Sichuan Chicken Salad

Which name do you prefer for Sichuan cold chicken in red-hot chili oil? Saliva chicken (let’s translate it as mouthwatering, shall we?)?  Bobo chicken? Bang bang chicken? Strange-flavor chicken?

They are all variations on the brilliance that is Sichuan cold chicken salad, dressed in high-quality chili oil along with varying proportions of soy sauce, black vinegar, sesame oil, sugar, Sichuan pepper oil and, often, Chinese sesame paste. Truth be told, you could put this sauce—made entirely from Sichuan pantry ingredients—on anything and it would be mouthwatering, but when you put it on perfectly poached/steamed/rotisseried chicken, it’s a combo that deserves its constant presence and myriad variations on Sichuan menus.

Here are the variations of Sichuan chicken salad you’ll see most often:

When the chicken is breast (or leg) meat cut into large slices or chunks and served swimming in an abundance of red-oil dressing, it is called kǒu shuǐ jī, 口水鸡, which is literally translated as “saliva” chicken, but is better translated as “mouthwatering” chicken. While the amount of sauce may seem excessive, the sight of it does set your mouth to watering.

When the chicken is many small bits—mostly chicken wings and offal like gizzards and heart—that are threaded onto skewers and served in a bobo, or clay bowl, of the red oil along with skewers of vegetables, it is called bō bō jī, 钵钵鸡.

And when the chicken is served shredded and hand-torn and the red-oil dressing includes quite a lot of sesame paste, it is called bàng bàng jī, 棒棒鸡, which Fuchsia Dunlop says is basically synonymous with strange-flavor chicken. Here, a nutty layer is added to the already maximalist—but balanced—riot of flavors.

I agree with Fuchsia when she says in her book “Every Grain of Rice” that she doesn’t even use a recipe most times when making the dressing for cold chicken, she just does it by feel and to taste.

Having said that, some combinations are better than others. This recipe for kou shui ji, which I’ve tinkered with for years (I first published a version of this post in 2015), calls for the abundance of sauce you need to float the chicken in the dressing. It has a bit of sesame paste, but not too much, and it’s only barely sweet. Because it has abundant sauce, you can use any that remains to sauce noodles or dumplings.

How to Prepare Chicken for Kou Shui Ji

For the chicken, the one thing I do differently than all of the recipes I’ve seen for these dishes is that I steam the chicken instead of poach it. I guess Sichuanese always poach, but I just prefer the taste and texture of steamed chicken. Plus—and this is a big plus to me—instead of losing the chicken essence to the poaching water, you get a good batch of undiluted chicken juices when you steam it, like a really concentrated broth. I then use those chicken juices, flavored with the wine-ginger-salt seasoning, as the secret ingredient in my mouthwatering chicken. Adding a good helping of the fatty chicken juices helps me achieve the cold chicken ideal of chicken absolutely floating in red oil without using up all my chili oil or burning everyone’s mouths.

Note that this is one of the few places in Sichuan cuisine where white meat chicken is often used. Most stir-fries are made with fattier, richer dark meat—leaving a lot of uneaten white meat, which I hypothesize is another reason that cold chicken is such a popular dish. (America, lover of white-meat chicken, has quite the opposite problem!) You can also use chicken thighs or, better yet, half a chicken, for the best of both white and dark meat.

Notes on the Sauce for Mouthwatering Chicken

A couple things to remember when making a sauce for a Sichuan liang ban, or cold dish. First, these sauces are almost always built on a base of chili oil, so it’s important to use a Sichuan-style chili oil, not a chili crisp. A chili crisp has very little oil, but a Sichuan-style chili oil, whether you make it yourself or buy an authentic version, will have sufficient oil to make a cold dish such as kou shui chicken.

Second: This is the place to use premium products. The ingredients will not be subjected to heat, so the full flavor of a premium sauce will shine through. That means using a naturally brewed Chinese soy sauce, a high-quality black vinegar, a cold-pressed Sichuan pepper oil, a small-mill sesame oil, and a Chinese stone-ground sesame paste, which is dark and toasty. Tahini and peanut butter are not good substitutes for sesame paste.

Remember, the goal is a perfectly cooked, juicy chicken and a mouthwatering sauce!

Originally published in October 2015, this recipe was updated and revised in March 2025.