Yes, you can eat — and usually well. The one thing that decides whether the meal goes smoothly is a sentence written in Chinese. Chinese menus carry no allergen information and the staff are not used to being asked, so a card you can hand over beats any amount of explaining.
This page gives you twelve of them — vegetarian, vegan, halal, and the nine allergens that matter most in Chinese cooking — each with the places that ingredient actually hides.
Why a written card, not a conversation
China does require allergen labelling — but only on prepackaged food, the things with a printed wrapper in a supermarket. The categories are cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, fish, egg, peanut, soy, milk and nuts. That rule, GB 7718-2025, only takes effect in March 2027.
Freshly cooked restaurant food is outside it entirely. So you will not find an allergen table on a menu, and asking a waiter may not get you a reliable answer. What works is a fixed Chinese sentence that the kitchen can read for itself.
Twelve cards — show the kitchen one of these
Each line below is a requirement in Chinese, next to where that ingredient tends to hide in Chinese cooking. Show the relevant one to the waiter, or hand over the phone and let them take it to the kitchen.
Show this to the kitchen
- Gluten (wheat)
- Peanuts
- Nuts
- Sesame
- Shellfish
- Fish and molluscs
- Egg
- Dairy
- Soy
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
- Halal
Three shorter ones, a sentence each:
- No chilli —
- No pork —
- No beef —
Gluten: the one that catches Europeans
This is the trap for European visitors. Chinese soy sauce is normally brewed with wheat — in a traditionally brewed soy sauce, wheat can be about half the dry ingredients. So "just a little soy sauce" is not a workable answer for coeliac disease or a serious gluten intolerance.
Things that contain gluten without it being obvious: soy sauce, vinegar, oyster sauce, cooking wine, bean pastes, chicken bouillon, salad dressings. Relatively safe: rice, rice noodles, sweet-potato noodles, mung-bean vermicelli, pure buckwheat noodles (check that they are 100% buckwheat). Gluten-free soy sauce (tamari) has to come from an import supermarket — an ordinary restaurant will not have it.
Peanuts: two layers
Peanut oil is one of the most-used cooking oils in China, and peanuts appear outright in kung pao chicken, chilli chicken, shacha sauce and hotpot dips. It is worth separating two things:
- Refined peanut oil — the protein is largely removed, and in clinical testing most severely allergic people have had no reaction to it.
- Whole peanuts and crushed peanuts — these are the real hazard, and a trace is enough to set off a severe reaction.
The cautious version: tell the restaurant as usual, and say plainly that you cannot have the peanut oil either. Saying it more strictly costs you nothing.
Sesame
Sesame paste, cold noodles, hot-dry noodles and hotpot dips are full of sesame, and sesame oil is less refined than peanut oil, with more protein left in it — so if you are allergic to sesame, avoid it explicitly. In China, sesame is voluntary to declare, not mandatory.
Vegetarian: China is good at this, but "vegetarian" is not "vegan"
The good news: China has a deep vegetarian tradition, Sichuan cooking especially — heat, fermentation and mushrooms make vegetables taste like something, and you will not be eating plain boiled greens for a week. Temple zhai (Buddhist vegetarian food) is the most reliable version of it.
The bad news: say "I'm vegetarian" in a Chinese restaurant and the kitchen may hear "no pieces of meat in this dish" — the broth is still chicken stock, and the greens are still fried with oyster sauce.
The hidden meat to watch for: oyster sauce in stir-fried greens and noodles; chicken stock and chicken bouillon as the base note of almost every soup and many stir-fries; lard in some regional vegetable dishes and pastries; fish sauce and shrimp paste in some Sichuan and southern cooking; pork floss in congee, buns and snacks; pork-bone broth and hotpot bases.
How it goes in practice, on these roads: vegetarian is not easy to solve here, but it does exist. In big cities, tourist towns and around temples you will find something proper — a temple dining hall, vegetarian noodles, greens and tofu. The smaller and the higher the place, the more you are relying on that Chinese card, and the more you should accept stepping back a notch: what can be guaranteed is often only "no meat in this dish".
Halal: look for the sign
China has no single national halal mark, but the signs are recognisable: a proper Muslim restaurant hangs the word (qīngzhēn) over the door, usually white on a green ground, often with Arabic script or a crescent beside it. In several provinces local regulations require halal businesses to display a halal sign, to employ people with halal dietary habits in the key roles, to keep separate utensils, and to forbid non-halal places from using the word — so a restaurant that has hung the sign is far more reliable than a verbal promise.
The two easiest kinds to find: Lanzhou beef noodles — almost all halal, a bowl for around ten yuan, the most widely available halal fast food in the country — and Xinjiang restaurants: kebabs, big-plate chicken, pilaf, baked buns, naan, all halal and very friendly to anyone avoiding pork.
Along the routes here: restaurants carrying a halal sign are few in western Sichuan, and get more common the further you go into Qinghai. On the Sichuan side of the trip, Lanzhou beef noodles are the reliable fallback.
Two pieces of etiquette: most halal restaurants serve no alcohol and do not welcome drink brought in, and do not carry bought pork products inside. Follow those two and you are a welcome guest.
No chilli, no pork, no beef
- No chilli — in Sichuan, Hunan and Guizhou this has to be said hard. "Less chilli" or "mild" in Sichuan may still be hot; say "no chilli", and stress "not even a little".
- No pork — say it on its own; eating in halal restaurants is the simplest way.
- No beef — Chinese cooking keeps beef, lamb and pork clearly apart, so saying it plainly is enough.
If your allergy is severe
Carry your own emergency medication, and carry a bottle of the safe soy sauce or dressing you use. In the big Chinese cities an import supermarket can restock you; out of the cities, not necessarily. This page tells you the situation — it is not medical advice. For anything specific, follow your doctor.
Questions I get on this one
In small places on the plateau, can these needs be met?
Will a vegetarian dish share a wok with meat?
Can I just order plain rice and greens?
Will a halal restaurant ask me to prove anything?
Written from the requests I deal with on the road rather than from a guidebook. This page is not medical advice — for a serious food allergy, consult your doctor and carry your emergency medication. Related: how eating works here · what if I get ill in China · does anyone speak English · all essentials