Food is often the glue that binds a family or community, and that’s especially true during Chinese New Year, the annual 15-day festival that welcomes the arrival of spring and the luck and prosperity of a new year.

Sometimes called Lunar New Year or Spring Festival, it begins each year with the new moon of the lunar calendar, and ends on the full moon that follows about two weeks later. In 2025, the Year of the Snake in the Chinese Zodiac, the celebration starts Jan. 29 and culminates with the Lantern Festival honoring deceased ancestors on Feb. 12.

A time for family reunions, with people sometimes traveling long distances to be together, the festival typically includes an elaborate feast on New Year’s Eve featuring foods thought to bring luck, wealth and happiness. Much thought and care go into creating the menu for the meal.

Deep-fried spring rolls, which take their name from the season in which they’re eaten, are probably the most familiar dish. They’re typically filled with a savory mix of Chinese cabbage, shiitake mushrooms, carrots and other veggies. Their cylindrical shape and golden color symbolize gold bars, and are meant to bring wealth and prosperity to those who eat them.

It’s also common to find extremely long noodles known as longevity noodles on the menu because they illustrate the wish for a very long life. It’s considered bad luck for the cook to break or cut the strands while cooking or tossing them, and the eater should be equally careful not to chew them in pieces. Slurping is encouraged to avoid cutting one’s life short.

Rice cakes made from sticky glutinous rice are another welcome sight during Chinese New Year, as they symbolize progress, advancement and growth, according to The Woks of Life, a popular online resource for Chinese cooking in English that came out with a family cookbook in 2022.

Here are three easy (and essential) dishes for your own Chinese New Year’s celebration, or for any time you’ve got a craving for Chinese food that’s both quick and tasty.