40 best congee toppings, add-ins and garnish ideas to jazz up your bowl of congee at home.
Congee (aka jook) is a simple and delicious Chinese rice porridge made by boiling rice and water (or stock). The fun part of eating congee is when you start to customize it by adding toppings and garnishes to it.
One of the cool things about congee is, it's not limited to just having it when you are feeling under the weather and sick. You can also enjoy it for breakfast, lunch, or dinner as well, or if you're like me you crave it as comfort food.
One batch of congee can be eaten in several different ways depending on what type of congee toppings you add to it! You can keep it simple with a few congee toppings or go nuts and add a lot and make a heavy meal out of it!
If you're looking for a simple creamy congee recipe to start you off, I have a chicken congee recipe. This is the go-to recipe that I use at home every time I make congee. You can easily omit the chicken portion of that recipe and make a plain white congee with that recipe as well.
These are the classic congee toppings that most people are familiar with and use.
Adding crunchy and crispy textures to your congee really elevates it and gives congee a whole new experience, especially when these crunchy toppings have a lot of flavor like garlic and onions.
Crispy Fried Garlic - I like to make a big batch of this to keep around to add to my soups and congee. It's super easy to make and keeps for about a month.
To make it, you finely chop garlic and deep fry it in oil in a small pot. I would add the garlic into the cold oil, that way you won't accidentally burn it and you can slowly see it cook to a golden color. Once the garlic turns a light golden brown color, turn off the heat and remove it from the oil onto a paper towel to dry. Once the garlic is dry, you can store it in an air-tight container at room temperature. Save the garlic oil and use it in your cooking!
If you're not familiar with Asian pickled vegetables, shopping for it may be overwhelming. It definitely was for me.
My rule of thumb when adding pickled vegetables is to always check the ingredient list on the packaging. What kind of flavor am I going for? If you're looking for something sweet and sour, make sure there's sugar and vinegar in the ingredient list, but if you're looking for something salty then make sure it only contains salt and nothing else.
If you know what you're looking for but don't know the naming of it (because literally, every single package says 'Pickled Greens'), use the Chinese below to compare to the packaging. To easily find the name of the pickle, look for the word: ? which means vegetable, and either compare the character before or after that word.
If you have any congee toppings that you like to use that I missed on my list, let me know in the comments! I love to hear from you and I love getting new ideas to try.
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