Tofu Balls 豆腐丸子
Tofu Balls is featured among the local specialties of Shandong.
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Tofu Balls (豆腐丸子) in Tai'an (泰安), Shandong, are deep-fried balls of mashed tofu the size of a chestnut, golden and crisp outside and soft within. The Tai'an city government lists them among the city's local specialities, and they appear as 'dry-fried tofu balls' (干炸豆腐丸) on the Mount Tai (泰山) tofu banquet (泰山豆腐宴).
How it is made
The recipe published by the Tai'an city government starts by trimming the firm skin off a block of tofu and smearing it into a fine paste. Into this go, in turn, chopped dried shrimp, chopped pickled cucumber, chopped wood-ear fungus, crushed water chestnut, chopped coriander, egg, spring onion and ginger, a little pepper and salt. The mixture is squeezed by hand into balls the size of a chestnut, rolled in granulated starch and fried in oil heated to about 70 percent until golden. They are served with shredded spring onion, pepper-salt and sweet-and-sour sauce on the side.
Flavour and texture
The city's description compares their shape to a chestnut, with a browned, crisp outside and a tender inside. A 2014 Dazhong Daily report adds that one bite gives off the full smell of soybeans.
Where it comes from
The dry-fried tofu balls belong to the Mount Tai tofu banquet, a set of tofu dishes that the Dazhong Daily ties to the vegetarian fare emperors kept while performing the Fengshan sacrifices (封禅) at Mount Tai. The banquet entered Tai'an's municipal intangible heritage list in 2012 and Shandong's provincial list in 2016. Its local tofu is said to be white as jade, tender but holding together, and not to toughen with long cooking.
The Dazhong Daily report calls the tofu balls a household name in Tai'an and cites historical records for the story that the Qianlong Emperor ate them on each of his eleven ascents of Mount Tai and named them 'rolling good fortune' (滚滚福气来). Wu Shiguo (吴士国), a provincial inheritor of the banquet, gave Xinhua a different imperial name for the same dish: 'dragon-eye golden balls' (龙眼金球).
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.