HOT POT Saved My Life!! (Photos & Recipe)

Hot Pot is AMAZING!
If you don't know what hot pot is, it's a giant "stew" pot that you put your own broth into (recipe below), let it boil, then you just add all the raw ingredients you like. If you're a big social eater like me, this is a great healthy thing to have to entertain, or just for an easy, simple, and HEALTHY dinner for yourself. AND you will have leftovers, so this is a great meal if you want to have it a couple of nights in a row (which you will want to, BTW). Shoutout to my Chinese step mom for enlightening me on this beautiful cultural meal.



Recipe:
First of all, you will need a hot pot! A hot pot is kind of like a stew pot, and it has a heater underneath it. I bought mine on amazon for under $30 and it works amazing. You can find it by clicking HERE.

Broth:
For the broth, I usually just use whatever is laying around. If I can find some cheap pork hocks or chicken feet at my local asian supermarket, I will usually get a ton of those, or I will ask the butcher at any supermarket/grocery store to give me JUST bones. Bone broth goes a long way and is super easy to make. If you are going to make a meat-based broth, bake the bones in the oven until they are cooked, then throw them into water with some seasoning and veggies like whole onions, garlic cloves, carrots, celery, and whatever else you like to but in your broth.
You can also make a broth from just veggies.
If you like spicy food like we do, you can also add some chili peppers. Warning: the longer the chili peppers stay in the broth, the hotter it will get. If you put in 6 peppers, by day 3 you will have a VERY spicy broth, so make sure to take them out and switch them after each use if you don't like it too hot. Otherwise, enjoy!

Food:
Once your broth is in the hot pot and is at a boiling stage, you can then start adding your raw foods. If you have never had hot pot before, the point is to boil the broth then add your raw ingredients in an "all you can eat" style until they are cooked, then pull them out, dip them in sauce, and enjoy.
You can really use any ingredients you'd like for this, however here are some of our favorites:
Protein: Thinly sliced beef, thinly sliced pork, thinly sliced lamb, eggs (whole with shell to hard-boil or soft-boil them), shrimp in shell with heads attached (very sweet), deep fried tofu, fish balls, crab in shell, lobster in shell, muscles, clams, calamari/squid, etc.
Veggies: Lettuce, yams cut in round slices, enoki mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, really any mushrooms, any type of leafy greens, really, any type of veggies you like! I can't think of a single veggie that isn't good in hot pot. The leafy greens are the best though, because when you soak them for a minute or two in the boiling broth, it soaks up all the flavor that's cooked into it.
Starch: Noodles (any type). If you are low-carb, you can get cellophane noodles which are actually made from bean sprouts, otherwise any noodles will do (we like egg noodles and long life noodles the best, which you can find at your local asian supermarket).

Sauce:
Typically, hot pot is eaten (the ingredients that are now cooked from sitting in the boiling broth) with a peanut-based dipping sauce, however the sauce is completely up to you and there are no rules as to what is in the sauce.
Here are some ingredients we put in our dipping sauce (pick and choose what you like and leave out the rest! This is a mix-and-match process):
-Melted peanut butter (chunky or smooth - your choice)
-Soy sauce
-Chinese vinegar
-Sesame oil
-Fish sauce
-Green Onions
- Toasted sesame seeds
- Sriracha
- Chili oil
- The possibilities are endless!

Remember, have fun with it! And if you have any questions, feel free to add me or reply to this thread! xo