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These mochi-like balls are delicious vessels for a variety of sweet fillings.
By
Chichi Wang
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Chichi Wang
Chichi Wang wrote a variety of columns for Serious Eats including The Butcher's Cuts, in addition to other stories. Born in Shanghai and raised in New Mexico, Chichi took her degree in philosophy but decided that writing about food would be more fun than writing about Plato.
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Updated December 28, 2023
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Why It Works
- Making tang yuan from scratch allows you to experiment with different fillings.
- The tang yuan are served in their cooking liquid, which doubles as a soothing broth.
A popular snack all over China, glutinous rice balls, or tang yuan, are filled with red bean, sesame, peanut, and other sweet fillingsthat ooze out from mochi-like dumplings skins. The dumpling skins owe their pleasantly gummy texture to glutinous rice flour, which produces a chewier dough.
You'll find packets of frozen tang yuan at most Chinese supermarkets, and these days the fillings not only come in the standard assortment, but have branched out into fancy-sounding ones like "sweet osmanthanus" and "chestnut and sesame seeds." Why then, take the trouble of making your own at home?
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Why not? The dough fortang yuanis a simple combination of glutinous rice flour, regular rice flour, and water. Once you get the hang of enclosing the dough around nuggets of sweet filling, you'll find that making your owntang yuantakes no more than half an hour.
The best part about making your own is thatyou can experiment with all kinds of nuts and pastes.The filling is a simple combination of sugar, lard, and a filling of nuts and/or beans. Instead of ground peanut or sesame, you can use almonds, cashews, and pecans. (To prepare the nuts: roast them, chop them up, and grind them in a mortar and pestle before mixing with lard and sugar.)
Or, if you've always found the red bean filling in supermarket tang yuan to be bland, you canmake your own from dried adzuki beans.Coconut flakes are a great addition to fillings of any kind.
You can even vary the fat, substituting coconut oil for the traditional lard. I like to use the lard that I confit with for a filling that's extra meaty and mildly savory. You could also play around with smoky bacon fat.
Really, you can't go wrong with the filling.Who would turn down chewy rice balls that release a lava-like concoction that's sweet, nutty, and porky? Even the water in whichtang yuansimmers is surprisingly soothing and tasty to sip between rice ball bites. Make the balls in large batches and freeze them for a quick breakfast or dessert.
May 2011
Recipe Details
Tang Yuan (Glutinous Rice Balls)
Prep30 mins
Cook15 mins
Active45 mins
Total45 mins
Serves6to 8 servings
Makes15to 20 rice balls
Ingredients
For the Filling:
2 tablespoons roasted and ground sesame seeds, peanuts, almonds, or cashews
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons lard orcoconut oil
For the Dumpling Skin:
150g (1 1/2 cups) glutinous rice flour
15g (2 tablespoons) regular rice flour or tapioca starch
133-148g (9 to 10 tablespoons) boilingwater
Directions
To Make the Filling: Grind the seeds or nuts in a mortar and pestle to a fine but not powdery consistency. In a small saucepan, melt the lard. In a small bowl, mix the lard with the sugar and ground nuts. Chill the mixture in the refrigerator or freezer for a few minutes before use.
To Make the Skin: In a medium heatproof bowl, whisk together the glutinous rice flour and regular rice flour (or tapioca flour). Add the water, starting with 9 tablespoons (133g) and adding an additional 1 tablespoon (15g) if necessary, to make a soft but non-sticky dough. Divide the dough in half. Working on a surface dusted with rice flour, roll each half into a cylinder about 1 1/2 inches thick and cut the dough into segments about 1 inch wide; dust with more glutinous rice flour as needed to prevent sticking.
To Make the Dumplings: Take one piece of dough and make an indent with your thumb to flatten it. Place the filling into the indent and draw the sides of the dough up to enclose it. Roll it gently between your palms to make a smooth ball. Lay the dumplings on a tray dusted with glutinous rice flour until you are ready to cook them. They can also be refrigerated or frozen.
To Cook the Dumplings: Fill a large pot with water and bring to a boil. Add the dumplings and gently stir to prevent sticking at the bottom of the pot. Simmer for 15 minutes, taking care not to let the water boil vigorously or else the dumpling skins will tear. The dumplings are done when the skins are almost translucent. Ladle the dumplings into soup bowls along with the cooking water.
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Special Equipment
Saucepan, large pot
Read More
- The Serious Eats Field Guide to Chinese Pastries
- Pumpkin Glutinous Rice Balls in Sweetened Coconut Cream (Bua Loi Fak Thong) Recipe
- Chinese
| Nutrition Facts (per serving) | |
|---|---|
| 135 | Calories |
| 5g | Fat |
| 21g | Carbs |
| 2g | Protein |
Show Full Nutrition Label
×
| Nutrition Facts | |
|---|---|
| Servings: 6to 8 | |
| Amount per serving | |
| Calories | 135 |
| % Daily Value* | |
| Total Fat 5g | 6% |
| Saturated Fat 3g | 15% |
| Cholesterol 0mg | 0% |
| Sodium 2mg | 0% |
| Total Carbohydrate 21g | 8% |
| Dietary Fiber 1g | 3% |
| Total Sugars 3g | |
| Protein 2g | |
| Vitamin C 0mg | 0% |
| Calcium 23mg | 2% |
| Iron 1mg | 6% |
| Potassium 28mg | 1% |
| *The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice. | |
(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)
