Yao people like to eat pickled food. "Bird gizzard" is a famous food with unique flavor of Yao nationality, and it is made by curing bird meat. Wash the captured birds, dry them in the sun, mix them with rice flour and salt, put them in a small pottery jar, seal the jar with banana leaves, and eat them in a few days. Yao people often use "bird jars" to entertain their guests. Sometimes, pigs, cattle, mutton, etc. are also pickled in this way. Daily dishes include soybeans, Mi Dou, pumpkins, peppers, poultry and livestock. Yao people in Dayaoshan, Jinxiu, Guangxi, used a "bird pot" to catch migratory birds and keep them as Qiang, which is a delicious treat for guests.

Yao people also like to eat insect pupae, such as pine pupae, kudzu pupae, wild bee pupae, bee pupae and so on. Yao people also like to make their own cane sugar, sweet potato sugar, bee sugar and so on by using the characteristics of mountainous areas.

Most Yao people like drinking. Generally, rice, corn, sweet potato and so on are used. And often drink it two or three times a day. Yao people in Yunnan like to brew water wine with mash, and often use bamboo tubes to hold water when they go out to drink.

Yao people also like to decoct tea with cinnamon and galangal, thinking that it can refresh their minds and eliminate fatigue. Yao people in many areas like to play with Camellia oleifera, not only eating and drinking by themselves every day, but also entertaining guests with Camellia oleifera. In Tomb-Sweeping Day, every family had to dye flowers and eat rice. ,