Hubei Cuisine · FFET10136
Pork Rib and Lotus Root Soup (Hubei)
Pork ribs and floury lotus root simmered slowly in a clay pot until the lotus is soft and mildly sweet, a home soup of Wuhan in the cold months.
A brown glazed clay pot, its lid set beside it, holds a clear pale-golden soup with large holed chunks of lotus root, bone-in pork ribs and a few ginger slices, and a white porcelain spoon rests against the rim.
The regional cooking of Hubei, rich in freshwater produce, skilled at steamed dishes and simmered soups.
Pork rib and lotus root soup is a clear soup of pork ribs and floury lotus root simmered slowly in a clay pot and seasoned mainly with salt. The pot soup is a Wuhan home soup for cold weather, the Winter Solstice and New Year's Eve, made in an unglazed clay pot (2022 account). An August 2026 account records it at a lotus root feast in Shashi, Jingzhou. Its date of origin remains unknown.
What
Pork rib and lotus root soup is a clear soup of pork ribs, often on the bone, and floury lotus root, simmered slowly in a clay pot and seasoned mainly with salt. Floury lotus root turns soft and mealy when cooked, giving the soup a soft, mildly sweet character (2023 account).1,2,7,8
When
The soup is made in cold weather, at the Winter Solstice and on New Year's Eve (2022 account). An August 2026 report traces the Hankou soup house Xiaotaoyuan to 1934; this dates the shop, while the soup's date of origin remains unknown.1,3,5,6
Where
The soup is found in Wuhan and the lotus-growing parts of the Jianghan plain, with lotus root including Honghu and Caidian varieties. An August 2026 account records it at a lotus root feast in Shashi, Jingzhou. Its county or city of origin remains unclear.1,2,3
How
Ribs are blanched and sometimes seared with ginger, then simmered in a clay pot over low heat for about 1 hour. Chunks of lotus root go in for another 1 hour or more, and the salt comes late. Some cooks add a little lard. Wuhan cooks use an unglazed clay pot.1,2,7,8
Why
Floury lotus root makes the soup soft and mildly sweet, so the soup follows the fall and winter lotus season (2023 account). It is an everyday home soup of Wuhan.1,2
Impact and influence
Honghu lotus root covered 225,000 mu in 2025. A chain built on Hubei lotus root soup opened a Beijing store in November 2024 and had 35 stores nationwide by the end of December 2025.3,5
No tale about this food has been found.
Grandma Li
This is a simplified home version, not the traditional restaurant method.
The two measured recipes I drew on are a general lotus root soup and a Cantonese-style one with corn, carrot and dried tangerine peel, and neither is a Wuhan recipe. The Wuhan way is given in a few articles as an outline, with no amounts: clay pot, floury lotus root, salt alone. So this is my home version, following the Wuhan outline, and the amounts are my own choices.
Ingredients
- Pork ribs (spare ribs or short ribs) 500 g, chopped into pieces of about 4 cm
- Floury lotus root 750 g, peeled and cut into large chunks
- Ginger slices 4 slices
- Cooking oil 10 ml, for searing the ribs
- Hot water 2000 ml
- Salt about 8 g, added at the end
Steps
- Soak the ribs in cold water for 30 minutes, changing the water twice.
- Put the ribs in a pot of cold water, bring it to a boil, skim off the foam and blanch for about 3 minutes. Lift them out and rinse.
- Heat the oil in a clay pot or heavy soup pot over medium heat and fry the ginger and ribs until the surface turns lightly golden.
- Add 2000 ml of hot water, bring to a boil and skim again. Cover and simmer over low heat for about 1 hour.
- Wash and peel the lotus root, cut it into large chunks and add them to the pot. Simmer over low heat for about another hour. The lotus root should slide off a chopstick easily and the pork should be soft enough to come away from the bone before it counts as done. If it is still firm, simmer a little longer.
- Add the salt just before serving and adjust after tasting. Serve hot.
Tips
- Choose floury lotus root. A 2023 article says it is what gives a soft, mildly sweet soup.
- I add the salt just before serving, and I set the simmering times by my own pot, going by whether the lotus root yields to a chopstick.