Chinese Hot Pot Recipe Guide

A Chinese hot pot recipe guide on how to make Chinese hot pot at home with ideas on hot pot ingredients, hot pot dipping sauces and a homemade broth.

This hot pot recipe post is sponsored by Evergreen Home, a company I’m super excited to work with because I am a huge fan of using induction cooktops for hot pot. All opinion expressed, recipes and photos are my own.

 

WHAT IS HOT POT?

In short, hot pot is just a pot of boiling broth in the center of the table with a large variety of ingredients (usually raw) laid out buffet-style that you use to cook in the broth on the fly. Once the food has finished cooking, you scoop it out onto your personal bowl, which usually has a personalized dipping sauce, and you eat it! 🙂

 

Hot pot is meant to be a communal meal which is why it is a great activity for dinner gatherings. Since the food is cooked in real time and enjoyed hot straight out of the broth in small batches, it means that it’s usually a longer meal so you can chit chat with friends and family while you are enjoying the food.

 

 

Although it may look fancy and somewhat overwhelming, hot pot can be easily customized to be as simple or as elaborate as you want it to be! You can do it with 2 people or you can do it with 15 people. The more people you have, the more variety of ingredients you can put out there are to eat. I personally do hot pot for 2 a lot in the winter as my lazy dinners. I just prepare a small amount of ingredients to eat, use a bouillon as my broth and Voila! Dinner in 10 minutes 🙂

 

 

 

TOOLS & EQUIPMENT FOR HOT POT

There isn’t many tools or equipment needed for hot pot, which is why it’s  incredibly easy to set up for a quick dinner or get-togethers with family and friends.

 

Types of Cooktops

Traditionally, hot pot has always been done with a gas canister and portable gas burner but I a few years ago, I have switched from using a gas burner to using an electric portable induction cook top and I never turned back. It’s easy to use, super quick to clean up and safe.

 

One of the reasons I switched over is because I feel a lot safer turning on a portable induction stove since all I have to do is plug it in (with an extension cord). Whenever I used a gas canister I always cringe a little inside. I never know if the gas canister has been seated in properly and I am always hoping that by hitting the button to ignite the spark to turn it on it won’t blow up on me (I’ve heard horror stories).

 

 

My second reason for switching over is the easy cleanup. After a long meal and a very full belly, nobody really wants to clean up and unfortunately hot pot can get a bit messy sometimes (lot of hands and sloshing around of broth, means a lot of spills and splashes. It happens a lot!) Cleanup using an induction cooktop is a breeze, just wipe the smooth surface with a damp cloth and it’s clean! No more nooks and crannies of a gas burner to clean up is always a bonus for me.

 

When using an induction stove top, you’re going to want to make sure that your pot is magnetic. I found that cast iron, steel pots and any type of magnetic stainless steel pot works fine and if you are not 100% sure if a pot will work with it, just stick a magnet to it. If the magnet sticks to it, you’re good to go. (Evergreen Home’s Induction Cooktop, includes a magnet, one less thing to worry about.)

 

Utensils

A very useful utensil that is also used very commonly is a small basket like scoop. This scoop is very helpful with fishing out slippery and hard to grab foods out of the pot and into your bowl. If you can’t find these mini hot pot scoops or you don’t want to purchase it, you can use a ladle with holes or a  spaghetti/noodle ladle as well. Other than the basket scoop, you can pretty much use any type of utensil you feel comfortable eating with.

 

 

 

 

INGREDIENTS

For this hot pot recipe, you should be able to find most ingredients at your local grocery store. For the Asian ingredients, those can be found at your local Asian grocery stores.

