Easy Chinese Hot Pot At Home

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Make easy Chinese hot pot at home for your next dinner party! The beauty of hot pot is that you can cook, eat and chat at the same time. Having a large variety of different meats and vegetables makes the hot pot more delicious. I prefer to dip my cooked food in my dad’s hot pot sauce (below). You can also dip in ponzu, chili oil, soy sauce, or all the above! Check out the broth recipe, sauce recipe and grocery list below to plan your next epic hot pot night.

What is Hot Pot?

Hot pot is a communal meal that comes with a simmering pot of broth set in the middle of the table. Everyone cooks whatever they want to eat whether it’s meat, vegetables, and noodles in the simmering broth. The origins of hot pot is not clear as there’s so many different versions from Japan (like shabu shabu), Thailand, Korean and more!

For this Easy Chinese Hot Pot At Home blog post, I will specifically make Chinese Hot Pot. For Chinese hot pot broth, there’s spicy, málà, sour, and sweet broths. My broth recipe is very light and easy (healthy to eat home!) to make which may be different than the ones you had in the past. If you’re looking for a more flavorful broth, I recommend to look at other recipes online or buy a pre-packaged hot pot base.

The reason why we like a light broth is because my family is Cantonese. Our cuisine is not too spicy and our taste buds are more mild. In the Guandong region of China, the seafood and vegetables are very fresh and we like the original flavors of the food rather than adding a lot of seasonings to the dish. We like to keep our broth simple and if we need extra flavor, we can dip the food in the delicious sauce.

What Equipment Do I Need?

I bought a Zojirushi electric hot pot at the Japanese grocery store. You can also find them on Amazon. I love this hot pot burner because it doesn’t require gas and you can adjust the temperature of the pot. This brand is so reliable and my parents have used theirs for 20+ years. You can also use a portable gas burner (or electric) and pot of choice. The main goal is that you need to be able to heat the pot (can boil and simmer) at all times in the middle of the table.

Make sure you have some ladles and ladles with a net so guests can grab the food easily ◡̈

How To Make Hot Pot Broth

Your hot pot broth can be homemade or pre-bought. Usually bone broth like pork is used for the base. For this recipe, we used pre-bought chicken broth and added radish, shiitake, green onions, and ginger. You can buy pre-packaged hot pot bases at the Asian grocery store. Our family chooses not to use them because they come with lots of preservatives, sodium and oil. No doubt, the soup bases are very delicious and they give the broth more flavor.

Before your dinner, make your broth in a large pot on the stove an hour prior to serving. When you’re ready to eat, pour your broth in your serving hot pot in the middle of the table. This way, you can refill the pot later when the water boils down. The longer you hot pot, the more frequent you will need to add extra water. Feel free to add water when the hot pot looks thick or it looks like a sauce. Water should be filled 75% of the pot most of the time. Be careful because if you fill too much, the hot pot will overflow.

To make our easy broth, add all these ingredients in a pot and boil for 30 minutes:

• 3.5 cups chicken broth or any bone broth you like (pork bone broth works great!)
• 6-8 shiitake mushrooms
• 2 pound daikon radish 
• 2 green onions
• 3-5 slices ginger
• 3 cups water

Easy Chinese Hot Pot Ingredients

I made a checklist of my most recommended hot pot ingredients you need to get at the store! Bring this list to your next asian grocery run, but feel free to leave some out if you don’t like them. I recommend 99 ranch to get most of these ingredients for your easy Chinese hot pot. For sliced meat, I recommend H-mart or japanese grocery store because their meats are more marbled and taste higher quality.

Note: There’s also so many more hot pot ingredients you can add! To make things less confusing and overwhelming, I am only adding the essentials below.

vegetables:

• bok choy
• watercress
• napa cabbage
• variety of mushrooms (enoki, shiitake, wood ear, oyster)
• green onions (for soup base and sauce)
• radish (for soup base and eating)
• lotus roots

meat:

• sliced beef (thinly sliced is best as it cooks faster)
• salmon sashimi (if you love fish!)
• shrimp
• fish balls (beef balls, fish roe, or variety pack)
• sliced lamb – optional if you already have beef or get this instead of beef
• spam – optional!
• dumplings – optional!

noodles:

• frozen udon
• instant ramen (get the one without the flavor packet)
• vermicelli noodles – optional!

tofu:

• firm tofu (you can get super soft tofu but it might break during hot pot)
• soybean curd
• fried crispy tofu
• tofu bean curd

How to Make Hot Pot Sauce

Hot pot sauce is used for dipping your food after boiling in the hot pot. Here is my dad’s recipe (tastes sweet and mildly salty):

Sauce Recipe (4 people):

• 5 green onions chopped
• 6 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 inch of ginger, grated or finely minced
• ½  teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon sugar
• ½ teaspoon chicken bouillon (optional)
• 1/4 cup hot oil
• 1 tablespoon chinese sesame sauce
• 2 tablespoon soy sauce
• 2 tablespoon satay sauce
• 1 tablespoon chili oil or XO sauce (optional)
• Chopped cilantro 
• Sesame seeds
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil 

Directions:

1. Slice green onions and mince garlic. Add them in a bowl and grate your ginger inside. Add ½  teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon sugar, and ½ teaspoon chicken bouillon.
2. In a pot, heat up avocado oil or canola oil on medium heat for 4-5 minutes. To check if the oil is hot enough, add one small piece of green onion. If it starts bubbling, the hot oil is ready.
3. Add hot oil to the bowl (step 1) and mix everything together. Add 1 tablespoon sesame sauce, 2 tablespoon soy sauce, 2 tablespoon satay sauce, 1 tablespoon chili oil or XO sauce, chopped cilantro, sesame seeds and 1 teaspoon sesame oil. Mix everything together and your sauce is ready! 

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