Steamed Shanghai Soup Dumplings (Xiaolongbao)

Shanghai Soup Dumplings, or xiaolongbao (小笼包)—perhaps the most perfect single bite of food ever conceived by man—does not require much introduction. This tantalizing, dreamy snack is probably the most famous dish to come out of Shanghai: paper-thin skin enveloping perfectly seasoned pork filling and rivers of hot, flavorful soup. If the closest you’ve ever been to trying xiaolongbao was watching Anthony Bourdain slurping up hot soup so eagerly that he burned his mouth on national television, then the good news is: you can make Shanghai soup dumplings at home!

Now, this was not an easy recipe to develop. Having eaten these in restaurants in Beijing, Shanghai, and around the world, our standards are high. We tested and tried many versions in order to get each element correct, from the dough to the filling, to the soup. Now, every time we walk into a xiaolongbao restaurant, we’re amazed by the speed and ease with which those cooks prepare these delicate Shanghai soup dumplings or literally,  tang bao.

But I’m so excited about this recipe—excited to be able to share it with everyone. It’s a family favorite (Sarah has a particular obsession with them), and well worth a little patience in the kitchen.

I still feel I have so much to tell you about these Shanghai soup dumplings or buns as they are called in Chinese—the flavor and the experience. But as Confucius said, “I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I do and I understand.” I will let you come to your own conclusions about these. Follow the recipe’s steps as closely as possible, and you will be overjoyed with the result!

If you don’t have a bamboo steamer, try your Asian grocer or click here to get one on Amazon (note, this is an affiliate link, so any purchases from Amazon using this link will help support The Woks of Life!).

Other recipes where you will find the investment in the steamer basket useful is in our dim sum collection. For other kitchen tools we use and recommend, look at our cooking tools page.

Step 1: Shanghai soup dumplings – The Aspic

So you must be wondering by now just how we manage to get hot soup into a dumpling. The answer: an aspic, or meat gelatin. You’ll make a pork soup with bones and skin (don’t freak out at this! The Chinese—as well as all of the world’s great food cultures—have learned to utilize every part of an animal and leave nothing behind to waste!), which will help you create a smooth, firm aspic once chilled. You can use the skin from a skin-on pork shoulder and buy pork neck bones or ham bones. If they’re not readily available in your local market, ask the butcher.

• ½ lb pork skin, cut into 1-inch strips
• 1 lb pork neck bones (you want neck bones that still have meat on them!)
• water
• 2 slices ginger
• 1 scallion, cut into 3 pieces
• 1 tablespoon shaoxing wine

In a small pot, add the pork skin and pork bones and cover with cold water. Bring to a rolling boil, and immediately drain and rinse off the bones and the skin. This gets rid of any impurities. Rinse out the pot and put everything back in. Add 4 cups of water, ginger, scallion and wine. Bring the pot to a boil and then reduce the heat to low. Cover and simmer for 2 hours.

After 2 hours, turn off the heat, allow the soup to cool, and strain the liquid into a bowl. As to the leftovers in the pot, you can discard it or go the Chinese route, which would be to drizzle some light soy sauce over everything and start grazing). Once the liquid is completely cooled, cover and refrigerate overnight.

This is what you’ll have the next day. Meat jello!

Step 2: Shanghai soup dumplings – The Dough

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 6 tablespoons warm water

In a mixing bowl, add the flour and the warm water 1 tablespoon at a time. Work and knead the dough for 15-20 minutes. The dough should be very soft and smooth. Cover with a cloth and let it rest for 30 minutes.

Step 3: Shanghai soup dumplings – The Filling

• 1 lb ground pork (70% lean 30% fat)
• 2 tablespoons shaoxing wine
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
• 3/4 teaspoon sugar
• 3 teaspoons light soy sauce
• 3 tablespoons water
• A pinch of ground white-pepper
• 1 tablespoon minced ginger
• 1 heaping cup of your aspic, diced into ½-inch pieces

Take your ground pork and put it in the food processor. Pulse for 30-60 seconds until the pork resembles paste. In a mixing bowl, add the pork and all the rest of the ingredients except the aspic.

Whip everything together thoroughly, for about 2 minutes. You want everything to be extremely well combined, and the pork should look like a light, airy paste. Gently fold in the aspic, and do not over-mix.

