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    Home » Recipes » soup and stew

    Hot and Sour Soup-Suan La Tang

    Last Modified: October 9, 2022 by Elaine| 37 Comments

    6.6K shares
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    Hot and sour soup (Suan La Tang) is a common dish popular in China especially in cold winter. It is firstly invented for poor people who need to warm their body up. So lots of white pepper used. It has different versions in China. In Sichuan area, hot and sour soup is called as Suan La Tang which is mainly cooked with chicken and pork stock while in Northern areas, it is called as Hu La Tang and usually with beef or lamb stock. Although there are some differences in texture including the color and flavors, they share lots of similarities too.

    hot and sour soup|chinasichuanfood.com

    There are lots of similar mixed dishes in China. In Chinese cuisine, we want to eat as more types of vegetables in one meal. That’s a theory about balance and diversion. There are lots of similar dishes for example eight treasure rice, eight treasure congee, and  Buddha's delight.

    hot and sour soup|chinasichuanfood.com

    About the Ingredients

    Dried shiitake mushroom

    Dried shiitake mushroom is much better than fresh mushrooms because of its flavor. The sun drying process makes the ribonucleic acid much easier to release and hydrate. But it has stronger flavors compared with fresh shiitake mushroom and is less smooth in texture. So the principles

    1. Use dried shiitake mushrooms for a better flavor of your hot and sour soup.
    2. Not too much to avoid dominating

    Wood ear mushrooms

    Wood ear mushroom provides a lovely black color and a crunchy texture of the soup. If you want a beautiful appearance of the soup, cut the wood ear mushrooms into smaller pieces.

    Soft tofu 懒豆腐

    Tofu performs to create a melt in mouth and super soft texture. So soft tofu will be the first choice for this soup.

    Protein

    You can use pork shreds, chicken shreds, cooked beef or lamb, seafood as protein. In addition, ham, spam and other already processed protein is also great for hot and sour soup. If you get high quality ham, your soup will be quite amazing. If all of the processed protein is not by hand or not accepted, I suggest using coated pork shreds. In Sichuan cuisine, we have a very popular local snack named as “水滑肉” literally mean sliding meat in water. It has a very lovely texture, super tender inside and smooth for the shell. I will introduce the authentic version later. But you can have some basic idea about how the meat can be after making this hot and sour soup.

    hot and sour soup|chinasichuanfood.com

    Cook’s Note

    1. Vinegar and pepper powder should be added just before turning off the fire because the vinegar might be volatilized by long time of cooking and thus reduce the taste.
    2. Dark soy sauce is used to darken the color and it is optional if you want to create a big contrast between the appearance and flavor.
    3. Do not add too much salt at the very beginning. Light soy sauce contains lots of salt. And you can slightly add more salt after the soup is finished based on personal preference. But too much salt at the firstly is a real disaster.
    4. This soup is actually quite easy and enjoy. Drizzling some sesame oil at the very end can add some naughty flavors and also make the soup more shinning.  
    hot and sour soup|chinasichuanfood.com
    hot and sour soup|chinasichuanfood.com

    Hot and Sour Soup

    Elaine
    Traditional Chinese hot and sour soup
    5 from 8 votes
    Print Recipe
    Prep Time 10 mins
    Cook Time 10 mins
    Total Time 20 mins
    Course Soup
    Cuisine Sichuan cuisine
    Servings 4 Making 4 bowls
    Calories 199 kcal

    Ingredients
      

    • 3 dried shiitake mushrooms , soaked in hot water and thinly sliced
    • ¼ cup dried wood ear mushrooms , soaked in hot water and shredded
    • 50 g pork shreds
    • 4 bamboo shoots , finely shredded
    • ⅓ carrot , shredded
    • 1 thumb ginger , shredded
    • 3 tbsp. black vinegar
    • 2 tsp. fresh ground white pepper powder
    • 5 cups unsalted chicken stock
    • 50g soft tofu
    • 2 tbsp. light soy sauce , or soy sauce
    • 1 tsp. dark soy sauce
    • 1 tsp. salt or to taste
    • ½ tbsp. sugar
    • 1 large egg , whisked
    • sesame oil for drizzling
    • chopped green onion and coriander

