Wuxi Smoked Cured Pork 巫溪腊肉
Wuxi Smoked Cured Pork is featured among the local specialties of Chongqing.
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Wuxi Smoked Cured Pork (巫溪腊肉) is the salted and smoked pork of Wuxi County (巫溪县), Chongqing. A 2020 report from the Wuxi County media centre calls it a dish that local households cannot do without at the table, and describes the county's old-style cured pork, 'lao larou' (老腊肉, old cured pork), as a local traditional speciality made to a folk recipe handed down for more than 500 years.
How it is made
According to the Wuxi County media centre, the pork comes from grain-fed pigs raised by farming households. After slaughter the meat is rubbed with salt and left to cure for two to three days, then smoked slowly over cypress twigs, the peel of a thorny citrus (刺桔) and pomelo peel. Smoking is done as the end of the year approaches.
The meat is also made in factories. In 2026 the Wuxi County government reported that a producer in Tongcheng (通城镇) runs a standardised line that goes from selecting the meat through cutting, salting and smoking to packing, and that the company sells its cured pork to more than twenty provinces and cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong.
Flavour and texture
The Wuxi County media centre says this way of making it gives the pork a strong fragrance and leaves it fatty without being greasy, and describes the old-style pork as golden yellow and glossy.
How it is eaten
Recipes published by the Wuxi County government show how the pork goes into local cooking. For 'Mum's dumplings' (老妈水饺), diced highland cured pork is fried over a low flame until its fat runs, then cooked with fermented black beans, ginger, potato, bean sprouts, celtuce and Sichuan pepper and wrapped in dumplings. For beer-battered cured pork (啤酒醉腊肉), highland pork from Hongchiba (红池坝) is skinned, sliced, coated in a beer batter with garlic shoots and red chillies and fried; the finished dish is orange-yellow. Cured pork is also listed, with loofah and pickled chillies, among the supporting ingredients of a local paddy-eel dish, 'jianghu tu shanyu' (江湖土鳝鱼, country-style paddy eel).
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-26. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.