Chinese restaurant-style hot and sour soup made easy! The hearty, spicy, sour broth is loaded with mushrooms, silky eggs, and tofu. I’ve included lots of notes so you can tweak the recipe with the ingredients you have on hand, plus how to make this dish vegetarian. {Vegetarian adaptable}
Hot and sour soup is such a popular dish takeout dish, along with egg drop soup and wonton soup. It’s one of those things that we almost always order when eating in a restaurant. The soup is loaded with so many goodies that I totally wouldn’t mind serving it as a main dish for a light dinner.
The soup base
Did you know that hot and sour soup is actually super easy to make?
Yes, the recipe below might look a bit long, because I wanted to create a proper restaurant-style hot and sour soup for you. But in fact, the soup base requires only a few ingredients:
- Chinkiang vinegar
- White pepper powder
- Water mixed with cornstarch (to thicken the soup)
That’s it!
The sourness of the soup comes from the Chinkiang vinegar. And the spiciness comes from the white pepper powder. No peppers or chili oil required!
A word about the dried ingredients
My recipe uses some dried ingredients that might require a trip to an Asian market or a purchase on Amazon. But if you don’t want to make the extra effort, you can totally skip these ingredients. I will explain why.
I previously discussed how to use Chinese dried veggies to create a superior flavor in another recipe – Buddha’s Delight, a Jai (Buddhist vegetarian) dish. The logic is the same here. The foundation of the broth consists of dried lily flowers and dried shiitake mushrooms. They both have a very concentrated smoky, earthy, and woody aroma. Once you rehydrate them, the rehydrating water will turn a dark brown color as it becomes infused with the great flavor. Do not throw this water away. It is the best vegan broth and you should use it to make the soup base.
The other dry ingredient is wood ear mushrooms. It is a mildly flavored fungus that adds a crunchy texture to the dish.
Chinese families always have these ingredients on hand because they allow a cheaper and healthier way to create a flavorful broth. If you use these ingredients, your soup will turn out more like the Chinese restaurant version.
However, if you do not have these ingredients, simply skip them and use chicken stock or vegetable stock instead of water to make your soup.
Cooking notes
1. How to convert this recipe to vegetarian
Simply skip the “marinate” part of the recipe, including the pork and the few ingredients for the marinade. Many Chinese recipes use a small amount of meat to add volume and texture to the dish. Skipping the meat won’t affect the flavor of the soup.
2. Other vegetables and proteins to use in this recipe
There are so many more ingredients that work well in this dish.
For example, some of my favorite vegetables include – tomatoes, napa cabbage, bamboo shoots, mushrooms, and bok choy.
You can also use a different type of protein to replace the pork. For example, chicken or shrimp would work great. You can even throw in a few slices of cooked sausage or ham to make the cooking faster.
3. Workflow
Add vinegar and white pepper at the end of cooking – this is very important. Otherwise the pureness of the vinegar will disappear as the vinegar evaporates and the white pepper will release a bitter taste if heated for too long.
More Chinese takeout recipes
If you give this recipe a try, let us know! Leave a comment, rate it (once you’ve tried it), and take a picture and tag it @omnivorescookbook on Instagram! I’d love to see what you come up with.
Hot and Sour Soup (酸辣汤)
Ingredients
(Optional) Rehydrate (*Footnote 1)
- 1/3 cup dried shiitake mushrooms
- 1/4 cup dried woodear mushrooms
- 1/4 cup dried lily flowers
Optional Marinate (*Footnote 2)
- 1/2 lbs (230 g) pork loin (or chicken breast) cut into thin strips
- 1/2 tablespoon Shaoxing wine or dry sherry
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 tablespoon cornstarch
Soup
- 2 teaspoons minced ginger
- 2 green onions chopped
- 2 tablespoons Chinkiang vinegar
- 1 teaspoon white pepper powder (or 1/2 teaspoon white pepper powder for a less spicy dish)
- 6 cups water or chicken stock (*Footnote 3)
- 1/2 block (8 oz / 227 g) firm tofu, cubed
- 1 tablespoon light soy sauce or soy sauce
- 3 tablespoons cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon salt or to taste
- 2 eggs beaten
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
Instructions
- Gently rinse dried shiitake mushrooms, dried wood ear mushrooms, and lily flowers with tap water. Soak each of them with 1.5 to 2 cups warm water in three big bowls. Rehydrate for 30 minutes to 1 hour, until tender. Slice mushrooms into strips. Snip off the tough ends of lily flowers and discard. Remove tough ends of wood ear mushrooms, then chop into bite-sized pieces. Reserve the marinating water from lily flower and shiitake mushrooms, 2 cups in total
- Combine pork, Shaoxing wine, salt and cornstarch in a bowl. Mix well by hand. Marinate for 10 - 15 minutes.
- Add Chinkiang vinegar and white pepper into a small bowl. Mix well until the white pepper is completely dissolved.
- Add water or chicken stock, ginger, and green onion into a pot and heat over medium-high heat. If you reserved the marinating liquid from step one, you can add it plus 4 cups water or chicken stock.