Cover and transfer the filling to the refrigerator until ready to make the dumplings. If you’re ready now, you can put it in the freezer for 15 minutes to allow it to firm up and make assembling the buns easier.

Step 4: Shanghai soup dumplings – Assembly

Lightly dust a clean work surface with flour and roll the dough into a long cylinder/cigar, about an inch in diameter. Cut the dough into small equal pieces weighing about 11 grams each (the dough chunks should be a size resembling that of gnocchi).

Roll out each piece into a round disc about 3 – 3 ¼ inches diameter. Keep everything under a damp cloth.

Prepare your bamboo steamer. You can line it with cheese cloth…

…napa cabbage leaves, or these lovely bamboo steamer discs, which can be found in some Chinese restaurant supply stores (if using these, you must brush the discs with oil first!).

When all that is prepared, take out the filling. You’ll be making each bun one at a time. Place about 1 tablespoon of filling in the middle of your dumpling skin. Pleat the dumpling as shown in the video. It should have as many folds as you can muster: 12-20 folds should do it. Watch the video in our Carrot Ginger Pork Bun post. The technique is very similar. Basically, as you fold, you’re constantly using your thumb to push the filling into the resulting little “bag” that you’re creating with the dough.

For this one, you’re just making more folds. Make sure the top is sealed. If the filling ever gets too wet or hard to handle, put it in the freezer for another 15 minutes and start again.

Place the buns in the lined steamer basket, about 1 1/2 – 2 inches apart. 

Step 5: Shanghai soup dumplings – Steaming

In a metal steamer pot or wok, boil water. If using a wok, put the water at a level so that when you put the bamboo steamer into the wok, the water rises about ½ inch up the bottom of the bamboo base. You never want the water to touch the dumplings inside, though, so make sure not to fill it too high! But make sure not to fill it too low either, because if all the water evaporates, you could end up burning your bamboo steamer. See our post on how to set up a steamer if you’re not familiar with steaming foods in Chinese cooking. 

Once the water is boiling, put the bamboo steamer in the wok or steamer pot, cover with the bamboo steamer lid, and steam over high heat for 8 minutes. Immediately remove the bamboo steamer from the pot and serve.

Step 6: Shanghai soup dumplings – Eating

Ok, so there is definitely a proper way to enjoy these dumplings. Put away the soy sauce because it has no place on the table right now. What you want is Chinese black vinegar. Pour some out into a small, round dish or bowl, and top with some very thin matchsticks of ginger. You can also dilute the vinegar with a tiny splash of water in order to make the flavor a little more delicate.

Take out your two utensils—chopsticks and a Chinese soup spoon (a fork would just butcher these and the soup would dribble out all over the table. It would be a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions).

Carefully, slowly peel the xiaolongbao off of the steamer basket and dip it into the vinegar.

Gently transfer the dumpling to your soup spoon…

…and take a tiny bite out of the skin on the side of the Xiao long bao bun to make a little hole. Proceed to slurp the soup out of the bun (Carefully. It’s HOT). Then, with a little more vinegar, finish the whole thing off in one bite.

Repeat as needed until all of the Shanghai Soup Dumplings are gone!

By the way, as if it could get any better, a side benefit of this soup dumpling is that it’s full of collagen from all that pork skin, which is a major skin-booster. Xiaolongbao are delicious AND can help you stay young!?! Come ON!

Print Recipe

4.56 from 9 votes

Steamed Shanghai Soup Dumplings (Xiaolongbao)

Shanghai Soup Dumplings, or xiaolongbao (小笼包)—perhaps the most perfect single bite of food ever conceived by man—does not require much introduction. This tantalizing, dreamy snack is probably the most famous dish to come out of Shanghai: paper-thin skin enveloping perfectly seasoned pork filling and rivers of hot, flavorful soup. If you want to make more of these, you can multiply this recipe as needed! It's not really a good idea to freeze these, as they're so delicate.

