Our best star anise recipes make aromatic dishes from Cambodia and China to Russia and beyond, all distinguished by their wonderful fragrance and flavour. Add these recipes with star anise to your repertoire as much for their taste as their perfume – not to mention their health-giving properties. Star anise is a wonder spice.
Our recipes with star anise include everything from light breakfast recipes and hearty dinners to sweet desserts. Traditionally, star anise has appeared in cuisines from Asia to Europe, although we use this wonderfully fragrant spice in everything, as much for its taste as its wellness properties.
You’ve all heard of wonder foods, also known as superfoods, ingredients that not only taste wonderful but boast exceptional health benefits. There are also wonder spices or super spices – along with wonder herbs and super herbs.
It should not be surprising that there are ingredients, including herbs and spices, that have long been used in traditional medicine for centuries and even millennia that are boiled in herbal teas, stirred into medicinal soups and made into balms and compresses.
For these Southeast Asian-based food writers, who have long used perfumed spices to add aroma and flavour to dishes, that these spices are also healthy and high in antioxidants and have anti-inflammatory properties is a bonus. Star anise is one of those spices, and if you’re not yet using it in your cooking, you should be.
Before I tell you about our recipes with star anise, I have a favour to ask. Grantourismo is reader-supported. If you’ve enjoyed our recipes, please consider supporting Grantourismo by using our links to buy a handcrafted KROK, the best mortar and pestle ever; book a cooking class or meal with locals on EatWith; or buy something on Amazon, such as one of these best new cookbooks, classic cookbooks for serious cooks or gifts for Asian food lovers. Now let me tell you about these recipes with star anise.
Best Star Anise Recipes from Chinese Tea Eggs and Cambodian Pork Stew to a Spiced Banana Pudding
Star anise is native to China, grown right across Southeast Asia, and is also indigenous to our current home, Cambodia, and is a key ingredient in Cambodian cuisine, which is distinguished by its perfume – like a lot of Southeast Asian cuisines, especially those of neighbouring countries Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar.
Star anise also happens to be one of our favourite spices and we use it a lot in cooking. There’s star anise in Chinese five spice, which we use in everything from the five spice biscuits below to our hot cross buns recipe, not to mention our Christmas negroni recipe.
Star anise is also perfect with pork. You’ll find it in a lot of our favourite pork dishes, including Terence’s pan-roasted, brined and marinated pork chops, which I swear are the best pork chops in the world. Here are some of our favourite recipes with star anise for your cooking pleasure.
Chinese Tea Eggs Recipe for Perfumed Marbled Eggs Almost Too Beautiful To Eat
This Chinese tea eggs recipe makes marbled eggs – aromatic boiled eggs that have a marbled appearance when peeled, and it’s one of our favourite recipes with star anise.
Steeped in a stock of five spice, star anise, soy and tea flavours that perfume the eggs, they’re a tasty snack when eaten on their own, or add soy sauce, chilli sauce and steamed rice and you have a lovely light breakfast.
Or you can make a full meal of them and add soy sauce, chilli sauce and steamed rice, and make a pot of tea, and you have a deliciously light breakfast or brunch right there.
These Chinese marbled eggs are traditionally hard-boiled eggs, and even though we prefer soft-boiled eggs, we absolutely love this Chinese tea eggs recipe and are big fans of these beautiful marbled eggs. If you are as well, you can easily make double the number of eggs just by adding a little more stock to the stockpot.
However you eat them, they are fantastic with Lao Gan Ma (chilli sauce) with peanuts and a little soy sauce, we don’t care how soft or hard they’re boiled. They’re so good.
Chinese Tea Eggs Recipe for Perfumed Marbled Eggs Almost Too Beautiful To Eat
Comforting Russian Buckwheat Kasha Recipe with Bacon, Caramelised Onions, Mushrooms and Eggs
This comforting Russian buckwheat kasha recipe with caramelised onions, bacon lardons, pan-fried mushrooms, and soft-boiled eggs makes my hearty take on my baboushka’s traditional Russian breakfast.
Buckwheat or grechka is the key ingredient of this kasha, a savoury porridge that I serve with a dollop of sour cream and plenty of fragrant dill. I also add star anise, making it one of my favourite star anise recipes.
While this is based on my Russian grandmother’s recipe, despite the rustic appearance, it is perhaps the least traditional of all my Russian family recipes, yet it’s one of my favourite buckwheat recipes.
The main differences between my recipe and that of my grandmother’s is my subtle use of spices, including star anise.
Comforting Russian Buckwheat Kasha Recipe with Bacon, Caramelised Onions, Mushrooms and Eggs
Slow-Cooked Pork Stew Recipe With Ginger and Star Anise for Khor Cheung Chrouk
This slow-cooked pork stew is another of our best star anise recipes. It takes some patience to make but it will fill your kitchen with the amazing aromas of pork, star anise and ginger.
This pork stew recipe makes Cambodia’s khor cheung chrouk or pork leg stew and it’s a delicious, hearty, aromatic dish that you’ll have a greater chance of eating in a private home in Cambodia when you travel to the country than you will in a restaurant or local eatery unfortunately – which is all the more reason to make it at home.
We love this Cambodian pork stew and if you’re a pork lover and you’ve cooked and enjoyed our pork recipes before, we know that you will love it as much as we do.
It’s a dish that can easily be enjoyed simply with steamed rice and a plate of stir-fried Asian greens or morning glory or it could become the star attraction of a Southeast Asian feast.
