A reviving Kaifeng breakfast soup of long-simmered chicken broth filled with cubes of set chicken blood, shredded chicken, silken tofu, and spinach, thickened with a light starch slurry and finished with a swirled egg drop, rice vinegar, and white pepper. Sour, peppery, and warming, it has been sold from predawn carts across the old city for generations, traditionally paired with a sesame flatbread for dunking.
Chicken blood soup has been part of Kaifeng's street-food breakfast economy since at least the late imperial period. A widely repeated origin legend credits the dish to the Song dynasty: a minister from Kaifeng's Songmen district reportedly offered Emperor Renzong a restorative broth of chicken bones, dozens of medicinal herbs, chicken blood, and offal obtained from a wandering Daoist; the emperor named it 'Songmen Chicken Blood Soup' (宋门里鸡血汤) after it restored his appetite. No Song-dynasty text has been identified to confirm this story, and it reads as the customary imperial-endorsement origin legend attached to many Henan breakfast foods. What is well-attested is the soup's central place in Kaifeng's predawn food culture alongside lamb intestine soup, hot-and-sour pepper soup, and donkey broth — each representing a different strand of the city's extraordinarily rich morning-meal tradition.
The broth hits first — clean and deeply chickeny, with a faint peppery warmth. Then come the blood cubes, silkier than silken tofu and barely iron-scented. The egg strands float in the thickened broth, silky and ethereal. A splash of rice vinegar lifts the whole bowl; the white pepper leaves a prickling warmth that lingers at the back of the throat.
Fresh chicken blood is a suspension of red blood cells and plasma proteins — chiefly albumin and fibrinogen. When heated to around 70°C, these proteins denature and cross-link into a firm, uniform gel, producing blood curd that is silkier than tofu because its protein network is denser and more homogeneous. The cornstarch slurry raises broth viscosity, keeping the egg-drop strands suspended and ensuring they coat each blood cube as it is eaten. Rice vinegar's acetic acid suppresses perceived bitterness and works synergistically with the glutamates from the long-simmered stock to amplify overall umami. White pepper's active compound, piperine, stimulates warm-temperature receptors in the mouth, producing the characteristic lingering heat.
Variations
Many vendors expand into 'chicken offal soup' (鸡杂汤) by adding gizzard, heart, and liver. A richer version combines pork and chicken bones for a milkier, fattier stock. Some shops add glass noodles for body. Traditionally paired with sesame flatbread (烧饼) torn and dropped into the bowl to soak up the broth.
On the Palate
Where Kaifeng Chicken Blood Soup sits in the Chinese flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 2
How it's made
8 steps · 15 min
- 140 min
Simmer the chicken carcass with ginger slices and scallion in 1 litre of cold water over medium heat; skim the foam diligently for the first 10 minutes, then simmer 30 minutes more to build a clear, golden stock.
Watch outSkim the foam hard for the first ten minutes while it comes up — clear that scum early and the stock stays golden and clean; leave it and the soup turns cloudy and muddy-tasting.
- 25 min
Strain the stock; shred any cooked meat from the bones into fine strips and set aside. Discard the bones.
- 33 min
Cut the fresh chicken blood into 1.5 cm cubes; rinse gently under cold water and drain.
- 45 min
Cut silken tofu into 1 cm cubes; blanch spinach in boiling water for 10 seconds, drain, and roughly chop.
- 53 min
Bring the strained stock to a rolling boil; add chicken strips, blood cubes, and tofu. Simmer 3 minutes.
- 62 min
Mix cornstarch with twice its volume of cold water; pour into the simmering soup in a slow stream while stirring constantly to achieve a light, even thickening.
Watch outStream the starch slurry in slowly while stirring until the broth just thickens enough to hold a trace — over-thicken and it turns gluey, too thin and the egg strands sink.
- 72 min
Beat the egg lightly; pour in a thin thread while stirring the soup in one direction to form silky, feathery strands. Add the spinach.
Watch outPour the beaten egg in a thin thread while stirring one direction — that slow drizzle into just-thickened soup is what makes the strands silky and feathery instead of clumping.
- 82 min
Season with salt; finish with rice vinegar, white pepper, and a drizzle of sesame oil. Ladle into bowls and serve immediately with sesame flatbread.
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