MUZIChinese Matrix
Sichuan-Chongqing Hotpot · FFET10125
Beef tallow, bean paste, chili and Sichuan pepper make a red broth in which tripe, sliced meat and vegetables are cooked at the table.
A round stainless-steel pot holds a bubbling red-oil broth topped with dried chilies, Sichuan peppercorns and scallion sections, with a white plate of thin beef slices beside it and chopsticks resting on the rim.
The Sichuan-Chongqing hotpot: a numbing, hot beef-tallow broth in which tripe, duck intestine and other foods are cooked.
Chongqing hot pot is a numbing-spicy hot pot: a red broth of beef tallow, bean paste, dried chili, Sichuan pepper and more, in which tripe, beef, offal and vegetables are cooked at the table and then dipped in sesame oil and garlic. An August 2026 account places its origins at the river wharves in the late Qing or early Republic. Wharf laborers cooked cheap offal and beef-tallow dregs, with Sichuan pepper and chili masking the smell of the offal. Other traditional accounts place its origins in the late Ming or early Qing or in the Daoguang years, while another places them in Jiangbei District in the 1920s; the accounts differ, and no dated text was found in the listed sources, so no origin year is established here.
Chongqing hot pot is a numbing-spicy hot pot: raw tripe, beef, offal and vegetables are cooked at the table in a red broth made from beef tallow, bean paste, dried chili, Sichuan pepper, fermented black beans, ginger and garlic, and dipped in sesame oil with garlic.3,4,7,8
An August 2026 account places its origins in the late Qing or early Republic; other accounts place them at Chaotianmen wharf in the late Ming or early Qing, link them to eating tripe in the Daoguang years, or locate them in Jiangbei District in the 1920s. Accounts of 1934 describe a larger restaurant switching from divided iron basins to small copper pots and a small restaurant making it a higher-class dish. These origin accounts differ, the first two traditional accounts give no exact year, and no dated text was found in the listed sources; the small-restaurant claim also lacks a supporting citation, so no origin year is established here.2,3,4
Chongqing's river wharves, with origin accounts naming Chaotianmen wharf and Jiangbei District. Before hot pot reached restaurant tables, street sellers sold it carrying poles, stoves and pots.2,3,4
Beef tallow is fried with bean paste, dried chili, Sichuan pepper, scallion, ginger, garlic and spices, and stock is added to make the red broth; one home preparation simmers it for about 10 minutes and then lets it steep for 30. Diners cook thin slices in the pot and dip them in sesame oil with garlic.4,7,8
Wharf laborers could not afford good meat and cooked cheap offal and beef-tallow dregs, which needed strong flavor, and Sichuan pepper and chili were used to mask the smell of the offal.2
Chongqing passed the Chongqing Hot Pot Industry Development Promotion Regulations on March 25, 2026, effective May 1, calling for standards on ingredients, techniques, flavor and degrees of spiciness and numbness, and for training hot pot cooking specialists. The 2024 scale was about 39,600 outlets and 82.4 billion yuan; the 2025 industry chain exceeded 330 billion yuan, as reported in August 2026. The inclusion of Chongqing hot pot's traditional craft in Chongqing's 6th batch of municipal intangible cultural heritage items is recorded in a 2019 report; the official list was not seen. Chongqing hot pot has also spread to Taiwan.1,2,3,5
Legend has it that boatmen and porters at Chaotianmen wharf in Chongqing could not afford meat, so they bought cheap tripe and offal and cooked it in a pot of spicy red broth on the wharf. The cooked pieces were later called the water eight pieces.
Told in: A story told at Chaotianmen wharf in Chongqing. Chinese Wikipedia presents it as the traditional account, and a 2026 personal essay tells the same story; neither names a source.
It is said that in the 1920s, in Jiangbei, Chongqing, sellers on the wharf set up a clay stove with a divided iron basin on top, and each laborer cooked in his own compartment and paid only for what he had put in it.
Told in: A story told about Jiangbei in Chongqing, found in English Wikipedia, which names no document for it.
Grandma Li
This is a simplified home version, not the traditional restaurant method.
This is how I make Chongqing hot pot at home, simplified: shops use a great deal of beef tallow in the red broth and I use a small piece, and I skip the long stock and use water or bought clear chicken stock. The authors of the two home recipes I looked at do not label them as Chongqing recipes. Soaking the dried chilies in boiling water for 30 minutes, frying the bean paste until the oil turns red and simmering the broth for about 15 minutes follow one of them; the amounts are my own, scaled to a smaller pot, and neither recipe gives amounts for the dipping sauce, so those are my own choices too. When you eat, cook the beef and tripe in the boiling broth until they are cooked all the way through.
Allergens: sesame, soy, wheat
