Chinese Hot & Sour Soup – Comforting Chinese soup, loaded with pork and mushrooms and spiced with garlic chili sauce and rice wine vinegar to give it a delicious hot & sour flavor.

Soup, soup, soup. I love soup. And when it’s cold outside, there’s nothing like a warm, comforting soup to make everything alright. 

In honor of the huge winter storms sweeping the nation this week, I wanted to share a new soup recipe. I just shared this creamy Poblano Corn Chowder recipe last month so I think it’s time to go for something a little healthier and more on the brothy side. 

I’ve tried a couple of different Chinese soups that were pretty tasty but I never dared to make any at home, mostly because the ingredients were intimidating to me and I never had them around the house.

Well, that all changed when I made pork dumplings a few months ago. Now, I suddenly have sesame oil, chili garlic sauce, and rice wine vinegar sitting in my pantry, begging to be used!

And voila! Those ingredients went to good use in this Chinese Hot & Sour Soup:

What is Chinese Hot & Sour Soup?

Hot & sour soup is a broth-based soup that gets its name from the balance of hot and sour flavors. The hot flavor comes from the garlic chili sauce and the sour comes from the rice wine vinegar. This soup also has tons of mushrooms, egg ribbons, and is traditionally made with tofu. I’m not a huge tofu fan so I just used pork instead when making it for myself. 

How is this soup made?

This soup is so super easy to make and is ready in less than 30 minutes. First you add in the spices, broth, and mushrooms and bring it to a simmer. We need to get the broth nice and hot to prepare it for the egg ribbons. The egg ribbons are made by drizzling in the whisked egg into the hot soup. As soon as the egg hits the hot broth, it immediately firms up and scrambles into a beautiful, swirly ribbon. 

Next, we just add a cornstarch slurry to thicken up the soup and then finish it off with chunks of pork tenderloin, sliced green onions, and sesame oil for flavor. 

Tips & Tricks

This is one of the easiest soups you’ll ever make – I swear! But there a still a couple tips I can share that will ensure you have no issues:

1. The reason we mix the cornstarch with a little of the chicken broth separately from the rest of the soup is to ensure the cornstarch does not clump. So make sure you do this step just as advised in the recipe!
2. This recipe calls for many Asian ingredients – garlic chili sauce, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, and sesame oil. I found all these ingredients in the ethnic food aisle of my grocery store. They’re pretty common so you shouldn’t have issues finding them. 
3. Make sure you slowly drizzle in the whisked egg while stirring the soup. This will make for beautiful egg ribbons and not egg clumps that you will get if you rush this process. 
4. To make sure the egg cooks immediately upon enter the broth, the broth MUST be hot. Therefore, make sure you take the time to simmer the broth before adding in the egg.

There you have it – another soup recipe to keep you warm during this cold snap. What other soups are you making this week? I’d love to hear all about it. Let me know in the comments below!

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More soups you’ll love:

Salsa Verde Chicken Chili

Greek Lemon Chicken Soup

Turkey Noodle Soup