Asian cuisine styles can be broken down into several tiny regional styles that have rooted the peoples and cultures of those regions. The major types can be roughly defined as East Asian with its origins in Imperial China and now encompassing modern Japan and the Korean peninsula; Southeast Asian which encompasses Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Viet Nam, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines; South Asian states that are made up of India, Burma, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan as well as several other countries in this region of the continent;Central Asian and Middle Eastern. "the Smart one" Mums fried Rice Is The Best

In the United Kingdom, "Asian cuisine" most often refers to South Asian cuisine, while in the United States and Australia it usually refers to East Asian (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) and Southeast Asian cuisine, in addition to South Asian cuisine.

In much of Asia, the term does not include the country's native cuisines. For example, in Hong Kong and mainland China, Asian cuisine is a general umbrella term for Japanese cuisine, Korean cuisine, Filipino cuisine, Thai cuisine, Vietnamese cuisine, Malaysian and Singaporean cuisine and Indonesian cuisine; but Chinese cuisine and Indian cuisine are excluded.