How to make hot pot broth at home, two versions included.
When it becomes cooler and cooler, I am happy with the fact that I can eat hot pot including my favorite spicy hot pot, nourishing seafood hot pot and warm lamb and beef hot pot. I love those ideas. I am living in China now and born in Chongqing a city originally from Sichuan province, where lots of hot pot restaurants providing excellent various hot pot options. In case, if you are interested in some hot pot culture , please move the eye to my page hot pot.
Generally there are two types of broth for hot pot, one is spicy version (红汤 in Chinese ) and the other is clear (清汤 in Chinese)version.
The first step is to make the basic stock. 1000g chicken and 250g pork bones.
Cut the chicken into large chunks. Clean chicken chunks, and pig bones. Break the ginger and cut scallion into large sections.
Prepare a pot or wok with enough water (at least 4 L), add ginger, scallion, 8-10 white peppercorn, chicken and pig bones. Skin any floats on the surface and keep the soup clean.
Bring all the content to a boiling and then turn down the fire to simmer for around 40 minutes to 1 hour. You can see the stock is very light.
Mild Version
In your serving pot, add tomatoes, 2-3 shiitake mushrooms, red dates, scallion sections, celery and 3 sections of corns. Season with 2 teaspoons of salt.
That’s our mild hot pot broth.
Mala Hot Pot Broth
Please note this is a very basic version of homemade mala hot pot soup base. I have already simplified the ingredients and using only key ingredients.
In the picture blow, the left red paste is chopped chili pepper paste (糍粑辣椒), making from dried red peppers. You need to choose less spicy but red ones. Firstly cut the dried peppers into small sections and then soak in boiling water until soft or you can simmer it with low fire. Then they are mashed. The right one is common Sichuan Doubanjiang.
Melt a beef tallow in a pot, fry ginger, scallion and cloves until aromatic. Place in your store bought mala hot pot seasonings or all spices. Fry over slowest fire for 1-2 minutes. Pour in light stock prepared previously.
Simmer for 1o minutes over slowest fire and then continue with the hot pot.
- 1 to mato cut into wedges
- 1 long green onion cut the white part into small sections
- 1 small bunch of bean sprouts
- 2 celery sections cut into 1 inch sections
- half of a corn cut into 2-3 cm thick pieces
- 3 shiitake mushrooms remove the ends
- 3 L light stock
- 2 tsp. salt
- 3 tbsp. beef tallow
- 2-3 slices of ginger
- 4 long green onion sections
- 5-8 garlic cloves
- 3 L light stock
- 3 tbsp. Doubanjiang
- 3 tbsp. chopped chili pepper 糍粑辣椒
- 1 tsp. Sichuan peppercorn
- 1 star anise
- 12 to 25 dried chili peppers depending on how hot you want the soup base to be.
- 1 tbsp. light soy sauce
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In a large pot with water, add chicken, pig bones, white peppercorn, long green onion and ginger. Bring to a boiling and skim any floats on the surface. Slow down the fire and continue simmer for 1 hour.
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In your serving pot, add tomatoes, 2-3 shiitake mushrooms, red dates, scallion sections, celery and 3 sections of corns. Season with 2 teaspoons of salt and load with 3 L light stock.
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Soak 50g dried chili pepper in hot boiling water for 30 minutes, covered please. Then transfer out and finely mashed.
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Melt a beef tallow in a pot, fry ginger, scallion and cloves until aromatic.
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Place in all the seasonings including doubanjiang, chopped red peppers and other seasonings (or a store bough package). Fry over slowest fire for 1-2 minutes until the oil turn red. Pour in light stock prepared previously and light soy sauce. Simmer for 15 minutes over slowest fire.
If you do not want to find those ingredients, you can purchase a spicy hot pot soup base from the store and skip all of the ingredients in "seasoning for red version" tab
Elaine wrote a e-cookbook with my hot pot dinner recipes where lots of advanced hot pot soup bases are included. If you love to make some unique and yummy hot pot at home, this might be a helpful cookbook for you. More details, interesting ingredients and tips about Chinese hot pot soup base, dipping sauces and preparation process are all included.
Thanks. Its hard to find great hot pot recipes. I used beef and pork bones, and still came out delicious.
Even though Im not even close to being Chinese…..I LOVE HOT POT!! and so does my husband. HAHA-we just might introduce this to Mexico! We’re going later this year 😀
Thanks again
My Pleasure. Glad to know that you love hot pot too.It just totally wins my heart.
Thank you for this recipe. Although I do use a ready made base soup I like adding to it and approach the genuine Sichuan style 火锅 as closely as possible, even though I’m 老外 🙂
Hi Lawrence,
Thanks for visiting and leave me a comment. It is really great so hear that you can make Sichuan style soup base, which is definitely the best in my heart.
Real Sichuan Style hot pot soup base uses lots of unique spices in China, so I simplify the recipe for homemade versions.
Hi there,
I am Ahsan and I studied for a year in the U.K. I had many chinese friends and they introduced me to hot pot. I am a muslim and I can’t eat pork therefore can’t add pork in any form. I can only eat halal meat so can’t make hot pot with ready made spices available in market. But I will definitely try your recipe at home because I really want to try spicy hot pot which i can eat too. I hope it turns out good.
