Chinese-American Barbecue: Big-Flavor Asian BBQ from the Smoke Queen

Take your barbecue cooking into flavorful new territory with more than 100 Chinese dishes that are cooked, authentic barbecue-style, low and slow over smoking wood embers.

Open the pages of Chinese-American Barbecue and you will discover a broader world of flavors than you have encountered in your town's traditional barbecue joints. Los Angeles's Winnie Yee, of Smoke Queen BBQ, is the most celebrated female pitmaster in the world, praised by the New York Times and dozens of other media outlets, and a leader of a new generation of barbecue chefs dedicated to incorporating global flavors into the barbecue repertoire.

In this first-ever cookbook on Chinese barbecue, The Smoke Queen reveals her secrets, including:

• Wet rubs, dry rubs, marinades, glazes, and barbecue sauces, such as Chinese Char Siu BBQ Sauce and Spicy Hoisin BBQ Sauce
• 5 Chinese Mother Sauces, including Chile Crisp Oil and Kung Pao Sauce, that you can use for barbecue and grilling, or in your kitchen
• BBQ appetizers and sides like Spring Rolls with Spicy Hoisin BBQ Sauce and Hong Kong Wonton Mein with Char Siu
• Substantial and delectable meat-centered main courses, from Chinese Eight-Spice Spatchcock Chicken with Honey Garlic Glaze to Pork Tenderloin with Gochujang BBQ Sauce
• Fish and seafood mains, such as Scallion Oil Smoked Shrimp and Malaysian Salt-Smoked Whole Crab
• Sweet finishes for a Chinese BBQ meal, from a rustic Smoked Asian Pear and Apple Pie to a light and airy Smoke Queen Banana Pudding

This is an authoritative, colorful, photo-packed volume that will give you years of enjoyment and will deliciously expand your vision of what barbecue can be.

Author: Winnie Yee
Publisher: Harvard Common Press
Published: 04/28/2026
Pages: 256
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 2.85lbs
Size: 10.09h x 8.04w x 1.03d
ISBN: 9781577155959

About the Author

Winnie Yee was born in a small town 60 miles north of Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Her family, members of Malaysia's large Chinese community, emigrated to the Los Angeles area when she was 6. She earned a bachelor's degree in economics from UCLA in 2003. Having grown up with Chinese-Malay live-fire cooking, she was inspired to devote herself to barbecue, teaching herself about a wider range of Chinese traditions beyond Chinese-Malay--including mainland Chinese and Chinese-American--and learning the art of Texas-style smoking. She opened her widely praised restaurant Smoke Queen BBQ as a delivery-only ghost kitchen in 2020 and shortly thereafter as a brick-and-mortar restaurant in Garden Grove, in Orange County. Remarkably, by 2021 she was already being lauded by the New York Times and other outlets as a major voice on the US BBQ scene. Aside from the restaurant, Smoke Queen serves up barbecue weekly at Smorgasburg LA in downtown Los Angeles.