Hot and sour sweet potato noodles (Suan La Fen) is one of the most famous Sichuan street foods. With 5 to 8 RMB, you can buy this street food almost in every city of China.It is featured by its spicy and sour taste as well as the numbing feeling.
This is almost the sister dish of another famous Chongqing food–Chongqing noodles. The version here is a very basic version without any other meat toppings.On Chinese food streets especially in Chongqing, this noodles can be served with fried minced pork sauce (炸酱), red-braised beef (红烧牛肉) and red-braised large intestines (肥肠). Whenever eating at home, I prefer this much simpler way so I can finish up within 15 minutes.
The noodles used for this snack is thick sweet potato noodles (红薯粉), which is much chewier than common noodles. Theoretically it belongs to vermicelli and you may find it in large Asian grocery stores. If you failed to find some, use this one and pre-soak until soft before starting making yourself a bowl.
Usually we top this noodle soup with fried peanuts (or fried soy beans) and pickled mustard head to add some crispness.
Prepare the serving bowls. Add chili oil, light soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, Chinese five spicy powder and Sichuan peppercorn powders in. Heat up some oil and fry the mashed garlic . Pour the hot oil along with the garlic into the serving bowls. And some chopped spring onion, coriander and salt into the serving bowl too.
Tune the seasonings: pour a small amount of stock or water for boiling the noodles to the serving bowls.Transfer the noodles to serving bowls too and slightly add more water to cover. Serve hot with black vinegar and Chinese chili oil so you can adjust the taste based on how sour and spicy you want.
Hot and Sour Potato Noodles
Ingredients
- 2 serving sweet potato noodles
- 2 tbsp. roasted peanuts or deep fried soy beans
- 2 spring onions , chopped
- a small bunch coriander , chopped
- 1/2 cup chopped pickled Sichuan vegetable , zhacai
- 3 garlic cloves mashed
- 1 tbsp. peanuts oil
Seasoning for each serving bowl
- 1/2 tsp. Sichuan peppercorn powder
- 1/2 tsp. Chinese five spicy powder
- 1 tbsp. Chinese chili oil
- 2 tbsp. vinegar
- 1 tbsp. light soy sauce
- 1 tsp. sesame oil
- salt to taste
- 1 cup water for boiling the noodles or hot stock
Instructions
- Soak the sweet potato noodles with enough water until soft. Transfer out and set aside.
- In the serving bowls and mix all the seasonings. Heat up peanuts oil in pan to stir-fry the mashed garlic until aroma. Mix the garlic oil with Sichuan pepper, red oil, Chinese five spice powder, green onion, coriander, light soy sauce, black vinegar and salt in serving bowls.
- Cook soaked sweet potato noodles around 5-8 minutes until you can break the noodles (or follow the instruction on the package). Transfer the noodles out to the serving bowls and then add top with pickled vegetables, roasted peanuts and chopped spring onions and coriander. Serve hot!
Nutrition
Thank you SO much! I can’t wait to try!! xo
You are welcome Alex. This is my favorite street food too. I am so glad to know you love it too.
Elaine your photos are just stunning!! Love your recipes as well 🙂
Thanks Talaia.
Hi there. This is my favorite SIchuan food! What type of vinegar would you use for this? Black vinegar or something else? Thanks so much!
Hi Britt,
Black vinegar is preferred here as it provides a better flavor.
Thank you for posting this recipe. I have been obsessed with sichuan food lately and this is just what I needed! For the vinegar, do you use distilled white vinegar or can we use chinkiang vinegar(the black one)?
I cant wait to try it!
Hi Emily,
Chinkiang vinegar is perfect for this recipe. I usually use black vinegar in most of my recipes expect those light colored dishes.
Is there a store bought chili oil I can use instead? If so which brand? I’m a bit lazy to make my own!
All the photos show noodles in broth, but your liquid ingredients are only a few tablespoons. Is something missing?
Hi Michael,
I scoop the water for boiling the noodles as a broth of this dish. So I did not point out the amount of stock. I will add it to the recipe and thanks for the correctness.
What is Chinese five spicy powder? Do you mean Chinese 5 spice powder?
Yes, you can know more from this post.
Thank you for this recipe, my dad loved it!!!
You are the most welcome, Carol.
Hi Elaine,
Thank you for this recipe, it certainly looks authentic.
Would you by any chance be able to provide a recipe for the minced pork sauce? I have seen versions available online but they are in chinese and I am unfortunately able to read characters.
Many thanks.
Sarah,
I will post a Sichuan style minced pork noodles soon. In that recipe, you can find the authentic way of Sichuan minced pork sauce.
We made this at my house and were instantly hooked! Only now, instead of sweet potato noodles, we add our homemade pork and bamboo shoot dumplings to the broth. The pork dumplings with the spicy, sour soup and the crunchy fried nuts and beans, plus the pickles? It’s heaven! We eat that once or twice a week now. Thank you!
Thanks Hailey. This is my heaven soup too. Enjoy it in the coming cold days.