Chinese New Year reunion dinners are a good time for friends and families to catch up over sumptuous food. Though, let’s be real, the process can require a ton of prep. Enter hotpots – a crowd-pleaser that is convenient to do. Not to mention, if you think outside the box, you can even elevate your hotpot dinners to a restaurant-level experience.
Here are tips & hacks for a homemade hotpot dinner to impress your friends and family and make your upcoming CNY reunions a roaring success.
Table of Contents
First-time hotpot hosts, use this checklist for all the things you need for hotpot. This would be in addition to your usual dinner table setting, and does not include the food you’ll need.
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No one wants to bite into a raw fishball. Not to mention, raw food can cause a stomachache, or worse, food poisoning. Here’s a breakdown of hotpot ingredient cooking times:
| Category | Ingredient | Cooking Time |
| Proteins | Thinly sliced beef/pork | 15-30 seconds |
| Chicken slices | 2-3 minutes | |
| Fish fillets | 1-2 minutes (depends on thickness) | |
| Prawns (with shells) | 2-3 minutes or until they turn pink | |
| Scallops | 2-3 minutes | |
| Meatballs/Fishballs (frozen or fresh) | 4-5 minutes or until they float | |
| Seafood | Squid rings | 1-2 minutes |
| Clams/mussels | 3-5 minutes or until shells open | |
| Imitation crabmeat | 3-5 minutes | |
| Vegetables | Leafy greens (e.g., spinach, bok choy) | 30 seconds to 1 minute |
| Cabbage (napa, regular) | 2-3 minutes | |
| Mushrooms (enoki, shiitake) | 2-4 minutes, depending on size | |
| Corn on the cob | 8-10 minutes | |
| Tofu | Soft tofu | 1-2 minutes |
| Firm tofu | 2-3 minutes | |
| Fried tofu puffs | 2-3 minutes | |
| Carbs | Fresh noodles | 1-2 minutes |
| Rice cakes | 4-6 minutes | |
| Vermicelli/glass noodles | 2-3 minutes | |
| Eggs | Quail eggs | 4-5 minutes (boil in shell first or crack directly into soup) |
| Raw chicken egg | Crack and swirl in the soup; cooks in 1-2 minutes |
Tips:
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Making a rich hotpot broth requires way more time to prepare than it takes to slurp it down. Those who’ve tried cheffing it up in the kitchen will know that it can take several hours just to infuse a broth with ample flavour.
If you’re pressed for time, save the hassle by ordering pre-made hotpot staples. You can find classics such as Haidilao Mushroom Flavour Hot Pot Seasoning and Tomato Flavour Hot Pot Seasoning amongst others. Simply mix in some hot water to turn them into flavourful soups.
Pro tip: Pre-made mixtures like this also double up as seasoning for food so you can add it to any vegetables or meats you stir-fry.
Image credit: Eatbook
Ingredients such as abalone, fish maw, and prawns are basically representative of CNY, which is why you should indulge in them during your reunion dinners. Simply having these items available for guests on the day itself instantly elevates your hotpot meal to a more atas level.
Birds nest.
Image credit: Eatbook
Fortunately, Amazon Fresh has a large variety of these CNY specialties you can order to give your reunion dinner a festive uplift. With items ranging from Fortune Braised Abalone to New Moon Bird’s Nest with White Fungus Rock Sugar, we’re spoilt for choice this coming February.
If you’re keen to bring a barbeque experience to the comfort of your home during your hotpot dinner, perhaps getting a 2-in-1 hotpot grill is the way to go.
With the rising popularity of K-BBQ, yakiniku, and mookata amongst other experiences, getting a multitasking product like the Cornell 2-in-1 Steamboat BBQ provides us with the best of all worlds.
Browse Hotpot appliances.
Pairing your ingredients with condiments and sauces is iconic of the hotpot experience. So, if you want to up your reunion dinner game, you can provide fancy-looking condiment trays for each guest to DIY their own sauces.
Not only is it more hygienic than having everyone share sauce bowls, it recreates the experience of dining out in a restaurant like Haidilao.
Get tableware items.
As we’ve seen from Haidilao, it’s important to prevent our guests from getting hangry. We can do this by serving them some snacks while they’re waiting for dinner to start. Unleash your creativity by DIY-ing snack platters with novelty items like Lindt Lindor Milk Chocolates and Oreo Red Velvet Sandwich Cookies amongst other things.
If your guests prefer something a bit more filling, then whip out the air fryer to cook some of your processed ingredients, like cheese tofu and fishballs. That way, there’s something to snack on while you wait for your first batch of ingredients to cook.
