Celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, with traditional sweet treats that symbolize good wishes for the year ahead. Sharing cookies, candy, and fruit is a way to wish friends and family a prosperous, healthy, and joyful year.
Interesting facts about Chinese New Year
- For many families, the reunion dinner on New Year’s Eve is the festival’s most important moment. It brings relatives together and is considered the year’s most significant meal.
- The foods and sweets served during the Spring Festival carry symbolic meanings: they represent abundance, happiness, longevity, and prosperity.
- Sweet treats specifically convey wishes for a “sweet life.” Each traditional dessert or candy offered often has its own symbolic meaning.
- New Year candies are commonly presented in a round, red candy box called a “Tray of Togetherness,” filled with sweets that symbolize luck and good fortune.
- Round fruits are also popular offerings. Their shape represents unity, prosperity, and completeness; certain fruits are viewed as particularly auspicious for the season.
Tips for creating a Lunar New Year care package
- Decorate the box in red. Red is a lucky color in Chinese tradition, associated with happiness, vitality, and success.
- Include symbols from the Chinese zodiac. Each year corresponds to one of the 12 zodiac animals, and adding zodiac imagery makes a package feel personal.
- Look for packaged cookies and candies at local Asian markets. Popular choices include walnut cookies, almond cookies, and fortune cookies.
- Add dried fruits and preserved sweets—red dates, lotus root candy, winter melon, kumquats, and candied strips of coconut are traditional options.
- Consider including red envelopes for lucky money, which are customarily exchanged to wish recipients good fortune in the year ahead.
Chinese New Year cookies
Traditional Chinese New Year cookies are enjoyed year-round, but during the Spring Festival they take on special symbolic meaning. Giving these cookies is a way to share wishes for health, prosperity, and happiness.
Chinese Peanut Cookies are crunchy, golden cookies made with ground roasted peanuts. Peanuts symbolize good health and longevity.
Pineapple Cookies (pineapple tarts) are bite-sized buttery shortbread filled with pineapple jam. Pineapples are associated with prosperity.
Dragon Cookies are piped butter cookies shaped like dragons, a traditional symbol of good luck, strength, and vitality.
Cornflake Cookies are buttery cookies rolled in crushed cornflakes for extra crunch; they are especially popular in Malaysia during the New Year season.
Chinese Almond Cookies are light, crunchy, and buttery—classic Lunar New Year cookies that symbolize wealth and prosperity.
Chinese New Year Candy
Candy is an obvious choice when wishing someone a sweet life. Many candies and candied fruits shared at Lunar New Year carry symbolic meanings that extend those wishes.
Milk Candy is a chewy nougat-style candy inspired by the popular White Rabbit brand and enjoyed across China.
Date and Walnut Candy combines sweet dates and crunchy walnuts. Dates symbolize wealth and prosperity while walnuts often represent happiness.
Sesame Peanut Brittle is a crunchy candy made with peanuts and sesame seeds; peanuts stand for health and longevity, and sesame is associated with good luck.
Candied Coconut Ribbons are colorful, lightly sweet strips of coconut that symbolize friendship and family ties.
Candied Ginger is a simple, sweet-and-spicy treat made with just a few ingredients; ginger is linked to good health and long life.
Lucky fruits for Chinese New Year
Round fruits are often eaten or given during the Lunar New Year to symbolize completeness, unity, and prosperity. While fresh fruit may not always be practical to ship, fruit-flavored treats can convey the same good intentions.
Oranges and mandarins symbolize luck and wealth. Orange Cookies are cake-like, bursting with citrus flavor, and often finished with a crunchy sugar coating.
Apples represent peace and harmony. Apple Oatmeal Cookies capture the scent and flavor of spiced apples and make a comforting, symbolic gift.
Pomegranates signify family happiness and fertility. Sweet, chewy Pomegranate Caramels use pomegranate juice to deliver festive flavor and color.
Watermelon and its seeds are associated with abundance and prosperity. Watermelon Sugar Cookies resemble melon wedges and are a playful nod to that symbolism.
Peaches represent vitality and long life. A simple recipe like Peach Cobbler in a Mug uses shelf-stable ingredients and makes a thoughtful, mail-friendly treat for students or service members.