Xiaolongbao, shengjian and wontons: Shanghai's dumplings and what's inside

The short answer. Xiaolongbao (小笼包) are small steamed dumplings with hot soup inside. Shengjian (生煎) are bigger buns fried crisp on the bottom, often with soup too. Wontons (馄饨) are boiled and served in broth. All three are normally filled with pork and wrapped in wheat dough, so none is safe for a no-pork, vegetarian or wheat-free diet unless the shop makes a special version. Bite a small hole and sip the soup first, or it will burn you.

Xiaolongbao: soup dumplings

What’s inside. Minced pork and jellied pork skin. When the dumpling is steamed, the jelly melts and becomes the soup. The wrapper is thin, made from unleavened wheat flour. In autumn many shops add crab meat and roe (蟹粉小笼, xièfěn xiǎolóng), which makes them a shellfish allergen.

Where they come from. The style comes from Nanxiang (南翔), a town in Jiading in the north-west of Shanghai. The national heritage list credits Huang Mingxian, owner of a pastry shop in Nanxiang, with making the local meat bun smaller, with a thinner skin and more filling, in 1871. The style later spread to the shops round the City God Temple next to Yu Garden. In 2014 the Nanxiang technique was added to China’s national list of intangible cultural heritage.

How to eat one.

Lift it gently by the knot on top and put it on your spoon.
Bite a small hole in the side and let some steam out.
Sip the soup.
Eat the rest, with a little black vinegar and shredded ginger if you like.

The vinegar and ginger come in a small dish. They are the usual seasoning.

Names on the menu. Shanghai people often call them 小笼馒头 (xiǎolóng mántou). In the old local usage, mantou meant a bun with a filling; today it usually means a plain one.

Shengjian: pan-fried buns

What’s inside. Seasoned pork. The Shanghai government’s guide describes two styles:

Hunshui (混水): half-leavened dough, pleated side down, with pork-skin aspic in the filling, so there is soup inside.
Qingshui (清水): fully leavened dough, pleated side up, no aspic. Breadier and drier.

Many shops scatter sesame seeds and chopped spring onion on top. Tell them if you are allergic to sesame.

Where they come from. According to the same guide, the buns began in Suzhou in the early 1910s and reached Shanghai by the 1920s, sold in teahouses and the neighbourhood hot-water shops. Shengjian-making was later added to Shanghai’s own heritage list.

How to order. Buns are sold by the liang (两), a set of four. 一两 (yì liǎng) gets you four. A bowl of curry beef vermicelli soup (咖喱牛肉粉丝汤, gālí niúròu fěnsī tāng) is the classic partner.

How to eat one. Same as a soup dumpling: on a spoon, small hole, sip, then eat. The guide says locals save the vinegar for the crisp bottom.

Wontons

What’s inside. Ground pork with greens, usually bok choy or shepherd’s purse (荠菜, jìcài). The city’s guide says the broth is made from pork bones, chicken bones or ham, seasoned with salt and a little lard, and topped with spring onion, strips of egg pancake and dried seaweed. Some shops also add dried shrimp.

Big and small. Menus usually offer two kinds:

Big wontons (大馄饨, dà húntun): a full filling, a meal on their own.
Small wontons (小馄饨, xiǎo húntun): a thin wrapper with a dab of meat, eaten for the broth.

A little history. The guide notes that wontons probably came from northern China, and that Shanghai had night-time wonton sellers carrying their kitchen on a bamboo pole. Pork and vegetable wontons already appeared in Shanghai newspaper advertisements in the 1930s and 1940s.

Fresh-meat mooncakes

Around the Mid-Autumn Festival (September or October), queues form for fresh-meat mooncakes (鲜肉月饼, xiānròu yuèbing). These are hot, flaky wheat-pastry rounds with a pork filling, nothing like the sweet Cantonese mooncakes in gift boxes. One century-old maker, founded in 1926, calls itself the birthplace of the Shanghai version, and its flaky mooncake is on its district’s heritage list. Whether the pastry is made with butter or lard depends on the shop.

If you can’t eat pork, wheat or shellfish

No pork. Some shops sell beef xiaolongbao (牛肉小笼, niúròu xiǎolóng), and halal (清真) restaurants make beef or lamb dumplings. Ask whether the broth and the fat are pork-free too.
Vegetarian. Look for vegetable buns (菜包, càibāo) or vegetable dumplings (素饺, sùjiǎo), and ask about lard: 有没有猪油？(Yǒu méiyǒu zhūyóu? “Is there lard?”)
Wheat or gluten. All of these wrappers are wheat. Try sticky-rice snacks instead, but check the sauces.
Shellfish. Avoid anything with 蟹 (crab) or 虾 (shrimp) on the label, and ask about dried shrimp in wonton broth.

Our dietary card tool turns any of these into a card in Chinese you can show the staff.

What to look for

A steamer stack (蒸笼, zhēnglóng) by the door means xiaolongbao are made on site.
A wide, flat iron pan with a heavy lid, being turned on the fire, means shengjian.
A window where staff fold dumplings by hand is a good sign of freshness.