Szechuan vs. Hunan: A Spicy Showdown (2024)

FAQs

Which is more spicy, Hunan or Szechuan? ›

The Spice Narrative:

While Szechuan cuisine is known for its numbing spiciness, Hunan dishes are celebrated for their pure, unbridled heat.

Hunan tends to be purely hot due to the large amounts of ground chilis and garlic. Szechuan tends to be different types of hot such as “hot and sweet” or “hot and sour.” The hotness also has a distinguishing tingly sensation due to the Szechuan peppercorn used.

Hunan sauce is made with red chili peppers, chicken broth, soy sauce, oyster sauce, Japanese rice wine, ketchup, brown sugar, and the secret ingredient – chili bean sauce or “Douban Jiang” (豆瓣酱). Chili bean sauce is made from chili peppers and fermented soy bean paste.

Szechuan is the phonetic spelling which was used in the West before the romanization of Chinese (called pinyin) was adopted in the 1980s. In pinyin, it is spelt Sichuan.

A: While both types of cuisine are known for their spice, the chilis used in Hunan dishes are generally spicier than the Sichuan peppercorns used in Szechuan cooking.

Hunan consistently ranks first nationally in rice output and exports a large surplus to other provinces. It is estimated that most of the province's cultivable land is devoted to paddies (wet-rice fields), a great many of which in the south produce two crops of rice per year and demand careful cultivation.

Summers in the province's southern subtropical climate are hot and humid while winters are cool and damp, further bolstering the cuisine's predilection for the use of chiles, with the Chinese medicinal concept that chile heat expels unhealthy damp humors.

Schezwan sauce is a popular Indo-Chinese condiment made with red chilies, garlic, soya sauce, vinegar and Sichuan peppers. Also known as Schezwan Chutney, it gets the name from the use of Sichuan peppers in the preparation of this sauce.

It has bold flavours, particularly the pungency and spiciness resulting from liberal use of garlic and chili peppers, as well as the unique flavour of Sichuan pepper. Some examples are Kung Pao chicken and Yuxiang shredded pork.

It is an extremely popular cuisine choice in China, with lots of people venturing to this region just to enjoy the spicy heat of the food. It is spicy and mouth numbing, and the numbing occurs through the use of Sichuan pepper, which comes from the prickly ash tree.

Is Szechuan Chinese or Japanese? ›

Sichuan is a province in Southwestern China occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau between the Jinsha River on the west, the Daba Mountains in the north and the Yungui Plateau to the south. Sichuan's capital city is Chengdu; its population stands at 83 million.

Generally speaking Szechuan chicken is usually spicier than General Tso's chicken. Although the sauces are similar, General Tso's does not call for Szechuan peppercorns either though I see no reason why you couldn't add them anyway.

While both types taste great and boast beautiful citrus notes, the magic of these miniscule marvels lies as much in their function as in their flavor; instead of attacking the tongue with spiciness, Sichuan peppercorns induce a tingling sensation similar to drinking a super carbonated seltzer or eating a whole pack of ...

With its liberal use of chili peppers, shallots and garlic, Hunan cuisine is known for being gan la (干辣; gān là; 'dry and spicy') or purely hot, as opposed to Sichuan cuisine, to which it is often compared. Sichuan cuisine uses its distinctive ma la (麻辣; má là; 'spicy and numbing') seasoning and other complex flavour ...

Hunan cuisine on the other hand is often referred to as 香辣 (gānlà) “dry spicy”. This refers to the fact that its hotness comes almost exclusively from fresh chili peppers and very little else, so the spiciness is pure and “dry”. In some cases, Hunan cuisine can be even hotter than Sichuan cuisine.