If you searched “Jinzhou Maocai,” you’re probably here for one of two reasons: you’re playing Wuthering Waves and want to unlock the dish, or you tasted the idea through the game and want to cook the real thing. This post covers both — the in-game unlock takes two minutes to explain, and the real Sichuan maocai is one of the most satisfying one-bowl meals you can make at home.
What Is Maocai, Actually?
Maocai (冒菜) is a Sichuan street food best described as “hot pot for one.” Instead of a communal simmering pot, a cook plunges a basket of your chosen ingredients — sliced meat, mushrooms, tofu, greens, noodles — into a bubbling, spicy mala broth, then tips everything into a single bowl with a ladle of that broth over the top. You get all the numbing-spicy pleasure of hot pot with none of the ceremony. The Wuthering Waves version borrows this real dish: in the game’s lore it was invented by busy Huanglong miners who stewed everything in one pot because they had no time to cook properly — which is honestly not far from the dish’s real working-class origins in Chengdu.
How to Get Jinzhou Maocai in Wuthering Waves (Quick Answer)
- It’s a 5-star dish that boosts your whole party’s Crit. Rate significantly for 30 minutes (the buff applies to your own Resonators in Co-op).
- The recipe unlocks at Top Chef rank — the highest Chef Level, which takes around 6,000 cooking proficiency, so keep cooking cheaper dishes to grind it out.
- Cooking it requires hot pot base, raw meat, perilla, and mushrooms from your ingredient inventory.
- Bonus: if Chixia is your cook, there’s a chance she produces her special version, Champion Hotpot, instead.
That’s everything the game side needs. Now the fun part — the version you can eat.
Real Maocai at Home: What You Need
The soul of maocai is the broth. The genuinely traditional route means toasting and grinding your own chilies; the practical route — used by plenty of maocai shops too — is starting from a block of Sichuan hot pot base (火锅底料, available at any Chinese grocery or online). This recipe takes the practical route with fresh aromatics added, which gets you 90% of the way there on a weeknight.
For the broth:
| Ingredient | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Sichuan hot pot base | ½ block (about 100g) | Spicy (mala) variety. Haidilao and Xiaolongkan brands are widely available. |
| Chicken stock or water | 5 cups | Stock gives a rounder flavor. |
| Garlic | 4 cloves, smashed | |
| Ginger | 4 slices | |
| Scallions | 2, cut in lengths | |
| Sichuan peppercorns | 1 teaspoon | Optional but this is where the numbing tingle comes from. |
| Doubanjiang (chili bean paste) | 1 tablespoon | Deepens the broth; skip if your hot pot base is already intense. |
For the bowl (pick 5–6, this is flexible by design): Thinly sliced beef or pork, fish balls, firm tofu, shiitake or enoki mushrooms, napa cabbage, spinach, lotus root slices, bean sprouts, sweet potato noodles or instant noodles, quail eggs.
To finish: chopped cilantro, scallion greens, a spoon of chili oil, crushed roasted peanuts.
Instructions
1. Build the broth (10 minutes). In a wide pot, melt the hot pot base over medium heat until fragrant, add garlic, ginger, scallion, peppercorns, and doubanjiang, and stir for a minute. Pour in the stock, bring to a boil, then simmer 10 minutes. Taste — it should be aggressively flavorful, because it’s seasoning everything else.
2. Blanch in order of cooking time. This is the one technique that makes maocai maocai. Cook ingredients in the same broth, hardest first: lotus root and mushrooms (3–4 min), then tofu and fish balls (2–3 min), then sliced meat (1–2 min, until just cooked), then leafy greens and sprouts (30–60 seconds). Noodles go according to their package time. A spider strainer or slotted spoon makes this painless.
3. Assemble the bowl. Pile everything into a deep bowl, then ladle over enough broth to pool at the bottom — maocai sits in broth but isn’t a soup. Top with cilantro, scallions, chili oil, and peanuts.
4. Eat immediately, ideally with plain rice on the side to buffer the heat.
Adjusting the Heat
Hot pot base blocks vary wildly in intensity. Start with half the recommended amount, simmer, taste, and add more. To cool a too-spicy broth, add stock and a teaspoon of sugar. To push it hotter, add dried chilies while the broth simmers, not chili powder at the end.
Maocai vs. Hot Pot vs. Malatang
People mix these up constantly, so: hot pot is the communal experience where diners cook at the table. Malatang is the skewer/pick-your-own version where the shop cooks your basket. Maocai is the bowl format — the kitchen blanches everything and serves it as a single composed dish. Same flavor family, different formats.
FAQ
Is Jinzhou Maocai a real dish? “Jinzhou Maocai” specifically is the Wuthering Waves name — Jinzhou is the game’s main city. But maocai itself is a completely real and beloved Sichuan dish, and this recipe makes the real thing.
Can I make it not spicy? Then it isn’t really maocai — but yes: use a tomato or mushroom hot pot base instead of the mala variety and skip the peppercorns. It becomes a very good brothy vegetable-and-meat bowl.
What if I can’t find hot pot base? Substitute: 2 tbsp doubanjiang fried in 3 tbsp oil with 1 tsp ground Sichuan peppercorn, 2 star anise, and 6–8 dried chilies, then add stock. Less complex, still very good.
Rimi Sultana is a home cook from Bangladesh who has cooked for her family every day for the past five years and writes about it at Smart Cooks. Perpetually testing whether internet-famous recipes actually work in a regular home kitchen. Say hello on Facebook or through the contact page.