This is the Chinese way to make Watercress Soup. It is made with only four ingredients but you will be surprised at how much flavor it has. This recipe was taught to me by my grandmother. You will need two batches of watercress to serve about 6 people. The watercress shrinks quite a bit after cooking.

Can't get enough of Chinese Soups? Try my Chinese Chicken Meatball Soup next!

overhead shot of bowl of watercress soup

🌱 About This Recipe

Watercress is one of my favorite vegetables to cook with! Although its use in Chinese cooking is pretty limited (mostly soup and stir-fries), it has a very unique mustardy and peppery flavor that I absolutely love.

If you have some watercress on hand, I highly recommend you try my grandma's Watercress Soup recipe! It's made with only four ingredients: watercress, pork ribs, garlic, and salt, but it always comes out super tasty.

My grandma loved using watercress for soup. She was a big believer in Chinese medicine, and watercress is one of the foods with the strongest cooling properties. This was her go-to soup whenever anyone was feeling under the weather.

If you want to add more texture and flavor, you can try adding dried ingredients like dried dates, goji berries, or shiitake mushrooms. They are popular in other recipes but I do not usually add them.

🧂 Ingredients

Fresh Watercress: Chinese grocery stores almost always have them in stock. Try to find bunches without too much wilting or brown leaves.
Pork Ribs: You can use any style of pork ribs for this recipe, like spare ribs, side ribs, button ribs, or back ribs. Pork neck bones also work well, but try to find bones with more meat on them. You can also use fatty cuts like pork shoulder.
Salt: Of course, we'll need some salt to flavor the soup.
Garlic Cloves: I throw them in whole (without mincing) since the soup will be cooking for at least 2 hours, and that is plenty of time for the flavor to be extracted.

⏲️ When To Add Watercress To Soup?

There are generally two schools of thought on this. You can either add it near the beginning or closer to the end. The flavor will be slightly different but it really depends on what you prefer.

Adding watercress at the beginning will infuse the soup with more watercress flavor, but it makes the watercress itself less flavorful as most of the flavor goes to the soup. It also turns a brownish color after cooking for a long time.

Adding watercress at the end makes the soup less strongly flavored of watercress, but the watercress itself is more flavorful. The watercress also retains a vibrant green color and has less of a mushy texture.

I generally prefer a middle ground. I like adding the watercress about 20 minutes before serving. That way, the soup has some flavor but the watercress still has some texture and color.

🔪 Instructions

pork ribs being parboiled in pot of water

pork ribs parboiled and water drained from pot

STEP 1: Fill a large stock pot with 8 cups of water and bring it to a boil. Add the pork ribs and simmer for one minute. Drain the liquid. This step helps remove scum and clean the meat of any odd flavors that might have accumulated since the animal was killed. It is a very popular technique to get a cleaner taste when making Chinese soups.

pork ribs, garlic, salt, and water before simmering.

pork ribs, garlic, salt, and water after simmering.

STEP 2: Refill the stockpot with 10 cups of water, add garlic and salt, and bring to a boil. When the water is boiling, cover with a lid and reduce the heat to the lowest setting. Let it simmer for 1 hour and 30 minutes.

STEP 3: Add the watercress and simmer for another 20 minutes. By now, the meat should be very tender and almost fall apart if you pick at it with chopsticks. Ladle the soup into bowls and enjoy!

The soup will stay fresh in the fridge for about 4 days. Make sure to cool the soup down to room temperature before refrigerating it. The other items in your fridge will thank you for this.

📋 Recipe