Born in Guangzhou to a restaurateur father and a grocer mother, Yan began cooking at 12. He moved to Kowloon, Hong Kong the next year with his family, working in his uncle's restaurant. He received a diploma from the Overseas Institute of Cookery of Hong Kong, then he studied college a year in Calgary at 18 before heading to California. He received masters of science in food science from University of California, Davis.
After teaching Chinese cooking for the extension program and appearing on a local Calgary talk show in 1978, Yan has been hosting over 1,500 episodes of the PBS cooking shows Yan Can Cook since 1982. He has won a Daytime Emmy Award in 1998 for best cooking show, a 1996 James Beard Award for Best TV Food Journalism, and a 1994 James Beard Award for Best TV Cooking Show. He also received the Antonin Careme Award by the Chef's Association of the Pacific Coast and the Courvoisier Leadership Award by Courvoisier. He is also hosting Martin Yan's Chinatown Cooking, where he tours Chinatowns around the globe
Some accuse Yang that, while his thick Chinese accent has entertainment value, he constructs an Asian stereotype. Yan, however, maintains that his accent is not fake and that any excessive intonation is because of his enthusiasm: "For many people the accent will stay, even those that speak English perfectly, and uses proper grammar and words." Yan started studying English at 16.
He was conferred an honorary Doctorate of Culinary Arts by Johnson Wales University. Yan has opened a chain of Yan Can Restaurants and founded the Yan Can International Cooking School in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has written over two dozen cookbooks, such as