A Chinese communal cooking experience — a simmering broth at the table into which diners dip raw meats, vegetables, tofu, and noodles, with dipping sauces assembled to taste.
The format
Hot pot (火锅, huǒguō) is a meal format as much as a recipe. A pot of simmering broth is placed at the centre of the table on a portable burner. Diners order an array of raw ingredients — meats, seafood, vegetables, tofu, noodles — and cook them briefly in the broth using wire mesh baskets or chopsticks, then dip in individually assembled sauces.
The broth flavours the ingredients and concentrates over the meal; by the end, the remaining broth is rich enough to drink.
The broth divide
Two broths define Chinese hot pot:
- Clear (qīng tāng) — a mild chicken, pork bone, or mushroom stock; lets ingredients’ natural flavours show
- Mala (málà) — Chongqing-style; intensely numbing-spicy from Sichuan peppercorns (mala = numbing-spicy) and dried chillies in beef tallow; the dominant style in mainland China
Split pots with both broths on one side are common at restaurants.
The dipping sauce
The sauce is assembled by each diner from a condiment bar — sesame paste, soy sauce, chilli oil, oyster sauce, garlic, spring onion, coriander, fish sauce. No two sauces are the same.
Cultural significance
Hot pot is the quintessential Chinese social meal — a slow, communal experience that can last 2–3 hours, associated with winter, family gatherings, and friends.
Find more foods by letter
Hot Pot starts with H and ends with T. Browse other foods along the same letter.
Foods that contain a letter from "Hot Pot":