Word.ws English Dictionary

wok hei

wok hei noun: the slightly seared flavour imparted to food that has been traditionally cooked in a seasoned wok.

Noun

wok hei (uncountable)

  1. The slightly seared flavour imparted to food that has been traditionally cooked in a seasoned wok.
    • Seafood flavors combine with the pork stock and it's simmered until the liquid evaporates and the contents are brought just to the brink of burning, resulting in creamy-textured noodles and a magic boost of wok hei flavor.2016, Glenn van Zutphen, Living in Singapore: Fourteenth Edition Reference Guide

Origin of wok hei

Borrowed from Cantonese 鑊氣 /镬气 (wok6 hei3).

Questions about wok hei

What does wok hei mean?
Wok hei means the slightly seared flavour imparted to food that has been traditionally cooked in a seasoned wok.
What part of speech is wok hei?
Wok hei is a noun.

Words near wok hei in the dictionary

  1. wojwod
  2. wojwode
  3. wojwodes
  4. wojwods
  5. wok
  6. wok hei
  7. wok race
  8. wok races
  9. wok racing
  10. wokas
  11. woke

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wok hei (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “wok hei.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wok_hei. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.