This method refers to stewing foods in a highly-flavored sauce (see the section on "Stocks and Flavoring Sauces" below) that permeates the dish.

Basic flavor-potting (lu) means stewing the food in a mixture soy sauce, rice wine, sugar, salt, red fermented rice mash, and five-spice power, scallions, ginger, chicken stock and water. The food cooks over low heat for several hours and comes out tender and full of flavor.

Marinating and flavor-potting (jiang) adds the step of marinating the food in salt, soy sauce, and soybean paste (also known as ground bean sauce) before it is stewed in the flavor-potting sauce.