- Add rehydrated wood ear mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, lily flowers, and tofu to the pot. Cook until bringing to a simmer. Add soy sauce and turn to medium-low heat.
- Mix the cornstarch with 1/4 cup of water in a bowl until cornstarch is fully dissolved. Slowly swirl the cornstarch slurry into the soup. Stir to thicken the soup.
- Add the pork from step one into the soup, stirring several times to prevent the pork strips from sticking together. Add the salt. Slowly swirl in the beaten egg and stir well. The egg should be scattered and not clotted.
- Remove the pot from stove. Add the vinegar and pepper mixture and stir to mix well.
- Garnish with cilantro and drizzle with sesame oil. Give it a final stir. Taste the soup and add more salt if needed.
- Serve hot.
Notes
- If you do not have these dry ingredients, you can use half a pound of fresh mushrooms instead. Then use chicken stock instead of water to make the soup.
- Skip the meat if you want to create a vegetarian dish.
- Use chicken stock or vegetable stock instead of water if you are not using the dry ingredients (shiitake mushrooms, lily flowers, and wood ear mushrooms) in this recipe.
Video
Nutrition
The recipe was originally published on April 9, 2014 and updated on June 5, 2018.
Delicious!! Made this for my boyfriend when he was feeling under the weather and it was so tasty and easy. Will definitely be making this recipe again!
I made it tonight! Fantastic ! My family said it was better than our fave Chinese restaurant version! I couldn’t find Woodear mushrooms and I sautéed fresh Shitake mushrooms. Excellent!
The soup was better than any I have gotten in a restaurant. Easy and delicious!
excellent recipe,instuction are clear and easy to follow. Love your site.thanks
Love this recipe.Made it many times and just love it.
This recipe truly tastes authentic with the two key flavors, white pepper and Chinkiang/Chinese black vinegar. It has the texture and mouth feel I want with the added wood ear mushrooms and lily buds. From your meat marinade, I finally have learned how to tenderize pork like a Chinese restaurant now. Thank you so much!
You are so right about the black vinegar!
P.S.
My boyfriend thought the soup was “exceptionally good.”
Great recipe. Made it over and over and it always perfect. Use shrimp instead of pork and add tomato and bamboo shoots.
Excellent recipe. I used Duck broth, made from bones from your slow cooked Peking duck. The soup is easy to make and so good. I also used left over Turkey.
We love this at our house! I added seafood and it was delicious!
I really liked this recipe a lot! Felt it needed a few tablespoons of ketchup, and also used leftover cubed smoked sausage and added some frozen peas.
The best Hot and Sour I have ever had. The. Black vinegar is key!
This is my go to for this soup
OMG….spot on and I thank you! Perfecto!
I added a tablespoon of dark soy sauce, otherwise did the recipe as written. (I like the color and richer taste.) The soup turned out terrific! My wide, who doesn’t do spicey at all, liked it. (I did sprinkle a little more white pepper into my bowl.)
Just made this recipe. It’s neither hot nor sour. I added a lot more vinegar and pepper and it’s ok now. The colour is very white though yours looks red. What item in the ingredients gives the red colour?
I am stunned by how great this came out! I added fresh baby bok choy and bamboo shoots, left out the pork and lily (I’m pregnant so can’t risk toxic ingredients), and subbed a few cups water with bone broth for added protein and flavor since I lacked the lily water. The ingredients came to about 45$ at the asian market, the batch I made was a bit big so will last me around 5 meals, and I have enough for 3 more batches (many ingredients will last 6+!) So altogether this is one of the most delicious and inexpensive meals I’ve ever made and I’m so so impressed and pleased, thank you very much for sharing!
Do you have any additional recipes (must be healthy like this one) that also use these dry ingredients (mushrooms and lily flowers)? I don’t want them to go to waste. I can always make this recipe again to continue using the dry ingredients, but I want to change things up and diversify the things that I eat so I don’t get sick of eating the same thing too often.
I do have a few recipes that use dried lily flowers and the mushrooms:
Moo shu vegetables: https://omnivorescookbook.com/moo-shu-vegetables
Buddha’s delight: https://omnivorescookbook.com/recipes/buddhas-delight
Northern Chinese style noodle sauce: https://omnivorescookbook.com/chinese-gravy-noodles
Mushroom salad: https://omnivorescookbook.com/wood-ear-mushroom-salad
Lotus root stir fry: https://omnivorescookbook.com/lotus-root-stir-fry/
Can you tell us the minimal time the pork/chicken should cook for? The directions indicate that by the time the egg swirls in, the meat will be cooked.
The pork / chicken will be cooked very fast, 1 to 2 minutes (assuming the soup is on a low simmer), depending on how thick you cut them. Usually the meat will be cooked by the time that the eggs are set.
You can cook the meat for 1 minute before adding the eggs. Because the eggs will take a minute to set, the meat will be fully cooked by then.
Thanks. Important to update the recipe, especially for novice cooks to know not to undercook these meats.
This is very close to the way I’ve made this soup for years. I do use pork but I use beef stock instead of chicken stock. Either way, delish! It’s got my mouth watering and craving this soup. I haven’t made it in a while so will do so when the weather cools down a bit.