Soothing acne flare ups the ✨chinese way✨ how to make a mapo tofu that doubles as skincare
Alice Sun (@alicecsun) shares a unique view into her life through the ways she uses food to nurture wellness, cross cultural divides, and bring people together, all through the medium of storytelling.
Alice Sun•
March 16, 2026
Who hasn’t gone through phases of overworking, running on caffeine, and when you’re just on the edge of burn out, that acne flare up on your t-zone becomes your thirteenth reason 🫢 The worst part is your skincare routine hasn’t changed either, and those acne topicals aren’t helping, they’re making things worse too…
But that’s when you remember you follow ‘Qi Codes,’ where we look at these skin symptoms as deeper signs of what’s going on internally that might be out of balance from a Chinese medicinal perspective ☯️
In traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), those breakouts aren’t just ‘clogged' pores’ , they’re a sign that the body has started to trap ‘internal heat’ from the stress and overworking…there’s a reason it’s called ‘burnout’ where you’ve burned through all your energy and now your body’s too exhausted to recover without a little help.
This is where foods help to heal and replenish that energy in a calm and cooling way, which this mapo tofu does perfectly because of the wood ear mushrooms!
These curly mushrooms have famously been used in chinese cooking for thousands of years to “cool” the body, while fortifying you with lots of fiber and iron. The best part is it’s pretty tasteless so it takes on flavors of whatever sauce you’re cooking it in and absorbs all the good stuff from it too.
Now let’s get into making your own batch!
Prep the soft tofu (1 box), but cutting them into ½ in cubes.
Rehydrate the wood ear mushroom (6 pieces) in some hot water, letting them soak and quadruple in size for 15 mins
Once hydrated, dice up the wood ear mushrooms finely.
Prep the garlic (1 ½ Tbsp) and ginger (1 Tbsp) by dicing them finely and make the cornstarch slurry by mixing the cornstarch (2 tsp) and water (¼ cup).
Now that you’re prepped, fire up a wok or pan and drop in the pork (½ lb) to brown.
Once the pork’s starting to turn less pink, pour in the shaoxing wine (1 Tbsp) and ginger (1 Tbsp).
Continue cooking until the wine’s reduced, then add in the garlic, fermented bean paste (1 ½ Tbsp), and wood ear mushrooms, tossing so everything’s well coated.
Drop in the tofu and broth (¾ cup) then let everything simmer together for 10 mins.
At the end, mix in the cornstarch slurry so the sauce thickens up.
Enjoy with a big bowl of rice!
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