Yanji Cold Noodles 延吉冷面
Yanji Cold Noodles is featured among the local specialties of Jilin.
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Yanji Cold Noodles (延吉冷面) are the buckwheat noodles in chilled beef broth of Yanji (延吉), capital of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture (延边朝鲜族自治州) in Jilin. Also called Yanbian cold noodles, they are a traditional food of China's Korean (朝鲜族) community, and the Korean cold-noodle making technique has been on Jilin's provincial intangible cultural heritage list since 2007. Xinhua and CCTV both refer to them as one of the "ten great noodles of China".
How it is made
Buckwheat flour is the main ingredient. China National Radio (央广网) describes the dough being kneaded and pressed repeatedly to give a springy, smooth noodle; the Heilongjiang provincial government notes that noodle presses were once wooden and worked by hand, and that wheat flour and starch also go into the mix. Xinhua describes the noodles being pressed, boiled and cooled before they go into the bowl.
The broth is slow-simmered from Yanbian yellow cattle beef and beef bones, then chilled until clear. Apple and pear season the stock and give it a fruity sweet-sour taste. Each restaurant's broth differs, some fruitier, some meatier: the Jindalai (金达莱) restaurant, run by a provincial heritage bearer of the technique, simmers bones and beef for more than eight hours, and the 2025 World Cold Noodle Contest winner simmers the bone stock for three days and makes noodles from buckwheat with acorn.
How it is eaten
The bowl is topped with thinly sliced beef, a boiled egg, shredded cucumber and spicy pickled cabbage (辣白菜), with seasonal fruit; CCTV adds spring onion, sesame, chilli and pine nuts, with apple or watermelon slices. A Korean saying quoted by the Heilongjiang government, "ten parts broth, three parts noodle", shows how much weight the broth carries.
A combination Xinhua calls unique to Yanbian is dipping hot guobaorou (锅包肉), crisp sweet-and-sour fried pork, into the cold noodle broth. The noodles are also the usual way to finish a barbecue meal. In Korean custom the long strands are called "longevity noodles" and are served at festivals, birthdays and weddings.
Where it comes from
Yanji's older restaurants still carry the dish: Xinhua calls the cold noodles of the Yanji Service Building (延吉服务大楼) the most famous of the old names, and describes Jindalai sourcing new-season buckwheat from around Changbai Mountain (长白山). In July 2025 Yanji hosted the final of a World Cold Noodle Contest for 60 contestants from Yanbian, other Chinese cities, South Korea, New Zealand, Vietnam and Russia, judged on broth, noodles, sauce, form and idea.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-24. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.