Sichuan Spicy Potato Salad (Liangban Tudou, 凉拌土豆)
Published Aug 06, 2025, Updated Aug 27, 2025
Arguably, the Best Part of the Meal
Of all the vegetables that love a chili-oil dressing, potatoes may lap it up the most voraciously. Dunk the still-hot boiled slices—just on the border between crisp and soft—into the sauce, and the thirsty potatoes will soak it all in, so that every bite will give you that thrill of spicy, salty, sweet and sour umami that is the hallmark of a Sichuan liangban cai.
Liángbàn cài, or “cold-dressed” dishes, are a whole category of Chinese dishes that are normally served at room temperature, be they poached chicken, sliced pork belly, or all manner of quickly cooked vegetables and salads. These are very often my favorite part of a Sichuan meal and, in fact, my daughter, Fongchong, and I can make a meal out of several of these, and often do in a Sichuan restaurant!
In Sichuan, these dishes are usually dressed in a sauce based on chili oil. The chili oil may be spiked with soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil or paste and various other seasonings and aromatics, but the chili oil is the base that makes or breaks the dish. So, of course, you want to use the very best you can get your hands on.
When I originally published this recipe for Sichuan spicy potato salad, liángbàn tǔdòu, 凉拌土豆, in March 2018, I based it on Lao Gan Ma Spicy Chili Crisp because that was back when Americans were still discovering “the Godmother,” as the founder of Lao Gan Ma is known, and before there were any other brands of Chinese-style chili oil on the American market. I still love the Godmother, but since then, the chili oil and crisp universe has exploded to include many preservative-free choices, and so has people’s interest in making their own chili oil.
So in keeping up with the times, this newly updated and revised recipe encourages you to reach for your favorite Sichuan-style chili oil, utilizing our recipe for Sichuan aromatic chili oil; or our kit that includes everything you need to make it; or our readymade small-batch Chengdu Crispy Chili Oil, which is as close as you can get to homemade. None of these include the preservatives of LGM and, even more importantly, their consistency makes them much more appropriate for Sichuan dressings.
(If you still want to occasionally cook with Lao Gan Ma—and who can blame you—I first wrote at length about it in early 2015, and followed up with a recipe for LGM Black Bean Chicken in 2016.)
Ingredient Spotlight: Sichuan Chili Oil
One of the defining features of a Sichuan-style chili oil is a high ratio of oil to chili solids, usually around 2/3 oil to 1/3 ground chilies—as opposed to a chili crisp, which is mostly chili and crunchy bits with little free oil. The red oil is prized in Sichuan for use in dressings and sauces, and the solid bits may or may not be used depending on the desired look and mouthfeel.
The other attributes that make a Sichuan chili oil stand out from all the rest include:
° The types and blend of chilies used—one for fragrance/flavor, one for color, one for heat
° The type of oil used—always a roasted rapeseed oil, or caiziyou, both for its deeply toasty flavor and for its high viscosity, meaning it really coats the food and sticks the flavor
° The multi-stage, multi-temperature method of applying the hot oil to the ground chilies, bringing out the ultimate color and flavor
How to Make Sichuan Spicy Potato Salad
While making a cold dish that features meat is a bit more involved, a liangban of vegetables is usually quite quick and easy. For this potato salad, you simply slice the potatoes, mix the sauce, briefly boil the potato slices, mix them with the sauce, plate, garnish and done! And some vegetables, such as the widely loved smashed cucumber salad, don’t even require the cooking step.
The main thing to remember here is to not overcook the potatoes. They really should be just slightly cooked. Not too crisp, but definitely not soft. When I see about a 1/4-inch cooked “ring” around the outside of the slices, I know they are done. Especially since they will continue to cook until you put them into the sauce, which you want to do pretty quickly so that the potatoes will easily absorb it. I like to coat each one in sauce before plating to make sure they are fully covered before the final pour of sauce at the end. No potato should go uncovered!
For more quick and easy liangban featuring vegetables, try Taylor’s Sichuan Cucumber Three Ways, Kathy’s Wood Ear Salad and Zoe and Iris’s Qianlong Cabbage.
Sichuan Spicy Potato Salad (Liangban Tudou)
Ingredients
- 1¼- 1½ pounds russet potatoes (2 medium potatoes)
- 4 tablespoons Sichuan chili oil (homemade or high quality store-bought) mostly oil, but including some chili solids
- 3 tablespoons Chinese light soy sauce preferably Zhongba
- 2 tablespoons Chinese black vinegar preferably Baoning
- 1 teaspoon Sichuan pepper oil
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- ¼ teaspoon roasted sesame oil
- ¼ teaspoon chicken powder or msg
- 2 scallions, thinly sliced
Instructions
- Peel and cut potatoes into ⅛-inch slices. If possible, use a mandoline to get uniform slices. (I open my Benriner mandoline to nearly the thickest slicing capacity.) Put slices in a bowl and cover with water.
