Here I present some recipes and techniques for making Baozi. Some of the recipes I present just as I found them but others have some modification. The filling recipes at the end of this list (which you will find have the least detail) were improvised by myself and a friend on a very fun and silly evening some time ago. Those are the least refined but are still worth sharing as they were quite tasty.

I list them here so that you may enjoy them as I do.

Baozi are made up of a filling and a dough. I have only one dough recipe to share but I think it is a good one. All of these filling recipes go well with this dough.

The Dough: #

Ingredients #

• 600g soft flour (all purpose works in a pinch)
• 10g yeast
• 60-80g sugar (the more sugar the sweeter and lighter the dough)
• 300g water (warm, 100-120°F)
• 10g baking powder
• 20g butter

Soft Flour #

Soft Flour is wheat flour with “low” (roughly 6-9%) protein content. Protein content in wheat flour is effectively just gluten content. This affects the toughness of your dough. You can buy soft flour (like cake flour) or make your own by cutting all purpose flour (which is generally 10% protein) with other flour/starches that contain no gluten. My personal mixture that I use for this recipe is:

• 540g all purpose flour
• 50g potato starch
• 10g tapioca flour
  I Find this works great for me but I encourage you to experiment and share your findings (and bao) with friends.

Steps #

1. Dissolve sugar into warm water
2. Stir yeast into warm sugar water, and let sit until the top is foamy (~10 minutes. Proceed w/flour mixture while you wait)
3. Soften butter and mix well with flour and baking powder
4. Add foamy sugar water yeast mixture a little at a time and mix well into flour n stuff until all the water is absorbed and mixed around well (no dry spots left)

   Note: You do not need to knead this dough. The more you knead, the tougher the dough will become which you don’t usually want. A bit of kneading to mix in the water is fine but I’d recommend you avoid excessive kneading after the flour and water have mixed.

5. Cover bowl tightly and let dough rise until doubled in size (or just “big enough” on vibes. You’ll get it once you’ve made enough.) This usually takes between 45 minutes and 2 hours. I like to proof my dough in a warm oven.

   If your oven (like mine) doesn’t have a proof setting, what I do is heat it up while I’m mixing the dough to the lowest temp it can go to (175°F in my case) and then once it reaches temp, I turn it off and crack the door just a bit for ~2 minutes to cool it down a bit, then I place the dough in the still warm oven with the door closed. Don’t forget to turn your oven off, or you’ll kill all of your yeast and be sad and without dinner.

Folding and Filling The Buns #

I’d recommend a rolling pin to help with this step. Lightly flour your folding surface. You’ll probably need some flour, especially if your dough is still very wet which happens sometimes, but use as little as possible. I usually get flour on my hand and then pat the surface of the counter to create a very thin layer.

1. Very lightly flour a patch of your counter that is off to the side. This is where your dough balls will rest while you fold.
2. Split dough into balls roughly 1.5-2 inches across (you should get ~16-18 balls) and set them aside and loosely cover to avoid them drying out.

For each ball:

1. Roll till 1/4-1/8" thick (1/4 will give fluffier buns but you may not be able to use all of the filling you’ve prepared)
2. Using your fingers (thumb and side of index works best for me) pinch around the edge of the disc as hard as you can. This leaves less dough at the top of your bun once it’s wrapped.
3. Put a spoon full of filling in the middle of the disc (you’ll get a feel for the scoop size as you make more buns)
4. Wrap the bun B]

Wrapping #

There are articles that have pictures if the following description is unclear and there is always YouTube. You can wrap the dough around the meat however you please, though this method will give you the expected bao look and has a very even distribution of bread around the meat.

1. Start by pinching the rightmost edge of the disc with the thumb and index finger of my right hand and gently lifting just the edge off the counter (thumb goes on the top side, and index goes under the disc)
2. Now with your left hand grab a bit more dough counter clockwise from your right hand (with the same finger positioning) and fold it back toward your right hand’s fingers. If you look at the fold from the edge it’ll look like a little z.
3. As you fold, you can lift your right index out of the way and then press the top of the z down onto your thumb. Pinch that spot of dough hard to make it stick.
4. Keep making zs this way around the edge bringing dough toward your right hand using your left until you’ve wrapped the whole thing.

Cooking #

1. Bring water (in a pot or wok is fine, whatever you prefer) to a low-medium boil.

   The temperature of your steam will have a huge effect on the smoothness of your buns. If they come out wrinkly it means your steam is too hot. I keep the temp as low as I can while still being able to hear the bubbles. If you’re concerned that your buns won’t be cooked enough at time, you can always check them with a meat thermometer and I’d recommend that anyway.

