Hesheng Chicken Soup 贺胜鸡汤

Hesheng Chicken Soup (贺胜鸡汤) is a chicken soup from Hesheng (贺胜) in Xian'an District (咸安区) of Xianning (咸宁), Hubei, made with farm-raised hens, spring water and sweet-potato starch noodles.

How it is made

A food feature on the Xianning city government portal says the soup uses free-range hens (土母鸡) raised by farm households around Hesheng, noodles made from red sweet-potato starch (红苕粉条) and good underground spring water. A 2026 Xianning Daily (咸宁日报) piece on the city's food gives the method: the farm chicken is simmered slowly over a low fire in mountain spring water, and local sweet-potato starch noodles go into the broth.

Flavour and texture

The government feature describes tender meat, good flavour and a fresh-tasting soup. Xianning Daily calls the broth clear and mellow, fresh but not greasy.

Where it comes from

The Xianning government feature presents Hesheng Chicken Soup as a local speciality with a long history, dates its origin to 1949, and says many people travel to Hesheng just to eat the soup there. Xianning Daily calls it a calling card (名片) of Xianning and a favourite of visitors and locals alike. In that piece it is the dish named for Xian'an, after the mountain cooking of Tongshan (通山), Tongcheng (通城) and Chongyang (崇阳) and the river-and-lake dishes of Jiayu (嘉鱼) and Chibi (赤壁).

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A Hubei soup of pork ribs and lotus root, for comparison with this chicken-and-spring-water soup from Xianning.

Questions before you order

What are the noodles in Hesheng Chicken Soup?

They are noodles made from red sweet-potato starch, a local product that is added to the chicken broth.