Ming was raised in Dayton, Ohio, where he spent hours cooking alongside his mother and father at their family-owned restaurant, Mandarin Kitchen. His love of cooking (and eating!) great food was forged in these early years, while also gaining valuable experience in front and back of the house. Ming studied at Yale University, earning his degree in Mechanical Engineering. During this time, Ming spent his junior summer at Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris. After graduating from Yale, Ming worked in kitchens around the globe. He trained under renowned Pastry Chef Pierre Herme in Paris and in Osaka with Sushi Master Kobayashi. Ming continued to learn varied styles of cuisine, holding positions in both front and back of the house at establishments in Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco and Santa Fe.

In 1998, Ming opened Blue Ginger in Wellesley, MA impressing diners with the restaurant's innovative East-West cuisine. In its first year, Blue Ginger received 3 stars from the Boston Globe, was nominated by the James Beard Foundation as "Best New Restaurant 1998," and Esquire Magazine named Ming as "Chef of the Year 1998." The James Beard Foundation crowned Ming "2002 Best Chef Northeast" and, since 2002, the Zagat Restaurant Guide has rated Blue Ginger the "2nd Most Popular Boston Restaurant." In 2009, Ming and Blue Ginger won IFMA's Silver Plate Award in the Independent Restaurant Category recognizing overall excellence in the industry.

Ming is the host and executive producer of the public television cooking show, SIMPLY MING. His SIMPLY MING video podcasts, the first of their kind, feature tutorials on everything from filleting fish to food allergy basics.

In addition to television, Ming is the author of four cookbooks: Blue Ginger: East Meets West Cooking with Ming Tsai, Simply Ming, Ming's Master Recipes, and Simply Ming One-Pot Meals.

For the past decade, Ming has used Kyocera Advanced Ceramic cutting tools.