Many thanks,
Ahsan
Hi Ahsan,
If you cannot eat pork, you can use beef or lamb bone instead. I hope it turns out great on your side too.
Dear Elaine , Love your Homemade version hot pot broth simply . But i m looking for more details of professional hot pot broth because i m planing to open the hot pot restaurant soon . If you don’t mind , could you please advise me more like restaurant version broth with more herbs & fragrant would really help me out . By the way , i m from Thailand now .
Hi June,
Thanks for stopping by. It is really excited to hear that you will open a hot pot restaurant, really a long time dream for me. Restaurant hot pot recipe is much complex than home friendly version and there are more than 20 herbs and spices used. I will write up a page about Sichuan style hot pot broth, ultimate version in the next month when visit my mother and grandmother because there are lots of ingredients unavailable in the city I am currently living. Would you mind waiting me for some time? I am super happy to help.
I am very interested in knowing more about restaurant style hot pot too…did you ever write that post? Thanks
Yes, she did. But didn’t post it online, rather wrote an e-book ready to purchase.
I was searching for hot pot and soup recipes and found your site. I love hot pot, fragrant and spicy soups and appreciate your recipes and your stories. Thank you so much. I’m lookIng forward to your next article about Sichuan style hot pot for restaurants.
Hi Elaine,
In your “How to make Hot Pot Broth” you use the expression “cook the blood water out”. I have not heard this expression before. What does it mean?
Regards
Rebecca
Hi Rebecca,
This cooking method is very common in Chinese cuisine. We call it 血水 in Chinese but I guess impurities might be a better description. Those impurities will present as forms after boiling. For bones, this is highly recommended for a pure and oddness free taste.
Hi amazing Hot pot soup appreciate you …Iam planning hotspot restaurant in India I want a traditional recipes for hotspot like name of herbs used in this process ..can you help me from this
Hi Vasu,
The traditional herbs used in restaurant style hot pot is quite complex usually around 20 types. My hot pot cookbook will come soon and I will explain everything about Sichuan hot pot seasonings in that book.
hi,
I bought your Hot pot E-book and I have this question: you explain on page 13 how to make the Ma La Hot Pot soup base paste and on page 14 how to make the Ma La Hot Pot soup base. Now how much stock do you add to make the soup base ? You say use add stock or water but how much ? And do you the Clear Stock made with chicken and pork bones ?
Hi Jan,
If you plan to make hot pot at home, you need to prepare more stock. Usually we need 2L to 3L stock at the beginning based on your container. And during the process, you will need to add the stock to keep the hot pot a reasonable broth level. So I would recommend preparing at least 5L stock.
Hi Elaine,
Thank you. Yes, I want to make hot pot at home. In fact I want to give it as a birthday present for a friend.
In your book you (page 14) you say that you take 1/2 cup Ma La Hot Pot seasonings for preparing the Soup Base. Would that be good enough for 5L Soup Base ??
My second question is: would you use the Clear Soup (page 8 of your book) for preparing the Ma La Hot Pot or would you use some other stock ?
Hi Jan,
Sorry for the late reply. Use 1/2 cup of the seasonings with around 2 to 2.5 L stock at the first time and then you need to keep adding the stock to keep a depth about 5-6cm.
Or maybe I should ask how much of the Ma la Hot seasonings is required for 5L Soup Base ?
Hi Elaine
Could you please answer My questions. Much appreciated
hi Elaine
I hope I know understand. I think you say I should make 5 liter of Clear Stock. Then mix about 2-2.5 liter of the Clear Stock with the 1/2 cup of Ma La Hot Pot seasonings and leave the other half of the Clear Stock unmixed. Then you serve the Hot Pot and I should keep the level of the Hot Pot at about 5-6 cm and add Clear Stock when needed. Is this right ?
Or do you mean mix 2.5 Liter of stock with Ma La Hot Pot seasonings, serve that and mix another 1/2 cup of seasonings with the remainder of the stock for adding more soup base when needed ?
hi, I enjoy reading your writing.
I am currently working on the translation a few recipe about hot pot.
Would you mind telling me how to put “原汤火锅” into English?
Thanks
Hi,
The translation of “原汤” actually depending on the what kind of meat you use for the soup base.
Do you have a recipe for traditional Chinese medicine broth?
You can refer to this herbal chicken soup and herbal soup ingredients, in which I have introduced basics about Chinese medicine in soups.
Nihaoma Elaine
Thank you so much for this great website.
Loving China, the culture and the food – this site inspired me a lot preparing authentic food by my own.
Luckily we have some good Chinese shops here in Germany around my place so I can nearly get all the ingredients I need for the most of the recipes.
Since I’ve visited HaiDiLao in China several times I became “addicted” to their tomatoe broth for hotpot.
Can you recommend a good recipe for a delicious tomatoe broth?
Btw. – do you run a site on WeChat too where I can follow you?
Cheers
Chris
Chris,
Thanks so much for your kind words. Haidilao is a great hot pot brand. I will introduce tomato broth later. I do not run wechat currently. I have published all of my recipes on this blog.