Slow-Cooked Pork Stew Recipe With Ginger and Star Anise for Khor Cheung Chrouk
Pork Spare Ribs with Star Anise Recipe for Aromatic Cambodian Style Ribs
This pork spare ribs with star anise recipe makes a wonderfully aromatic Cambodian style of pork ribs that you can tuck into on their own, washed down with cold beers of course, or you can serve as one of a number of dishes as part of a Cambodian family feast.
So what makes these ‘Cambodian-style’? For us, it’s the star anise and the palm sugar, and the simplicity of the ribs. Cambodian palm sugar that comes from just down the road in a village called Preah Dak or Pradak on the other side of Angkor Wat and the Angkor temples.
The village is famous for its palm sugar and its fresh fermented rice noodles. But what really makes this dish special is the fragrance.
That’s thanks to that star anise, and seasoning from the soy sauce, and it seriously does not need much more than that.
Pork Spare Ribs with Star Anise Recipe for Aromatic Cambodian Style Ribs
Braised Pork Belly Recipe with Ginger, Black Pepper, Palm Sugar, Star Anise, and Peanuts
This braised pork belly recipe with ginger, black pepper, palm sugar, star anise, and peanuts makes a comforting melt-in-in-your-mouth Cambodian slow-cooked pork belly dish that Cambodians would simply call a pork stew or khor sach chrouk – also spelt kaw sach chrouk.
‘Stew’ in Khmer is ‘khor’ or ‘kaw’ and ‘sach chrouk’ means pork meat. A literal translation might be khor sach chrouk knhei mrech skor thnot sondek dei, which explains why it’s just called a Cambodian pork stew.
Whatever you want to call this braised pork recipe, it makes an incredibly delicious dish and it’s not only one of our favourite pork belly recipes, it’s one of our favourite pork recipes full stop.
The wonderful Cambodian palm sugar caramelises the pork belly and combined with the pepper, star anise and ginger give it sweet floral aromas that waft through our apartment whenever we make it, while the roasted peanuts add crunch.
Like our other Asian braised pork dish recipes, it’s a dish that is best enjoyed with stir-fried Asian greens (links above) and steamed rice.
Braised Pork Belly Recipe with Ginger, Black Pepper, Palm Sugar, Star Anise and Peanuts
Cambodian Banana Coconut Tapioca Pudding Recipe with Sesame and Star Anise for Chek Ktis
This banana coconut tapioca pudding recipe makes Cambodia’s chek ktis, a sweet and creamy aromatic dessert of stewed banana in coconut milk and tapioca pearls, that’s perfumed with star anise, and it’s one of our best star anise recipes.
Chek means banana in Cambodia’s Khmer language, and ktis, or more correctly k’tis or k’tiss, means coconut, and covers both coconut milk and coconut cream.
Cambodian cooks typically sprinkle on white sesame seeds only, but I love the extra crunch of black sesame seeds and also the look of the black seeds and the pretty star anise.
Garnished with grated coconut, a drizzle of coconut cream, and a sprinkle of sesame seeds before serving, it’s sweet Cambodia in a bowl and it is sublime. You’re going to love this banana coconut tapioca pudding recipe.
Cambodian Banana Coconut Tapioca Pudding Recipe with Sesame and Star Anise for Chek Ktis
Classic Negroni with Spices Recipe for a Festive Christmas Negroni
A classic negroni with spices has become our favourite Christmas cocktail since we first came up with the idea during one of the first festive seasons we spent in Cambodia, and it’s one of our best star anise recipes.
You need a really good reason to mess with a classic negroni recipe and as far as we’re concerned there are few better reasons than Christmas.
Our classic negroni with spices has a handful of local ingredients – star anise, cinnamon stick, orange zest, and palm sugar – that warm the drink up, giving it a Christmas flavour, and injecting some festive spirit without transforming the classic cocktail into something that it isn’t.
When it comes to the spices, do make sure they’re fresh. If they’re not, you can roast them in a dry pan for a few minutes until fragrant. If they don’t give off spicy aromas, then bin them and go buy fresh cinnamon and star anise.
Classic Negroni with Spices Recipe for a Festive Christmas Negroni
Five Spice, Peanut and Sesame Biscuits Recipe for a Crunchy Aromatic Cookie
Our five spice, peanut and sesame biscuits recipe makes one of our best star anise recipes, a crunchy, slightly chewy-centred, aromatic cookie that is extremely moreish.
Like most of our recipes on Grantourismo these scrummy biscuits are inspired by delicious local ingredients and flavours here in Cambodia. This five spice, peanut and sesame biscuits recipe was created to satisfy cookie cravings that we had.
Cambodia has long grown and traded in sesame seeds, peanuts, sugarcane, pepper, and spices such as cardamom, star anise, cloves, and cinnamon, so that combination of ingredients, which Terence narrowed down to a few – sesame seeds, peanuts and five-spice – made sense.
Chinese five spice powder typically contains star anise, cinnamon, cloves, and peppercorns, after all, so there was no need to repeat those.
We love how these turned out. They’re a little crunchy, a little chewy inside, not too sweet, and they have some texture thanks to some aeration.
Five Spice, Peanut and Sesame Biscuits Recipe for a Crunchy Aromatic Cookie
Please do let us know in the comments below if you make any of our best star anise recipes as we’d love to know how they turn out for you,
