Kaijiang Rolled Tofu Skin 开江豆笋
Kaijiang Rolled Tofu Skin is featured among the local specialties of Sichuan.
Kaijiang Rolled Tofu Skin (开江豆笋), known locally as dousun, is made from soybean film rolled into hollow sticks in Kaijiang County (开江县), Dazhou (达州). The Dazhou Evening News calls the town of Gantang (甘棠), in the county's south-west, a "home of dousun" (豆笋之乡), with more than three hundred years of production.
How it is made
Good-quality soybeans are the raw material. They are soaked and ground into soy milk, a film is lifted from the milk, and the film is rolled up and then dried in the open. The finished product is slightly yellow, shaped like a hollow round rod, and built up in many layers. The making technique was entered on Sichuan's provincial list of intangible cultural heritage in June 2009.
The Dazhou culture and tourism bureau has put forward two Kaijiang dousun heritage workshops for its second batch of municipal intangible-heritage workshops: one at the Qianlixiang soy products factory (千里香豆类制品厂) and one at the Tiantian food factory (天天食品厂) in Gantang.
Flavour and texture
The Dazhou Evening News describes dousun as tender, smooth and pliant, with a strong soybean aroma, and notes that it does not fall apart however long it is cooked while soaking up the flavour of the broth around it.
How it is eaten
It goes into braised pork, stews and soups, cold dressed dishes and hotpot. At Gantang's Lantern Festival banquet, when over a thousand tables are set end to end along Tianzi Street (天子街) and Wenxing Street (文兴街), households put out Gantang dousun alongside fried sanzi (馓子) and handmade ciba (糍粑) rice cakes. In September 2023 the Kaijiang county government reported that a dish called Kaijiang Juewei Dousun (开江绝味豆笋) had been named a Dazhou-level "Tianfu famous dish" (天府名菜).
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-25. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.