2. Place each wrapped bao on a cabbage leaf, or a piece of parchment paper if you don’t like cabbage.

   I use a perforated silicon mat in my steamer. If you make lots of baozi these are easily worth the investment.

3. Place wrapped buns in your steamer and put your steamer over your pot.
4. Let steam for 18 minutes then remove pot from heat.
5. Let buns rest in the closed steamer on the pot for another 2 min

   This step is optional, but it ensures the dough has as smooth a finish as it can, and gives the meat a little more time to reach temp.

6. Remove basket(s) from pot(s), and temp one of the buns on the topmost basket if you wish.
7. Enjoy your tasty work and try not to burn your mouth.

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Fillings #

I have for you 6 filling recipes. 5 of them are simple, and one of them is less simple. To make a simple recipe you just mix all of the ingredients together in a bowl, chill it, and then it is ready to be wrapped into bao.

The chilling step is not strictly neccessary but it helps the meat in the filling hold the liquid which makes wrapping easier.

The “less simple” recipe is for a char siu bao filling. This is the style of bbq pork that you are most likely to find at a restaurant serving bao. As of writing this recipe still feels a little off from what you’d get at a restaurant but it is delicious and probably the best filling on this list. It is not difficult, just less simple because it requires marinating & cooking porkchops, making a gravy, and an ice water double boiler kind of setup.It is still a very straight forward recipe if you have the time to make it.
All that said, I will put any recipe specific notes on the simple fillings above their ingredients, and leave the char siu till the end.

You may notice that Sour Chili - “Mama Mia” are scaled to use 1/2 cup of pork instead of 2. This is because those recipes (along with sweet chili) were made as an experiment with a friend and I don’t cook them often enough to have scaled it up myself. All of the recipes were good though which is why they are still listed.

• Ginger Pork
• Sweet Chili
• Sour Chili
• Sweet Vanilla Pork
• “Mama Mia”
• Char Siu Pork

Ginger Pork #

This recipe is not my own, though I have forgotten who’s it was originally. Regardless it is yours now :]

Ingredients #

• 2 cup meat
• 1 cup of diced cabbage (or coleslaw)
• 1 tablespoon of ginger
• 5 tablespoons of soy sauce (low sodium)
• 4 tablespoons of red wine
• 2 tablespoons of sesame oil
• ~4 green onions (diced)

Sweet Chili #

Make extra sure that you seal the dough tightly around this filling else any holes in the bun will drip oil into your steamer, or anywhere else near the bao when they are hot.

Ingredients #

• 2 cup meat
• 2 cup coleslaw
• 1/2 cup soy
• 2 tsp sesame oil
• 4 tsp honey
• 1/2 tsp chili oil
• 4tsp brown sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp chili powder

Sour Chili #

If you are a fan of Takis you will probably like this one.
If you let this filling sit too long the lime juice may alter the texture of the meat.
This filling also does a poor job of holding onto the liquid while you wrap.

Ingredients #

• 2.5 tbsp lime juice
• 1.5 tbsp low sodium soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp Tajin (very healthy tsp)
• 1/8 tsp chili oil (perhaps 2/8)
• 1/4 tsp chili powder
• 1/2 cup coleslaw
• 1/2 cup ground pork

Sweet Vanilla Pork #

This bao is a delightful little dessert. I would recommend making a small batch to go with a larger batch of other flavors. These buns on their own are very sweet.

Ingredients #

• 2 tbsp chicken stock
• 2 tsp honey
• 1/4 tsp of cinnamon
• 2 tsp brown sugar
• a pinch of nutmeg
• 2/8 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/8 tsp ginger
• 1/2 cup of ground pork

“Mama Mia” #

This recipe is probably my least favorite from the day of experiments. I would recommend going heavier on the cheese than is listed here but you’ll need to find what works for you. Feel free to reach out if you do spend any time refining this recipe, I’d love to hear how it goes.

Ingredients #

• 3tbs
• 3/4 tsp sun dried tomato flakes (listed on the original recipe as “my tomatoes”)
• 3/4 tsp canola oil
• a pinch of garlic
• 1/8 tsp basil
• 1/4 tsp lemon+garlic+pepper spice
• 1 rock of pink salt (extra pink, large)
• 1/2 cup meat
• 1/2 cup shredded cheese (Mexican blend)

Char Siu Pork #

Now for the less simple recipe. As I said before this is my favorite of the filling recipes that I list here and it is also the most effort. There are 4 ish steps depending on how you slice it:

1. Marinading the pork chops
2. Cooking and cutting the pork chops
3. Preparing the gravy
4. Combining the meat and gravy and chilling the mix

Marinade: #

Marinate all the chops overnight (8 to 24 hours).

