Sa Soup 撒汤
Sa Soup is featured among the local specialties of Anhui.
Sa Soup (撒汤) is a scalding, full-bodied soup eaten in Fuyang (阜阳), in northern Anhui, mostly at breakfast and often with flatbread. The name is a local spelling. The dish belongs to the family of san tang soups (糁汤) found across the Huaihai region (淮海地区); in the dialects of Shandong and Henan the first character is pronounced "sa", and parts of northern Anhui commonly write the name as "sa tang" (撒汤).
Ingredients
Across the Huaihai region the soup rests on two main ingredients, wheat kernels (麦仁) and chicken, in a broth boiled from large bones, mostly beef bones, which turns milky white. Scallion, garlic, ginger, coriander and pepper season it, and an egg is sometimes stirred into the hot soup. The aim is a thick, strongly flavoured bowl that is 'hot, peppery, fragrant and rich' (热、辣、香、肥), and the pungent seasonings make it a reviving, appetite-whetting drink in the morning.
How it is eaten
In Yingzhou (颍州), Fuyang's central district and old town, Huiliu Market (洄流集) and Xiaozi Street (孝子街) are already busy at dawn, and a bowl of sa soup there comes with flaky oil-crisp flatbread (油酥烧饼). The same northern-Anhui breakfast spread takes in xiaolongbao, fried dough sticks, salted bread (咸馍), shuiluo bread (水洛馍) and thin rolled flatbreads filled with braised meat and vegetables. A Yingzhou native quoted by People's Daily Online on a visit home says the first stop every time is Xiaozi Street, for a bowl of sa soup and a piece of salted bread.
It is not only a morning food: near midday, customers at the Laodifang (老地方) sa soup shop in Fuyang still order two flatbreads and eat them with a bowl of the soup.
Where it comes from
Laodifang is one of several chain names, with Hutongkou (胡同口) and Tiansan rolled bread (田三卷馍), that have grown out of Fuyang's snack trade. Its shop is run by a married couple, one of them a third-generation sa soup maker; they took it over from the parents' generation and redesigned it around an open kitchen. People's Daily Online traces the owner's new aim, to pass on Fuyang's sa soup rather than only run a family shop, to the 'Fuyang Famous Snack' (阜阳名小吃) plaques that the Fuyang human resources and social security bureau gave to a first group of 148 eateries in July 2022. In Linquan County (临泉县), one of Fuyang's counties, representative bearers of intangible cultural heritage teach sa soup making, along with hand-rolled noodles and handmade bread, at food workshops set up at rural tourism spots.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and fact-checked against them on 2026-09-23. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.