    Pork marinating

    • 2 tsp. light soy sauce
    • ¼ tsp. sugar
    • 1 tsp. starch
    • ¼ tsp. salt

    Starch water

    • 3 tbsp. cornstarch or other starch
    • 3 tbsp. water

    Instructions
     

    • Prepare the pork, marinate pork shreds with light soy sauce, sugar, salt and cornstarch. Mix well.
    • In a wok, add carrots, bamboo shoots, wood ear mushroom, shiitake mushroom and ginger shreds. Add chicken stock, bring to a boiling and then simmer for 15 minutes.
    • Add light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, sugar, and salt. Continue cooking for 2 minutes.
    • Then place shredded tofu in. Then place pork shreds in and gently stir by chopstick when the content boils again.
    • Stir the starch water once and then place the starch water in the soup. Heat to thicken.
    • Drizzle egg liquid in. If you want smaller flowers, stirring at a faster speed. Or for larger flowers, stir roughly.
    • Place black vinegar and white ground pepper in. Turn off fire immediately.
    • Add some extra aroma by placing chopped green onion and coriander. Drizzle some sesame oil and serve hot.

    Nutrition

    Calories: 199kcalCarbohydrates: 9gProtein: 14gFat: 10gSaturated Fat: 3gCholesterol: 116mgSodium: 1488mgPotassium: 227mgVitamin A: 160IUVitamin C: 0.5mgCalcium: 63mgIron: 1.3mg
    Keyword Hot and Sour
    Tried this recipe?Mention @ChinaSichuanFood
    hot and sour soup|chinasichuanfood.com

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    Reader Interactions

    Comments

    1. Robot Mile

      February 18, 2014 at 6:39 pm

      it looks so delicious, I will try to make this version.

      Reply
      • Elaine Luo

        February 18, 2014 at 9:55 pm

        Thanks and hope you enjoy it. Mile.

        Reply
    2. Gina

      February 20, 2014 at 12:49 am

      Love hot and sour soup! And neat trick with the vinegar/pepper at the end, I never knew.

      By the way, what kind of ham do you use?

      Reply
      • Elaine Luo

        February 20, 2014 at 4:01 am

        Gina,

        I use the common ham sausage available in supermarket. You can use what ever type of ham sausage.

        Reply
    3. Will

      June 03, 2014 at 4:38 pm

      Hello Elaine

      I make this soup using a slightly different recipe and I suppose everybody makes it a little different.
      I also use lily buds and bamboo shoots., Also, I prefer white pepper over black. I will try yours, it looks good. Thanks

      Reply
      • Elaine Luo

        June 06, 2014 at 3:38 am

        Hi Will,
        Yes everyone has unique hot and sour soup. I love bamboo shoots too but the fresh ones are not always available, otherwise I will add some too.

        Reply
    4. Monika

      November 07, 2014 at 9:27 am

      Dear Elaine,

      I've tried this soup last night, and it was really lovely. Nevertheless, I've missed the spicier impact (for which I added a tiny bit of Doubanjiang) a bit and the sour tang (easy, I added a bit more vinegar). I've also added some Pak Choi for good measure to have some veggies and colour.
      What I'm wondering about is that every time I'm being served this soup in Chinese restaurants, it's much more reddish in colour and has a more pronounced aroma. Where does this colour come from? Is there something like tomato paste added (which it does not taste like)? Or is this achieved with a good measure of soy sauce?

      Have a good weekend,
      Monika

      Reply
      • Elaine Luo

        November 07, 2014 at 9:37 am

        Hi Monika,
        Thanks for your feedback.
        The reddish color might come from dark soy sauce and the pronounced aroma comes from the soup base restaurants are using. Restaurants usually have a long time simmered stock for hot and sour soup. My version is homemade lighter one.

