do order takeout, it’s purely out of laziness. If I don’t order, I cook for myself, but I used to be uneasy about the vegetables around me. I once bought an aubergine from a supermarket that had a sponge-like texture inside; it didn’t feel like a plant at all. It was as if the aubergine had grown as plastic, which quite frightened me.

On the ninth day of the first lunar month, I found an eco-park near my home and shared a greenhouse with ten other people. I have about 60 square metres of land there where I’ve planted some vegetables, hoping for a decent harvest. I can’t speak for the long term, but I think I won’t be ordering takeout for at least six months.

@Kouzi (Female, 60, Farmer): If I were at home, I could go forever without takeout. I’d like to recommend “Mai Fan” to everyone. Mai Fan is a common food in the North; in Henan, it’s called “Zheng Cai” (steamed vegetables). As the name suggests, it’s made by mixing wheat flour with vegetables and steaming them. In my hometown in Shandong, the Jiao Dong dialect term “Ban La” reveals the ultimate secret: mix the wheat flour with the vegetables, steam them in a basket, and then mix with seasonings before eating.

Although the variety of vegetables for Mai Fan is richest in spring, it’s actually suitable for all four seasons. When I go to the village market, I often scavenge some discarded outer cabbage leaves and carrot tops; these common vegetables make excellent materials for Mai Fan. Slightly older carrot tops, paired with grated carrots and flour, are even better when steamed. Compared to baking, boiling, frying, or stir-frying, steamed Mai Fan loses fewer nutrients and preserves the original flavour of the food. It provides both carbohydrates and vegetables, is not fussy about ingredients, and is low-difficulty with no barrier to entry—perfect for complete beginners in the kitchen.

Foodthink’s Take

Start with the simplest meals

The quiet rise of community canteens

From Farm to Table

Published by Foodthink