Soup · Simmered

Huainan Niurou Tang (Huainan Beef Soup)

📷 Closely related photo — Photo: Nancy Ingersoll / Unsplash · Unsplash License

The soup is traditionally eaten with a crisp baked flatbread on the side, torn up and dunked into the chili-oil broth.

A beef broth, simmered for hours with bones and offcuts, is ladled over glass-noodle vermicelli, sliced beef, tofu skin, and bean sprouts, finished with chili oil and cilantro.

Why it's made this way: The soup is the signature of Huainan in northern Anhui, where beef soup shops open before dawn and serve it as an everyday breakfast.