The Dai area is humid and hot, and there are many kinds of insects. It is an important part of Dai food to make all kinds of flavor dishes and snacks with insects as raw materials. Insects that are often eaten are cicadas, bamboo worms, Okumo, terrapin, ant eggs and so on.

Catching cicadas is in summer. Every evening, when the cicada community is in the grass, the cicada wings are soaked with dew and can't fly. Women quickly pick up cicadas in bamboo baskets and bake them in a pot to make sauce. Cicada sauce has the medical functions of clearing away heat and toxic materials, relieving pain and swelling.

Dai people generally like to eat ant eggs. They often eat a kind of yellow ant that nests in trees. When taking ant eggs, the ants are driven away first, and then the eggs are taken. Some of the ant eggs are as big as mung beans, and some are as small as rice grains, white and bright, washed and dried, and fried with eggs. It is delicious and can be eaten raw or cooked. When eating raw, it can be made into sauce, and when cooking, it can be fried with eggs, which is commonly used in acid.