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My understanding is that 荤菜 means "meat dish" in Chinese. But I don't understand why.
I read there is a saying "荤素搭配", which draws similarities to Yin and Yang.
If someone knows and can further explain the origin of the 荤 character it would be much appreciated. Thanks.
why isn't it called 肉菜?
This isn't the right way to think about it. Rather, there is a word 「葷菜」 which can take on the meaning of meat dishes in some contexts, if you need to translate it into English. In other contexts, 「葷菜」 may just mean dishes which have a potent smell or flavour, which is probably its original meaning.
「葷」 (Baxter-Sagart OC: /*qʰu[n]/, strong-smelling vegetable > strong-smelling dishes) is a standard semanto-phonetic character, comprised of semantic 「艸」 (vegetation) and phonetic 「軍」 (/*[k]ʷər/).
Note that /*qʰu[n]/ is also the reconstruction of 「熏」 (smoke). This indicates that 「葷」 and 「熏」 are cognate, and the original meaning of 「葷」 was something to do with a strong smell. See the Proto-Sino-Tibetan reconstructions for other cognates and modern descendants.
「葷菜」 sometimes taking on the meaning of meat dishes is just a semantic extension, likely a deliberate contrast to lighter-flavoured or blander dishes, of which vegetarian dishes (「素食」) are commonly associated with.
In the earliest times, 荤菜 means 5 kinds of vegetables with a pungent flavor: garlic, leeks..., Buddhism prohibits eating them.
Later, Buddhism in China forbids eating meat. 荤菜 beginning to include meat.
Now, 荤菜 refers to meat.
荤菜的原料可以是肉，也可以是动物油脂，内脏，血液，也可以是蛋、奶。对于部分极端素食主义者，葱姜蒜也算是“荤”。
“荤”这个字和“肉”在含义上有很多不同的地方：
例如从上面这个餐厅菜单的截图上来看，韭菜和鸡蛋在这家餐厅都算作素菜。
荤 (T.: 葷) is a phonosemantic character composed of two components:
艹, which is an abbreviation form of component 艸, is a depiction of two grass plants meaning "grass". Here, 艹 (grass) is used as a meaning component.
军 (or 軍 in traditional) was originally composed of sound component 匀 yún (here abbreviated to 冖 in the modern form) and meaning component 车 "chariot", originally meaning "military unit". Here, 军/軍 (jūn) is used a sound component.
The original meaning of this character is "strong-smelling vegetable" which later the meaning extended to "non-vegetarian food" and "meat diet".
I hope this explanation helped you out on the etymology for 荤. :)
Sources used:
Other than meat, 荤 includes some vegetables that have a strong stinky/acrid smell such as onion, ginger, leek...etc.
荤，臭菜也。——《说文》
荤，辛菜也。——《苍颉篇》
膳荤。——《仪礼·士相见礼》。注:“辛物，葱韭之属。”
素菜 - All vegetable dishes except those having the characteristics of 荤菜.
