Malaysian Festive Foods: What's Served at Raya, Chinese New Year, Deepavali, Christmas, Gawai and Kaamatan

Follow the Malaysian calendar from one end of the year to the other, and you are not merely changing dates — you are changing kitchens. This month it is the scent of rendang and lemang’s coconut milk; a few months later, the table is full of raw-fish salad lifted high while people cheer; then it is the turn of crunchy murukku spirals, and finally a split bamboo section cracked open to release steaming chicken.

This article is not a history of each festival — for that, there are separate articles. It is a tour of the dining table: the signature dishes of each major celebration, and the one custom that ties them all together.

What unites the Malaysian festive table?

Before naming a single dish, name the custom first: the open house. At every major festival, hosts open their doors to relatives, neighbours and friends to come and feast. According to the Sabah State Library, families “open their home to relatives, friends, and neighbours, welcoming guests with a variety of traditional dishes”.

In Malaysia, this custom often crosses communities — guests from all backgrounds are invited and attend. But one thing is key: what sits on the table differs from host to host. The Hari Raya table keeps to halal food; some families’ Deepavali table is entirely vegetarian; the Gawai and Kaamatan tables carry rice wines that are absent from other homes. It is the food itself that tells you who is hosting.

Hari Raya Aidilfitri: ketupat, lemang and rendang

After a month of fasting, the Raya table is laden with dishes that take time and cooperation to prepare. According to the Sabah State Library, among its traditional dishes are:

• Ketupat — rice compressed in a woven palas-leaf pouch and boiled until firm, then sliced.
• Lemang — glutinous rice and coconut milk cooked slowly inside a bamboo section.
• Rendang — meat cooked long with spices and coconut milk.
• Kuih raya — an assortment of sweet cakes and biscuits.

Ketupat and lemang are rarely eaten on their own; both are paired with rendang or peanut sauce. Their preparation — pressing coconut milk, weaving ketupat pouches, tending the bamboo embers of lemang for hours — is itself a family event before Raya arrives.

Chinese New Year: yee sang and “lou sang”

No Chinese New Year dish in Malaysia is more “loudly festive” than yee sang (or lou sang). According to The Rakyat Post, it is a Cantonese-style raw-fish salad — raw fish sliced thin, mixed with shredded vegetables, seasonings and various garnishes — served as an appetiser during the first 15 days of the new year.

What makes it special is its ritual. Each ingredient carries an auspicious meaning, spoken aloud as it is added to the plate. According to The Rakyat Post:

Ingredient	Symbolic meaning
Raw fish	Abundance and prosperity
Carrot	Good luck
White radish	Job opportunities
Oil (poured in a circle)	Fortune from all directions
Plum sauce	The sweetness of life and family bonds
Peanuts	Wealth
”Pillow” crackers	Gold

Once all the ingredients are poured in, everyone at the table lifts the dish high with their chopsticks while calling out auspicious wishes — this is lou sang. According to The Rakyat Post, the belief is that the higher you toss, the better the luck in the coming year. The same source traces the colourful version popular today to the cook Loke Ching Fatt in Seremban, who introduced a more colourful version in the 1940s before it became widespread by the 1960s.

Deepavali: murukku, sweets and the spirit of sharing

As Deepavali approaches, the kitchens of many families turn into small snack factories. The star is murukku — a crunchy snack that, according to Periuk.my, comes in various forms:

• Mullu murukku — a ridged spiral from a murukku mould.
• Ribbon pakoda — thin, twisted murukku made from chickpea flour, sometimes sprinkled with sesame.
• Achu murukku (also called kuih ros) — softly sweet, made with coconut milk and shaped with an achu mould.

Alongside the savoury side are the sweets: nei urundai (ghee balls), adhirasam (fried rings coloured with palm sugar), payasam, semolina biscuits and colourful coconut candies. According to Periuk.my, these snacks are prepared to be shared — made in groups a few days before the festival, then served to visiting guests and neighbours.

Christmas: from Western roasts to Sabah’s hinava

Christmas in Malaysia is rarely uniform. In many urban homes, the table is mixed — Western roasts beside local dishes. But the clearest picture comes from Borneo. According to Bernama, communities in Sabah prepare dishes such as:

• Jeruk bambangan — pickled wild local mango, a Sabah staple.
• Manok pansuh — chicken cooked in bamboo.
• Hinava — raw-fish salad.
• Tuhau — pickled wild ginger, and sambal lada.

Bernama also notes that, in contrast to the roast turkey of Western countries, many in Sabah enjoy grilled chicken wings and thighs with rice and fish soup. The celebration centres on community: neighbours and relatives exchange food and greetings, accompanied by the music of gongs and the kulintangan. Once again, the open-house custom — with a local flavour.

Gawai and Kaamatan: harvest, bamboo cooking and rice wine

Borneo’s two harvest festivals — Gawai Dayak in Sarawak and Kaamatan in Sabah — share a theme of gratitude for the rice harvest, and their tables revolve around local ingredients and communal cooking. According to The Star:

Festival	Signature dish	What it is
Gawai (Sarawak)	Manok pansuh	Chicken cooked inside a bamboo section
Gawai (Sarawak)	Ensabi; terung asam	Cassava leaves in coconut milk; sour Bornean eggplant with smoked fish
Gawai (Sarawak)	Nuba laya; sinamu	Mashed rice wrapped in leaves (Lun Bawang); a fermented mix then fried with chilli
Kaamatan (Sabah)	Hinava	Sabah-style “ceviche” — raw mackerel with lime, ginger and bitter gourd
Kaamatan (Sabah)	Linopot	Yam rice wrapped in doringin leaves
Kaamatan (Sabah)	Bosou; pinarasakan	Fermented fish/meat; fish simmered with bambangan

What ties both tables together is the drink. The Star notes tuak (rice wine) and various other tapai — among them montoku and tumpung, drunk through a straw from a shared vessel. These rice wines are a tradition of the Dayak and Kadazandusun communities; they mark the harvest feast, and are absent from festive tables that keep to halal drinks.

Notice, too, a fine thread running through: manok pansuh appears at Gawai and at Sabah’s Christmas. The technique of cooking in bamboo transcends any one festival — it is a shared Bornean culinary language across communities and seasons.

A note on halal, vegetarian and rice wine

Because the festive table tells you who is hosting, the wise guest observes a little. The Hari Raya table keeps to halal food — no pork, no alcohol. Some families serve entirely vegetarian food at Deepavali. Rice wines such as tuak, montoku and tumpung are a legitimate part of Gawai and Kaamatan tradition for those communities, but are not expected in other homes.

There is no single “Malaysian table”, and that is precisely the point. The open house is not about making the food uniform — it is about inviting others to taste what is the mark of your own family.

What’s next

• For the full context of each celebration, see Hari Raya Aidilfitri, Chinese New Year, Deepavali, Christmas in Malaysia, Gawai Dayak and Kaamatan.
• For the etiquette of hosting and visiting, see the open house section in the Hari Raya Aidilfitri article.
• Refer to the reports from The Star, The Rakyat Post, Bernama, Periuk.my and the Sabah State Library for the details of the dishes mentioned here.