Extremely Easy to make Cha Chaan Teng Classic Flavorite: Instant Pot HK Borscht Soup with simple healthy ingredients! Comforting Instant Pot Vegetable Beef Soup with a balance of savory-sour-sweet flavors, spiced with a hint of paprika.

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One of Cha Chaan Tengs’ (Hong Kong Style Restaurant) most iconic characteristics is their Hong Kong Style Western Cuisine (Chinese: 港式西餐).

The set meals often come with a Main Course + HK Style Drink (i.e. HK Milk Tea) + Soup.

Then, you’d get to pick either Chinese Soup (Chinese: 中湯 or 例湯) or Western Soup (Chinese: 西湯).

Western Soups are almost always:

White Soup = Cream of Mushroom Soup (Chinese: 忌廉湯 or 白湯) or

= Cream of Mushroom Soup (Chinese: 忌廉湯 or 白湯) or Red Soup = Hong Kong Style Borscht Soup (Chinese: 羅宋湯 or 紅湯)

And I’m always torn between picking which soup to get!! heh~

What is HK Borscht Soup?

As you can see, HK Borscht Soup is not the blood-red Ukrainian beet-based sour Borscht soup topped with a dollop of sour cream.

However, this “Chinese Borscht” was in fact introduced by Russian refugees who migrated to Shanghai.

Hence the Chinese name: 羅宋湯, which derived from the pronunciation of “Russian Soup”.

Since Shanghai doesn’t have the suitable environment to plant beets, plus the Shanghaiians were not used to the sour flavors, this “Chinese Borscht” doesn’t include beets at all. But rather, Beef, Cabbage & Tomatoes.

It was not until the 1940s, with the influx of immigrants from Shanghai to Hong Kong, that this soup was brought alive in Hong Kong.

We’ve been having so much fun recreating all sorts of Cha Chaan Teng Food with our Instant Pot, and are thrilled to share this Classic HK Borscht Soup with you!! 😀