 

Ingredients To Cook

For hot pot ingredients, there are no hard and fast rules for what to use. Honestly, the sky is the limit. Traditionally, you would use raw meats but to be honest, I have used ingredients like cooked sausages, hotdogs and even spam! 😛

Here are a few ideas to start you off and I highly encourage you to expand this list to find what you enjoy most 🙂

 

MEATS & SEAFOOD IDEAS FOR HOT POT

Other Meat & Seafood ideas Not Shown in Photos: Fish (sliced) / Thinly Sliced Chicken, Turkey, Pork / Squid / Fresh Oysters / Bacon or Pork Belly / Spam / Tripe / Frozen Mussels

 

VEGGIES IDEAS FOR HOT POT

Other Vegetable Ideas Not Shown in Photos: Red, Yellow or Green Peppers cut into chunks / Variety of Chinese Greens (Nappa Cabbge, Tong Oh, Pea Sprouts, Watercress Greens etc) / Brussels Sprouts cut in half / Cabbage / Carrots / Brocolli / Cauliflower / Baby Corn (from a can) / Bean Sprouts / Zucchini / Garlic Chives / Taro

 

NOODLES & RANDOM TIDBIT IDEAS FOR HOT POT

Other Random Ingredients Not Shown in Photos : Variety of Noodles (udon, thick rice noodles, instant noodles (without the flavor packs) etc) / Shirataki Yam Noodle Bundles / Bean Curd Skin Rolls

 

 

Sauces

Although a good broth is important, since it’s the foundation of a good hot pot recipe, I personally find the dipping sauce just as important (and super fun to put together.) There’s no hard and fast rule on how your dipping sauce should taste, and you are not limited to only one type of dipping sauce – so mix and match it to make your own personal mix in your bowl! 🙂 Whether you like your sauces, sweet, spicy, tangy or just savory here are a few popular options that you can use to setup your sauce stations!

 

 

I highly recommend using Chinese BBQ Sauce (Shacha Sauce) if you can get a hold of it. You can find this online or at a Chinese grocery store. 🙂

 

 

PUTTING IT TOGETHER

Broths

Although the hot pot broth is important in a hot pot recipe, I personally find I get most of my flavors from the personalized dipping sauces in our bowls. Personally, I think a hot pot recipe shouldn’t be something you are slaving over for hours so I like to keep things simple, quick and easy. That being said, I do provide an option below to give your hot pot broth a bit more depth but it will have a longer cooking time as well for those us who are okay with taking a bit more time with it.

Lazy Day Alert : On my lazy days when I’m craving hot pot and can’t be bothered with any hot pot recipe broths, I have been known to use bouillons or chicken powder! 😛

 

Simple Broth (The Foundation Broth)

For this simple broth, just throw everything in a large pot and boil away! Once it’s been simmering for 30-45 minutes, strain everything out!

 

 

 

Silkier Broth (Optional, Will Require More Cooking Time)

For my hot pot recipe, I like to give my broths a bit more substance with a silkier broth with pork hocks (when I have time). When the connective tissues break down in the broth it gives the broth a slightly thicker and silkier consistency. Connective tissues take a while to break down so to speed up the process of this broth, you can start it off in a pressure cooker as well.

 

 

If you have a butcher, ask them to cut the pork hocks into smaller 2-3 inch chunks so that it cooks faster – if you don’t have a butcher you can cook the pork hock whole, it will just take a bit longer.

 

 

Spicy Broth (Optional, If You Like It Mildly Spicy)

Whether you are using the hot pot recipe for the simple foundation broth or the silkier broth, to get it spicy you just need to pan fry dried chili flakes with a bit of oil. The oil will turn red and become mildly spicy, and you can pour the concoction into the hot pot broth when you’re ready to start. If you are feeling fancy, you can even add additional spices (star anise, cinnamon etc) into the oil while you are pan frying it.

 

 

This is quite mild to me in terms of spicy. If you want to up the spicy factor for this hot pot recipe, I would either 1.) add cayenne pepper to the oil, or 2.) add hot sauce directly into your dipping sauce in your personal bowl

 

When it’s cold outside, gather up all your friends and huddle over some hot pot! 🙂

 

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