Updated on February 1st, 2021
If you eat at Chinese restaurants or buffets, chances are you have probably tried the hot and sour soup. The āhotā comes from chili and garlic paste and pepper. The āsourā comes from vinegar. Many hot and sour soup recipes call for ingredients such as wood ear fungus and lily budsā¦ these ingredients can be hard or nearly impossible to find in many areas. This recipe calls for neither. Even if you cannot find some of the ingredients on the list, they can easily be replaced with something else. If you do not eat meat, the pork can easily be omitted. If you are using the tofu, I would suggest letting the soup marinate for at least a day to allow the flavors to develop before serving. Ā Donāt let the slightly longer list of ingredients turn you away, this recipe is very easy! Enjoy.
(Makes 10 servings)
PrintHot and Sour Soup Recipe
Ingredients
- 6 cups chicken stock
- Ā¼ lb pork (julienned)
- 2 tablespoons garlic and chili paste
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- Ā¾ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 3 eggs (beaten)
- 5 tablespoon cornstarch
- 1 cup shitake mushrooms (sliced)
- 1 can peeled straw mushrooms
- 1 can sliced bamboo shoots
- 1 can sliced water chestnuts
- 1 can baby sweet corn cobs
- Ā½ lb soft tofu (sliced into small cubes)
- Ā¼ cup white vinegar
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
- green onions (sliced)
Instructions
- In a large pot bring chicken stock to a simmer. Add soy sauce, pork, mushrooms and garlic, and chili paste. Simmer for 10 minutes.
- Add pepper, vinegar, bamboo shoots, baby corn cobs, water chestnuts, and tofu. Simmer for another 10 minutes.
- Bring to a slow boil. Mix 5 tablespoons of cornstarch with 5 tablespoons of water and add to the soup while stirring.
- Bring the soup back to a simmer and pour beaten eggs in a thin stream into the soup. Let stand 10 seconds and gently stir in sesame oil. Garnish with green onions.
This is one of my favorite soups and it is looking good!
Hot and sour is delicious – so much flavour. I ‘found’ a base for a similar soup in the freezer last weekend and what a treat it was!
I love this type of soup, but have never made it at home. It looks delicious. Inspires me to try.
i’ve never quite taken to hot and sour soup but i love the ingredients in it! š happy valentine’s x
I just wanted to take a moment and tell you how much I appreciate your blog. I made your Orange Chicken recipe and it was a huge hit–delicious! Thank you! I’ve been looking for a good Hot & Sour soup recipe and was daunted by the very ingrediants you mentioned. I’m really looking forward to trying yours!
Thank you!
Lorna
This was a good recipe, great for beginners and shoppers who don’t feel like looking for tree mushrooms and such.
I thought the flavor was right on point, and it was exactly what I was tasting for.
It also looked great until I put the eggs in. Maybe my soup wasn’t hot enough or something, but after adding about 2 eggs the soup had taken on a yellowish color. I stopped adding the egg there. I would cut down the egg amount to 1 next time I make this.
Also sauteed the mushrooms before I added them to the soup, just to get that mildly acidic ‘tinny’ flavor out of them.
Good recipe, though. I like your blog a lot š
bridge- thanks for the compliments. As you can see from the picture, I took the photo before I even put the eggs in. I would think the soup would taste fine without the eggs, or even like you said… just add 1.
I looove hot n sour soup, and this blog!
This is pretty close to what I make when I make hot and sour soup at home. With the international foods sections steadily popping up in more and more grocery stores, and they are getting better as well, finding the wood ears and being able to replace the white vinegar with rice vinegar
one thing I like to do with the pork is marinate it overnight, just a little chicken broth and soy sauce, helps give those strips of pork a little extra oomph
ginger is also a nice thing to add, but it’s a preference thing, Im not always in the mood for that change in flavor, powder or fresh minced ginger works fine, I generally say to flavor it to taste, since a little ginger can go a long way
love the site, especially love all the chinese food, keep it up! š
Hi Bobby,
Just wanted to say that I tried your recipe and it turned out greatttt!! Its probably the best hot and sour recipe I tried till now.
Thankx…and I love your blog. keep it up š
I love hot and sour. I’ve never made it. I’ll write to let you know how it turns out.
This looks great! My husband and I love your blog. We have tried your sweet and sour chicken recipe. We bake the chikcen and it tastes great without having to fry everything. Keep the blogs coming. We look forward to them!
This recipe looked really good, so i tried it out last nite.
But my soup didnt turn out the way it looks here in the picture. It wasnt clear, although i used 2 eggs…but it looked eggy :S
wat did i do wrong??
farah – the soup you are seeing in the picture has no egg in it. I did it because I thought it would make a better picture, you did nothing wrong.