- Put a large pot of water on to boil over a high heat. While waiting for it to come to a boil, whisk together the sauce in a large bowl: chili oil, soy sauce, vinegar, Sichuan pepper oil, sugar, sesame oil and chicken powder or msg (if using).
- When water is boiling, add potato slices. The boil will die down, and by the time it just recovers to a full boil the potatoes are probably close to done. I look for about a ¼-inch "ring" of doneness around the edges, with the interior still crisp. Depending on the thickness of your potatoes, you may need another minute or so, but they need to remain somewhat firm so they don't fall apart in the sauce. Transfer the potatoes to a colander and drain well.
- Immediately add the potato slices to the sauce bowl about ⅓ at a time. Use tongs to make sure each slice gets fully covered with sauce on both sides before transferring to a serving plate. Finish with remaining potatoes, ⅓ at a time. When all slices are nicely arranged, spoon any remaining sauce on top. Garnish with the scallions and serve at room temperature.
Tried this recipe?
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Chengdu Crispy Chili Oil (All Natural, Made in Sichuan)Buy on Mala Market
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Zhongba Handcrafted Soy Sauce (Naturally Brewed 1 Year)Buy on Mala Market
Zhongba 360 Light Soy Sauce (Naturally Brewed 1 Year)Buy on Mala Market
Baoning Handcrafted Black Vinegar, Aged 10 YearsBuy on Mala Market
Baoning Handcrafted Vinegar, Aged 3 Years (Sichuan Black Vinegar)Buy on Mala Market
Yaomazi Green Sichuan Pepper Oil (Rattan Pepper Oil, Teng Jiao You)Buy on Mala Market
Cuizi Small-Mill Roasted Sesame Oil (Cold-Pressed)Buy on Mala Market
Have you tried the spicy celery salad from Lucky Peach? It also uses spicy chili crisp and it’s so good. http://www.lottieanddoof.com/2016/02/spicy-cold-celery/
Hi Bethia,
I have not seen that recipe before, but I love celery so will definitely try it. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Taylor – I saw in the comments section under a different post (Gong Bao Chicken) that you didn’t know of any nearby soy sauce brewers, so I thought I’d mention Bluegrass Soy Sauce in Louisville KY is really not far from you. Website is http://www.bourbonbarrelfoods.com. Their soy sauce is excellent.
I couldn’t find a way to post this in the Gong Bao Chicken comments, so I’ll just leave it here 🙂
Hi Dabney,
Thanks so much for reminding me of this! I do have some of thier soy sauce. It’s funny that I don’t think of it for Chinese food, I guess because it’s aged in bourbon barrels. Also, at its size and price it’s more of a dipping sauce than for cooking. But it is indeed good. (Thanks also for the heads-up on comments being closed on older posts. That was not intentional and has been fixed now.)
I prepared this recipe last night and I wish I have doubled or even quadrupled the quantities. I used my own homemade chili oil that I made using Maggie’s recipe. What makes this recipe so wonderful, is the chili oil used. Mine is spicy and fragrant, yet our grandchildren can handle the spiciness.
Easy to make and yet so tasty and delicious. If you know how to boil water, then you know how make this recipe.
Even though my wife is Chinese from Hong Kong, she has never heard of this recipe. Everybody in my household enjoyed this meal and they wished I made more. So you know, I will be making this more often.
Thank you for posting these lovely recipes.
Thanks so much, Steve! It makes me happy that you were inspired enough to make it immediately. As you said, as long as the chili oil is good, this dish is good. Let me know how it goes if you double it.
I made this tonight too! I had one lonely russet potato that needed to be used, so I went ahead.
So good, thank you for the recipe! And I have plenty of sauce left over. Will check tomorrow if it goes well with some broccoli or cauliflower.
Cool! Thanks, Elena. Do let me know if you try the sauce on other things.
I ended up serving leftover sauce over some steamed asparagus alongside some mapo tofu (another awesome recipe by the way), and it worked very well.
That’s good to know! Thanks for getting back to us.
I just made the Spicy Chili Crisp Potato Salad (Liang Ban Tu Dou) WOW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT IS ALL!!!!!! I had forgotten how good the Lao Gan Ma Spicy Chili Crisp is as I have been using my own chili oil… SO I added some of my oil to it . And my chili oil is REALLY, REALLY SMOKIN’ HOT !!!!!!!! Plus I used your green Sichuan peppers and pepper oil…. Those Greenies are unbeatable.. Thanks again to you guys …….
Thanks, Bill!!!!! I’m glad you used the green Sichuan pepper on it, and I love that you call them Greenies.