        Reply
        • Troy

          January 18, 2019 at 11:49 am

          red vinegar is traditionally used to get the color

          Reply
          • Elaine

            January 22, 2019 at 7:38 pm

            Yes. Red vinegar is very popular in Chinese cuisine for soups and slow roasting dishes. But I believe it is not very common in store.

            Reply
      • Andreas

        January 20, 2019 at 10:02 pm

        I read today on a blog from a young woman whose parents used to run a Chinese restaurant here in Germany, that they actually did use tomato paste for a variation of this soup which is commonly called Beijing-Soup on the menu.

        I guess this dates back to the times of the 1970ies and 80ies when Chinese ingredients where hard to come by and expensive in Germany. So they had to be creative to keep prices at a reasonable level. By now this kind of Germanized Chinese cuisine seems to have somewhat of it's own tradition.

        You'll find the recipe here (in German): https://tingtingsnest.com/original-chinesische-rezepte/suppen-und-saucen-rezepte/chinesische-sauer-scharf-suppe-peking-gulasch-suppe

        Reply
    5. Peg

      February 24, 2015 at 6:47 pm

      I love hot and sour soup, but do not like Tofu.. The consistency... Can I leave it out without compromising the soup? I know tofu has no taste of its own.

      Reply
      • Elaine Luo

        February 25, 2015 at 8:54 am

        Sure Peg. Tofu is traditionally used in hot and sour soup but not a must.

        Reply
    6. Tracee

      March 17, 2016 at 11:27 am

      I always get a quart of Hot & Sour Soup from our favorite take-out restaurant when I have a cold. There is just something about it that makes me feel better! I always have to pick out the mushrooms though. Our local place uses thin sliced pork. I've never tried to make it at home...but my goal this summer is to perfect this and pan fried dumplings.

      Reply
    7. Michael Malone

      August 08, 2018 at 5:13 am

      5 stars
      Elaine Luo, I have a Chinese recipe for Suantang that uses ginger, garlic, green//white onion Suan tang paste, stock, mujiangzi extract then noodles. Is this a similar type of recipe? Many thanks in advance.

      Reply
      • Elaine

        August 11, 2018 at 7:44 am

        No, Michaeal.
        The version you mention is originated from Guizhou and totally different from this one.

        Reply
    8. lesley hoban

      January 08, 2019 at 10:57 am

      recipes states chicken broth but all I can find is water?

      Reply
      • Elaine

        January 10, 2019 at 9:35 am

        Both chicken stock and water work fine for this recipe, Lesley.

        Reply
    9. Erica

      January 14, 2019 at 6:47 am

      Hi Elaine, love your website! Thank you for sharing all these wonderful recipes with everyone.

      I have a question about the ingredients. Cornstarch appears in the first list at 1/2 a tablespoon, then again in the second list at 3 tablespoons. Can you please clarify when the first amount of 1/2 a tablespoon is used? Also, bamboo shoots are mentioned on the instructions but not the ingredients. Would appreciate if you could let us know how much should be used.

      Thanks Elaine!

      Reply
      • Elaine

        January 14, 2019 at 8:34 am

        Erica,
        The first cornstarch (1/2 tablespoon) listed is to coat other fresh meats like chicken shreds or pork shreds. I do not make the instruction as clear as possible. For all cooked meats or sausage, there is no need to use starch.
        I have already update the recipe. Let me know if you have any other questions.

        Reply
    10. Andreas

      January 20, 2019 at 8:52 am

      5 stars
      Hi Elaine,

      I made this today, and it really tastes great on a cold winter day like this. I used some cooked ham, as that's readily available in the supermarket and substituted the red bell pepper with a thinly sliced carrot which I already had in store .

      Thank you for another very tasty recipe.

      Reply
      • Elaine

        January 20, 2019 at 7:12 pm

        Thank you, Andreas. It must be very comforting in the super cold days.

        Reply
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