Seaweed Steamed Buns 海菜包子
Seaweed Steamed Buns is featured among the local specialties of Liaoning.
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Seaweed Steamed Buns (海菜包子) are filled buns made with haicai (海菜), fresh seaweed from Lüshunkou (旅顺口), a district of Dalian (大连). The district counts them among its traditional foods.
Ingredients
The defining ingredient is seaweed produced in Lüshun itself. According to a Dalian Daily (大连日报) report carried on the Dalian city government portal, winter is when Lüshun seaweed tastes freshest. The same seaweed goes into other local dishes: at the launch of the 2025 food season, chefs used it to make Seaweed Steamed Buns together with seaweed flatbreads (海菜饼子) and seaweed wontons (海菜馄饨), all described as Lüshun specialities.
Where it comes from
In January 2025 the Lüshunkou district commerce bureau and culture-and-tourism bureau opened a Lüshun Seaweed Bun food season (旅顺海菜包子美食季) together with the district's New Year goods fair, held at Xiaonan Village (小南村) in Shuishiying Subdistrict (水师营街道). Its title played on bao, the word for both 'bun' and 'to wrap': the buns 'wrap up the taste of the Lüshun sea'. The bureaus' stated aim was to make Seaweed Steamed Buns and Lüshunkou's other traditional foods better known.
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Seepweed Steamed Buns 碱蓬菜包子 →
Another Liaoning bun named for the greens in its filling; Seaweed Steamed Buns use fresh seaweed from Lüshun.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-26. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.