• roughly 1 lb of boneless pork chops
• garlic to taste (tsp or more, preferably minced or crushed)
• 6 tbsp light brown sugar
• 3 tbsp oyster sauce
• 3 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1.5 tbsp hoisin sauce
• 4.5 tbsp red wine
• 1 tsp five spice powder
• 3 tbsp honey
• ~1/8 cup of water

Cooking The Chops #

If you have only a pan that will work but a barbecue is much easier when you scale up the recipe. If you are using a pan cook chops on medium high heat. During cooking you can add a teeny bit of extra marinade to the pan if you want the sugar to caramelize on the surface of the chops but avoid too much liquid or it will take forever to get any sort of crisp on the edges.

Because of the sugar in the marinade it is very easy to burn sugar onto your cooking surface. A high quality non-stick pan will avoid this problem but require you cook the meat at a lower temp. This again is fine for cooking (in fact the moisture retention at a lower temp is superb) but it will require much more patience.

If you prefer to cook on a barbecue I am going to assume you know more about cooking on a barbecue than I do and just leave it to you o7. Once the chops are cooked dice the meat into fine cubes and set it aside in for now.

Gravy Ingredients: #

• 2/3 cup diced red onion (a healthy 2/3 so feel free to go higher)
• 2 tbsp oil (canola or vegetable preferred)
• 2 tablespoons of sugar
• 1/2 tablespoon of brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon of light soy
• 2 tablespoons of oyster sauce
• 3 teaspoons of sesame oil
• 3/4-1 cup chicken stock
• 1/4 cup of your marinade solution (optional preferred: if you choose to include this ensure that you boil it in the cooking process since it was in contact with raw meat)
• 2-3 tbsp all purpose flour (for thickening)

Cooking The Gravy: #

1. Add the oil to a small sauce pan and heat to medium-high
2. Add onion to the pan and cook for a few minutes. While you wait…
3. In a separate bowl mix all remaining ingredients (besides chicken stock, flour, and the diced pork chops).
4. Once onions have cooked, add mixed ingredients into the pot and stir until bubbling it is bubbling (if you used marinade let this bubble for several minutes)
5. Add chicken stock and stir until hot (no need to bubble but that is a good indicator)
6. Slowly add flour and whisk until thickened

If you add the flour too quickly it will clump up when you mix. If you have one of those powdered sugar sifters that might work well here. Steam rising from the pot may wet flour held over the pot and cause it to clump.

Chilling The Filling #

take your pot off the heat and let it cool a bit. Cool enough that you aren’t worried about your pot warping when placed in ice water. Fill a large bowl with ice water, leaving enough room for the water to rise without spilling when you lower the pot in. Mix the diced meat into the gravy solution while it is still warm (while warm the gravy is thinner and easier to mix). Lower the pot into the ice water so that the bottom surface (and some of the sides if you can) are cooled by the water on the outside and stir the contents of the pot. Continue stirring and scraping the gravy off the walls until the whole thing is cool.

The ice water and filling should remain separate. Don’t let the water get into the filling pot. A second set of hands for stirring can be helpful if you don’t trust your pot to float. Place the whole pot in your fridge to cool it even more. The goal of this step is to thicken the filling (the gravy specifically) as much as possible so that wrapping is easy. Once chilled it is ready to be used as filling.

Issues & Solutions #

• Under cooked dough
  • Your steamer is not hot enough! If you’re getting this issue on higher layers of your steamer basket stack then your boiler isn’t producing enough steam to heat the entire stack enough. Cook less bao at a time and only stack your baskets as high as they’ll cook to. You can use a second pot for half of your baskets to keep your throughput the same while ensuring they cook hot enough.
• too much meat/dough leftover
  • cook it and eat it! The meat can be more annoying to cook without dough (especially if it is a filling with lots of filling) and I sadly don’t have any good advice beyond cooking the ball/s of remaining meat in a little tray (a foil tray works) inside of your steamer. However if dough is the source of your excess, roll it out thin and sprinkle cinnamon and sugar into the dough. You can roll & fold this into the dough to mix it (this will make the dough tougher unfortunately). Once mixed split the dough into balls and cook for ~15 minutes until dough is cooked and serve. Some of my friends like these with condensed milk.
• bao too wrinkly
  • steam too hot.
• bao so tough
  • You probably worked (folded and squished) the dough too much which develops the gluten more and toughens the dough. Alternatively you may not have let the dough rise long enough leaving it very dense.
• bao dries out/is lame when I go to reheat
  • I mostly notice this when I’m using corn starch to make soft flour. Usually ~30 seconds in the microwave and a minute for the heat to spread and even out through the bun does the trick for me.
• help I can’t stop eating bao because they’re so good and surprisingly easy to make
  • congratulations.