Yes, there is a right order for cooking food in your hotpot. It’s tempting to want to start with the good stuff first, like meat, but you’ll be left with a scummy broth that’ll leave your fish fillets and prawns tasting like beef or pork.
Image credit: Eatbook
The trick is to start with your starchy vegetables first, such as corn, carrots, and even potatoes. Not only do these take the longest to cook to become fork-tender, you can use this base to make your own hotpot broth. These will make your soup have a sweeter taste, which will complement seafood items.
The next mellow ingredients on the list are your seafood items that won’t affect the taste of your broth much. In fact, the broth gets even sweeter with the addition of seafood. You’ll want to save your leafy vegetables and meat for last because those quick the fastest and meats tend to create scum on the top of your soup. Use a soup skimmer to keep your broth clear throughout dinner.
The end of a hotpot meal can be a hassle to clean up with all the tiny sauce bowls, plates, and cutlery you have to collect and wash individually. These days, there are countertop dishwashers that don’t require any installation that’ll get the job done with minimal fuss.
Image credit: Bosch
Most also have an eco option that uses less water than what you would normally use washing by hand, so it’ll save you money in the long run.
Probably the biggest thing to deal with after hotpot is what to do with all your leftover broth. It seems like such a waste to throw it out after it’s been boiling all your proteins. But strain it and you’ll have a base to make flavourful congee. Just add rice and stir as the whole pot comes to a boil. You can even throw in any leftovers to add liao to your congee.
Image credit: Eatbook
Just be sure to not serve this congee on the first day of the new year. It’s a traditional CNY don’t, as the meal is associated with poverty and poor health – not the most prosperous meal to have on such a festive occasion!
A downside of having a hotpot meal is that the fumes will make the room temperature much warmer. Combine this with a spicy soup or sauce and you’re basically guaranteed a reunion dinner sweat fest.
To avoid this, ensure everyone is kept cool during dinner by switching on your AC or using fans like the Xiaomi Mi Smart Standing Fan 2.
At the same time, improve the air quality at home by bringing out an air purifier to clear out the BBQ smoke. At least you won’t have to smell like grease and oil at the end of the night.
Tip: Those who need new appliances at the last minute can sign up as a Prime member on Amazon.sg to get free one-day delivery on eligible items.
Mahjong tables aren’t just props for you to roll some dice and place some tiles. They can also double up as makeshift dining tables too.
With a smorgasbord of hotpot ingredients to choose from, most of our dining tables will undoubtedly be filled with tonnes of food, plates and utensils. To declutter the area where you’ll eat, just use a mahjong table to hold extra ingredients and drinks.
Even better, you’ll also already have the table all set up for a round of post-dinner mahjong to keep your friends and family entertained.
Or if you’re gunning to make your post-dinner games night a roaring success, Amazon.sg is chock full of fun things to order – with anything ranging from Nintendo Switch Console to Hasbro Clue Game.
Get entertainment items.
While we usually look forward to CNY celebrations, preparing for the occasion can be a feat. To make the entire process more seamless, it’s important that you have the right tools to keep your house clean and entertain your guests.
No worries if you don’t, because you can easily get a wide array of CNY ingredients, appliances and decor at Amazon. Those with a Prime membership can get orders as early as the next day that’ll be a godsend for last-minute prep.
If you need something for spring cleaning, you can purchase items like Dry/Wet Spin Flat Mop to mop away any bad luck before the big day.
There are even plenty of hampers and gift sets like the New Moon Abalone Emerald Gift Set, which comes with a can of abalone, braised top shell, chicken broth, and Buddha jump over the wall, to get for your loved ones.
You can even make the entire experience feel a little more bougie by popping open that bottle of champagne.
Get spring cleaning items, kitchen and dining items, and gifts and festive decor.
Make your reunion dinners a 10/10 success by turning it into a Haidilao-level kinda meal with these small hacks. Not only will these tips create a more satisfying meal, they’re also easy to do.
For more CNY meal inspiration, check out the Amazon Fresh shoppable recipes page, where you can easily purchase the ingredients needed for each recipe from Amazon Fresh and Amazon.sg.
The best part is that Amazon Singapore will offer Chinese New Year deals across categories – from Grocery to Home and Kitchen – from now till 28th January 2025, while stocks last. Keep your eyes peeled for the following:
To top it off, if you get an Amazon Prime membership ($4.99/month or $49.90/year), you’ll receive a whole bunch of other benefits to make your CNY prep a breeze:
While social gathering restrictions will remain unchanged this CNY, we can still spread the festive joy by sending Amazon.sg Gift Cards to the loved ones who might not be able to visit.
You can even use these in place of cash angbaos, so cheers to a prosperous start to the Year of the Snake!
This post was brought to you by Amazon Singapore.
Photography by Ian Sim.
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