5 from 6 votes
Ultimate Guide to Hot Pot at Home
Learn how to throw a hot pot dinner at home with this ingredient list!
Prep Time
2 hrs
Total Time
2 hrs
Servings:
6
Course:
Main Course, Lunch, Dinner
Cuisine:
Asian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese
Ingredients
Hot pot soup base
- hot pot broth or premade packaged, homemade
Meat & seafood (pick 2-3 options: ½ lb of meat per person if you have heavy meat eaters, ⅓ lb of meat for your average eater, or ¼ lb of meat per person if your guests don’t eat that much meat)
- brisket or short rib, top blade, eye round, beef tongue, or ribeye
- pork belly or pork shoulder, pork collar, or pork butt
- lamb leg or shoulder
- chicken thighs or breast
- salmon or salmon skin, halibut, seabass, tilapia, or bass
- cuttlefish
- scallops
- Shrimp
- mussels
- clams
- fish meatballs or beef, shrimp, or pork meatballs
- fish cakes
Tofu (pick 1-2 options, or more if you have veggie-friendly guests)
- tofu firm or extra firm, fresh
- tofu fried
- tofu sheets or tofu skin
- beancurd rolls fried
Carbs (pick 1-2 options)
- rice
- udon noodles frozen
- egg noodles fresh
- shirataki noodles
- rice cakes slices
- ramen noodles
- rice noodles
Leafy greens (pick 2-3 options)
- Chinese spinach
- baby bok choy
- Napa cabbage
- chrysanthemum leaves
- watercress
- pea tips
Other vegetables (pick 3-4 options, or more if you have veggie-friendly guests)
- lotus root
- kabocha
- daikon radish
- green onions
- bean sprout
- broccoli
- bamboo shoots
- Chinese long green beans
- enoki mushrooms
- shiitake mushrooms
- oyster mushrooms
- king oyster mushroom
- shimeji mushrooms
- cremini mushrooms
- dried wood ear mushroom
Dipping sauce ingredients (pick 2-3 options in each sub-category)
Bases
- sesame seeds aka Goma
- sesame paste not tahini!, aka sesame sauce
- soy sauce light soy sauce, dark soy sauce
- ponzu
- black vinegar
- fish sauce
- rice vinegar
- oyster sauce
- hoisin sauce
- sesame oil roasted
Aromatics
- sesame seed roasted
- cilantro chopped
- scallions thinly sliced
- garlic fried
- shallot fried
Spice
- Chili oil
- chili garlic crunchy
- sambal
- garlic minced
- Thai peppers sliced
Instructions
- Talk to your guests about their hot pot preferences and how much they think they will eat.
- Create a food list and grocery shop.
- Prep the ingredients and dipping sauce station as suggested above.
- Gather all hot pot equipment and set up the dining table.
- Make the hot pot broth or use a premade soup base and add enough broth until it reaches 2 inches from the top of the pot.
- Bring the broth to a simmer in the hot pot over the burner with the lid on.
- Have guests make their dipping sauces and add rice to their bowls.
- Start adding ingredients to the hot pot. Once you add an ample amount of ingredients for one round of eating, wait for the food to cook. Before adding more food, wait for the heat to come back to a simmer, and don’t overfill the pot. (see above for cooking times)
- After about 30-45 minutes of eating, you may need to refill the broth. If you still want to continue eating hot pot, pour some hot water into the broth. Add the lid so it comes back to simmer before adding more ingredients. If your guests want to eat noodles with concentrated broth, add your preferred noodles and cook.
- When finished eating, discard all the cooked broth (including ingredients in the broth you don’t want to eat). Store all the uneaten vegetables, tofu, and carbs in food storage containers in the fridge. Store the leftover meat and seafood in individual containers in the fridge. Cook all of these ingredients within 3 days.
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