Fanxian Big Steamed Buns 范县大包子
Fanxian Big Steamed Buns is featured among the local specialties of Henan.
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Fanxian Big Steamed Buns (范县大包子) are the large pork buns of Fanxian (范县) county in Puyang (濮阳), Henan, known for a thin skin and a filling seasoned with a sweet flour paste that takes a month to make.
How it is made
Fanxian's county news site puts the secret of the bun in the filling. Leavened white-flour buns are broken up and soaked in water boiled with star anise, fennel seed and Sichuan pepper, then left in the sun for a month to become a sweet flour paste (甜面酱).
The paste is fried in lard, and diced pork belly is stir-fried in it. Starch noodles are blanched, chopped and mixed through with more paste, and the filling is finished with chopped spring onion, ginger, salt and sesame oil before the buns are wrapped and steamed.
Flavour and texture
The county sums the bun up as thin-skinned, with a fragrant, well-flavoured filling. Its site claims that buns fresh from the steamer can be smelled more than 100 metres downwind.
Where it comes from
The bun is on Fanxian's own list of its specialty foods, and the county attaches two stories to it. In one, Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei (北魏孝文帝) tasted the bun while inspecting the lives of ordinary people and called it "天下第一大包子", the greatest big bun under heaven. In the other, set in the Northern Song, Zhang Qing (张青) and Sun Erniang (孙二娘), two of the Liangshan Marsh (水泊梁山) outlaws, kept a small shop in Fanxian making congee and buns for the heroes who passed through, and the buns spread with their fame.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-24. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.