🍽️ Kashgar Pigeon Soup

Southern Xinjiang pigeon soup with naan.

Kashgar Pigeon Soup is a nourishing specialty of the old town of Kashgar in southern Xinjiang, widely loved across the south. Local free-range squabs are the main ingredient, simmered whole or halved in clay pots with water, ginger and onion, and finer shops add radish, goji berries or local herbs. The broth stays clear yet deeply savory, and the pigeon meat becomes tender enough to slip off the bone. Locals regard the soup as warming and restorative, often serving it to the weary, to women after childbirth, or to those feeling run down. It comes with a fresh-baked naan, torn into pieces and soaked in the broth so the bread absorbs the savory juice—at once staple and soup. Along Kashgar's pigeon-soup street, the aroma simmers from morning to late night, making it an iconic taste of southern Xinjiang food and unhurried life.