Recipe

Asia → 🇨🇳 China → Xinjiang
Dapanji (Big Plate Chicken)
Chinese (Uyghur) · medium · serves 4
prep 20 min · cook 45 min
~715 cal · 78g protein · 50g carbs · 19g fat (estimated, per serving)
🍽️
Huge platter of chicken and potatoes in red sauce over wide noodles
🇨🇳 Xinjiang
Dapanji — literally "big plate chicken" — is Xinjiang highway food, born to feed truck drivers along the roads out of Ürümqi. The ritual: eat the chicken first, then the hand-pulled noodles go straight into the leftover sauce.
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Ingredients
Serves 4 —
•
2.5 lbs chicken, chopped bone-in
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3 potatoes, big chunks
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1 each red + green peppers, chunks
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6 dried chilies
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1 fresh chili
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2 star anise
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1 stick cinnamon
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1 tsp Sichuan peppercorns
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2 tbsp + 6 cloves ginger + garlic, sliced
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3 tbsp soy sauce
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1 tbsp rock sugar
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1.5 cups beer or stock
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12 oz wide wheat noodles (belt noodles)
Instructions
1
Melt the sugar in oil until amber; add the chicken (or mushrooms) and brown in the caramel.
2
Add ginger, garlic, dried chilies, and whole spices; toss 2 minutes.
3
Pour in the beer or stock and soy; add potatoes. Simmer covered 25 minutes.
4
Add the peppers and reduce uncovered until the sauce is thick and lacquered.
5
Boil the noodles and pile the whole thing onto one big platter — noodles under, sauce over, everyone in.
Xinjiang roadhouse tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers — know your destination
📍
Xinjiang. Uyghur crossroads cooking — cumin, chili, and hand-pulled noodles.
🗺️
China. Eight great culinary traditions inside one border.
🌍
Asia. From street-cart woks to slow monastery kitchens.
The story behind this dish is up top — worth a read while the pot works.
👩‍🍳
Richard Moore & Kelsey Tucker
Recipes cooked, tested, and researched by the creators of Spin the Globe. How we build our recipes →
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