Xiamen Peanut Soup
“Peanuts simmered for hours into a creamy ivory broth, sweetened with rock sugar — Xiamen's standard breakfast bowl with a fried dough stick on the side.”
The bite
Pale ivory soup, almost loose congee in body, with whole peanuts that look intact but slump the moment your tongue presses them. The sweetness is rounded, not sharp — rock sugar, not white sugar. Tear off pieces of you tiao, drop them in for ten seconds, and lift them out heavy with broth. If a raw egg has been cracked in, the yolk in the middle is still molten, the white set into ribbons. A Xiamen breakfast is over in eight minutes.
Where it comes from
Peanut soup hawkers have worked Xiamen's old streets — Zhongshan Road, Bashi Market — since the early twentieth century, when the city's port economy made dawn breakfasts a necessity for dock and ferry workers. Min Nan style differs from northern sweet peanut soup in cooking time alone: northern recipes stop at one hour and the peanuts stay chewy, while Xiamen pushes to four-plus hours until the peanuts deconstruct entirely into the broth.
What makes it work
Two things ride on removing the red skin. First, peanut skin is full of tannins; left on, it turns the broth pinkish-brown and astringent instead of ivory. Second, the skin is a barrier to starch and oil release — without it, the peanut interior surrenders both into the water, which is what gives the soup its creamy body without any added thickener. The four-hour hold is also non-negotiable: peanut starch only fully gelatinises after about three hours of low simmer.
On the Palate
Ingredients
Serves 4
How it's made
6 steps · Show ↓10 min active · 480 min waiting
How it's made
6 steps · Show ↓- 10 min
Soak 300g raw shelled peanuts (red-skin variety) in cold water for 6 hours. The skins loosen — pinch and slip each one off. Skinless peanuts are non-negotiable for the creamy result.
- 225 min
Drain peanuts. Add to a clay or heavy-bottomed pot with 2L cold water. Bring slowly to a bare simmer over 20 minutes; do not boil hard.
- 3240 min
Cover and hold at the lowest possible flame for 4 hours. The peanuts will swell, then start collapsing; the broth will go from clear to milky around hour 2.
- 40 min
After 4 hours, push gently with a wooden spoon — peanuts should crush against the side of the pot with no resistance. If they still bite back, give it another hour.
- 55 min
Add 80g yellow rock sugar; stir until dissolved. Adjust thickness with a splash of hot water if needed — Xiamen-style is creamy but still spoonable, not paste.
- 62 min
Ladle into bowls. Optional: crack a raw egg into the bowl and pour the boiling soup over to soft-poach it. Serve with hot you tiao for tearing and dipping.
