LOCAL FOOD GUIDE

Jade Vegetable Shaomai 翡翠烧卖

Feicui Shaomai

Jade Vegetable Shaomai is featured among the local specialties of Jiangsu.

AI illustration: A bamboo steamer of open-topped pleated dumplings.
AI illustration · AI 示意图（仅供参考，非实拍）AI-generated visual reference; not a restaurant photograph. AI 示意图，仅供参考，非实拍。

Jade Vegetable Shaomai (翡翠烧卖) is a traditional steamed pastry of Yangzhou (扬州) in Jiangsu and part of the Huaiyang (淮扬) pastry tradition. Feicui (翡翠) means jade: the filling is green, and its jade-like colour gives the dumpling its name.

How it is made

The wrapper is made from hot-water dough (烫面), flour worked with hot water, and rolled into a thin skin with a frilled lotus-leaf edge. It is filled mainly with green leafy vegetables (青菜) and steamed. The finished dumpling is shaped like a pomegranate, and Chinese Wikipedia sums up its character as a thin skin and a green filling.

Where it comes from

The dumpling took shape as Yangzhou's teahouse culture developed. It was later paired with thousand-layer oil cake (千层油糕) as the two wonders of Yangzhou (扬州双绝).

China Revealed · Editorially updated 2026-09-25

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.