Soup-Filled Steamed Dumplings 小笼汤包
Soup-Filled Steamed Dumplings is featured among the local specialties of Anhui.
Soup-Filled Steamed Dumplings (小笼汤包) are small steamed dumplings holding a meat filling in hot juice; in Wuhu (芜湖), Anhui, the local version is listed as intangible cultural heritage and is a familiar symbol of the city's food.
Flavour and texture
Wuhu's dumplings have a thin but springy skin, a tender meat filling and a soft, savoury juice that tastes fresh and clean.
How it is eaten
Wuhu teaches a four-line rhyme for eating them: "轻轻提，慢慢移，先开窗，后喝汤" ("lift it gently, move it slowly, open a window first, then drink the soup"). In other words, the dumpling is lifted and moved with care, a small opening is made in the skin, and the juice is drunk first. The city recommends aromatic vinegar and slivers of ginger alongside.
Made fresh and eaten on the spot has long been the usual way to serve them. For a long time frozen soup dumplings were on the list of products Wuhu's small food workshops were not allowed to make, and it took a change by the city market regulator, reported in 2025, to let licensed workshops produce frozen ones.
How it is made
The city market regulator, the trade association and local companies have written a Wuhu soup dumpling production standard (芜湖小笼汤包制作工艺规程). It fixes the proportions of the main and secondary ingredients and the qualities of the finished dumpling, and sets out the steps one by one: the pork-skin aspic (猪皮冻), the wrappers, the filling and the pleating. The aspic is what turns to soup inside the dumpling as it steams.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and fact-checked against them on 2026-09-23. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.
Image credits & notes (1)
- A soup-filled xiaolongbao dumpling on a spoon, the style of dumpling served as Wuhu's xiao long tang bao. · 小笼汤包，芜湖一带常见的汤汁蒸饺点心，置于汤匙上。Photo: Willis Lam · CC BY-SA 2.0 · taken 2015-10-16Resized for the web; the photo itself has not been edited. Thumbnails may show a cropped view.
.jpg){kind=link}