Prep Time1 d

Cook Time30 mins

Total Time1 d 30 mins

Course: Dim Sum

Cuisine: Chinese

Servings: 6

Author: Judy

Ingredients

For the aspic:

• ½ pound pork skin (225g, cut into 1-inch strips)
• 1 pound pork neck bones (450g, you want neck bones that still have meat on them!)
• water
• 2 slices ginger
• 1 scallion (cut into 3 pieces)
• 1 tablespoon shaoxing wine

For the dough:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 6 tablespoons warm water

For the filling:

• 1 pound ground pork (450g, 70% lean 30% fat)
• 2 tablespoons shaoxing wine
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
• 3/4 teaspoon sugar
• 3 teaspoons light soy sauce
• 3 tablespoons water
• 1/8 teaspoon ground white-pepper
• 1 tablespoon ginger (minced)
• 1 heaping cup aspic (diced into ½-inch pieces)

To serve:

• Chinese black vinegar
• julienned ginger

Instructions

The Aspic:

• In a small pot, add the pork skin and pork bones and cover with cold water. Bring to a rolling boil, and immediately drain and rinse off the bones and the skin. This gets rid of any impurities. Rinse out the pot and put everything back in. Add 4 cups of water, ginger, scallion and wine. Bring the pot to a boil and then reduce the heat to low. Cover and simmer for 2 hours.
• After 2 hours, turn off the heat, allow the soup to cool, and strain the liquid into a bowl. As to the leftovers in the pot, you can discard it or go the Chinese route, which would be to drizzle some light soy sauce over everything and start grazing). Once the liquid is completely cooled, cover and refrigerate overnight.

The Dough:

• In a mixing bowl, add the flour and the warm water 1 tablespoon at a time. Work and knead the dough for 15-20 minutes. The dough should be very soft and smooth. Cover with a cloth and let it rest for 30 minutes.

The Filling:

• Take your ground pork and put it in the food processor. Pulse for 30-60 seconds until the pork resembles paste. In a mixing bowl, add the pork and all the rest of the ingredients except the aspic. Whip everything together thoroughly, for about 2 minutes. You want everything to be extremely well combined, and the pork should look like a light, airy paste. Gently fold in the aspic, and do not over-mix. Cover and transfer the filling to the refrigerator until ready to make the dumplings. If you’re ready now, you can put it in the freezer for 15 minutes to allow it to firm up and make assembling the buns easier.

Assembly:

• Lightly dust a clean work surface with flour and roll the dough into a long cylinder/cigar, about an inch in diameter. Cut the dough into small equal pieces weighing about 11 grams each (the dough chunks should be a size resembling that of gnocchi). Roll out each piece into a round disc about 3 - 3 ¼ inches diameter. Keep everything under a damp cloth.
• Prepare your bamboo steamer. You can line it with cheese cloth, napa cabbage leaves, or these lovely bamboo steamer discs, which can be found in some Chinese restaurant supply stores (if using these, you must brush the discs with oil first!).
• When all that is prepared, take out the filling. You’ll be making each bun one at a time. Place about 1 tablespoon of filling in the middle of your dumpling skin. Pleat the dumpling as shown in the video. It should have as many folds as you can muster: 12-20 folds should do it. Watch the video in our Carrot Ginger Pork Bun post. The technique is very similar. For this one, you’re just making more folds. Make sure the top is sealed. If the filling ever gets too wet or hard to handle, put it in the freezer for another 15 minutes and start again.
• Place the buns in the lined steamer basket, about 2 inches apart.

Steaming:

• In a metal steamer pot or wok, boil water. If using a wok, put the water at a level so that when you put the bamboo steamer into the wok, the water rises about ½ inch up the bottom of the bamboo base. You never want the water to touch the dumplings inside, though, so make sure not to fill it too high!
• Once the water is boiling, put the bamboo steamer in the wok or steamer pot, cover with the bamboo steamer lid, and steam over high heat for 8 minutes. Immediately remove the bamboo steamer from the pot and serve.

Eating:

• Ok, so there is definitely a proper way to enjoy these dumplings. Put away the soy sauce because it has no place on the table right now. What you want is Chinese black vinegar. Pour some out into a small, round dish or bowl, and top with some very thin matchsticks of ginger.
• Take out your two utensils—chopsticks and a Chinese soup spoon (a fork would just butcher these and the soup would dribble out all over the table. It would be a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions).
• Carefully, slowly peel the xiaolongbao off of the steamer basket and dip it into the vinegar. Gently transfer the dumpling to your soupspoon and take a tiny bite out of the skin on the side of the bun to make a little hole. Proceed to slurp the soup out of the bun (Carefully. It’s HOT). Then, with a little more vinegar, finish the whole thing off in one bite.

Notes

Makes 18-20 dumplings, about 3 pieces per serving.