Hainan chicken rice prototype originated in Hainan's ancient rituals "oil rice balls + white cut chicken" a combination. From the Qing Dynasty, Hainan residents ate it during the Spring Festival dipped in chicken water, chicken oil and rice cooked together, and then the fried rice into a round rice ball, worship ancestors, pass on the lives of children and grandchildren, "reunion and happy meaning. At the end of the worship, additional rice balls and white cut chicken are served.

This white cut chicken with rice eating method, but also slowly continued. The most commonly eaten chicken in Hainan is the "Wenchang Chicken", which is characterized by its "three small and two short" shape and is fed with coconut meat scraps, banyan seeds and cassava. Wenchiang chicken is an excellent meat breed, used for "white cuts of meat", the flavor is particularly Hainanese traditional "chicken rice" form, also known as "Wenchang chicken".

The end of the 19th century, "the South China Sea" wave of chicken rice, spread to Southeast Asia. Malay Peninsula, Hainan immigrants more places, such as Penang, Malacca and Singapore, there are many along the street picking or carrying a bamboo basket selling chicken rice vendors, often one side of the basket with chicken, the other side of the basket filled with oil rice. "Chicken rice" this way of eating, often in a foreign land in the diners have homesickness, so "Hainan chicken rice" this in the origin of the rare call, but in foreign countries and other places gradually become popular. Malacca's "chicken rice seeds" it inherited from Hainan in the past to do the way the ancestors of the rice ball Malacca chicken rice unique flavor. Rice and chicken oil, dipped in chicken water and cooked together, and then rolled into a small oily ball-shaped rice balls, with the white cut chicken to eat, the taste of moist and firm.

Hainan chicken rice, like many folk foods, has its own distinctive final presentation, but the standard of "deliciousness" is always similar. Nowadays, most fattened chickens are used to make chicken rice. The meat is thick and juicy and sells well in the short term, but the flavor of the chicken is slightly below the pay grade, so it needs the help of spices. Onion and ginger oil, put the leaves in the belly of the chicken, put a little salt on the skin, soak the whole chicken in hot water for a while, and then take it up again and again until the chicken is almost cooked; take the cooked chicken out, and throw it into the ice water at once When the gel that melts under the skin of the chicken meets with the cold, it condenses into a thin layer of gel-like jelly, and the skin of the chicken shrinks and becomes brittle.