Chengcheng Clear Mutton Soup 澄城水盆羊肉
Chengcheng Clear Mutton Soup is featured among the local specialties of Shaanxi.
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Chengcheng Clear Mutton Soup (澄城水盆羊肉) is the clear-broth version of shuipen yangrou (水盆羊肉) associated with Chengcheng (澄城), one of the Weinan (渭南) counties where this mutton soup is concentrated.
Ingredients
The usual Shaanxi (陕西) bowl contains large pieces of mutton and vermicelli in soup, with spring onion. County styles differ in their seasoning: Chengcheng’s is described as a clear soup, while the version in Pucheng (蒲城) uses Sichuan pepper and has a more noticeable numbing taste.
How it is eaten
Bread can be incorporated in two ways. Diners may add baiji flatbread (白吉饼) to the soup, or take the mutton out and put it into bread called yueya bing (月牙饼).
Shuipen mutton developed from an older mutton broth called yanggeng (羊羹). Outside Xi’an (西安), it is sometimes also called yangrou pao (羊肉泡). Xi’an paomo usually cooks bread in broth, although its separate-bread style resembles shuipen mutton.
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.