Peking Duck

History

Peking duck appears in Chinese imperial kitchens as early as the Yuan dynasty, in the 14th century: a court cookbook already mentions a roast duck prepared for the emperor. The dish took its current form in Beijing after the Ming moved their capital there in 1420. Two schools of technique still compete today: the closed oven of Bianyifang restaurant, founded in 1416, and the open fruitwood oven popularized by Quanjude in 1864, which has since become the more widespread standard.

Peking duck has long served as a dish of diplomatic ceremony: it appeared on the menu of the banquet held for Richard Nixon during his historic 1972 visit. Today it’s carved tableside in front of the guests, into roughly a hundred thin slices where the crackling skin separates cleanly from the meat, and eaten rolled into a thin pancake with hoisin sauce, scallion and cucumber.

Ingredients — Serves 4-6

• 1 whole duck (about 2kg, Pekin or Muscovy)
• 2 tbsp honey + 2 tbsp hot water (glaze)
• 1 tbsp rice vinegar
• 1 piece ginger, 2 scallion stalks (for the cavity)
• Thin Chinese pancakes (mandarin pancakes)
• Hoisin sauce, sliced cucumber and scallion to serve

The Peking duck recipe, step by step

1. Prep the skin. Blanch the whole duck for 30 seconds to tighten it, dry it thoroughly, then brush it with the honey-water-vinegar mixture.
2. Let it dry in the fridge, uncovered, for 24 hours: this step is what makes the skin crackle when roasted — don’t skip it.
3. Slip ginger and scallion into the cavity to perfume the meat.
4. Roast hanging or on a rack, breast side up first, at 200°C for 20 minutes, then flip and continue 40 minutes at 180°C.
5. Check the color: the skin should turn a deep mahogany and sound hollow when tapped.
6. Carve into thin slices, skin and meat together, and serve immediately with pancakes, hoisin sauce and sliced vegetables.

Cooking method

Technique: dry roasting, hung if possible, so the fat drains and the skin dehydrates into a crackle.

Traditional equipment: a fruitwood oven (apple, pear); a home oven with a raised rack works well.

Signs to look for: taut, mahogany skin that sounds hollow when tapped. If it’s pale in spots, give it a few more uncovered minutes.

Nutrition, per serving

Calculated from the raw ingredient quantities above (whole duck, meat and skin), divided across five servings, the middle of the stated 4-6 range.

The fat figure needs a significant caveat. This is calculated from the whole duck as purchased — meat, skin and the fat layer between them — before roasting. The entire point of the technique described above is to render that fat out: a full day of uncovered drying followed by roasting is specifically designed to melt subcutaneous fat away from the skin so it drains off rather than staying in the meat. In practice, a large share of the raw 114 g fat figure per serving ends up in the roasting pan rather than on the plate; the crackling skin that is eaten is mostly protein and rendered crackling, not the fat itself.

A precise post-rendering fat figure would require knowing how much fat each specific duck loses during roasting, which varies with bird size and oven; the raw-ingredient total above should be read as an upper bound, not the amount actually consumed.

Economic context

A whole duck, a full day of preparation, and a wood-fired or high-heat oven make Peking duck one of the more elaborate dishes on the atlas to reproduce properly — consistent with its long history as a dish of imperial and diplomatic ceremony rather than everyday cooking. Whatever a whole duck costs day to day, the time investment alone has always kept this closer to celebration food than a weeknight meal.

Source: World Bank / FAO, Food Prices for Nutrition database (Cost and Affordability of a Healthy Diet) v4.0, 2024 data, CC BY 4.0, DOI 10.57966/41AN-KY81. Retrieved 29 July 2026. This figure describes the cost of a healthy diet in China generally — it is not a costing of this specific recipe.

Who this dish suits

And you?

In your opinion, where’s the best place or restaurant to enjoy good Peking duck?

Also worth trying