Black Sesame Tang Yuan (湯圓) – Easy Traditional Recipe

Learn how to make tang yuan with black sesame filling — soft chewy rice dumplings filled with a smooth, creamy, and nutty black sesame filling. This traditional Chinese dessert is perfect for celebrating Chinese New Year or anytime you’re craving a warm, sweet treat.

What Is Tang Yuan?

Tang yuan (湯圓) is a type of Chinese dessert soup consisting of soft, chewy glutinous rice dumplings typically eaten during Chinese New Year or other Chinese festivals such as Winter Solstice. Every year, I eat tang yuan with my family at home during the lunar new year.

These glutinous rice balls are typically filled with an assortment of different fillings, such as black sesame paste, peanut filling, red bean, and Chinese brown sugar, and eaten together with a hot bowl of ginger sugar syrup.

They are also oftentimes just eaten plain without any fillings but made smaller.

The most famous and popular version of tang yuan is tang yuan with black sesame filling (黑 芝麻 湯圓). The black sesame filling has a rich, nutty aroma and flavor that isn’t overly sweet and just melts in your mouth.

While the thought of making tang yuan at home looks complicated and hard, it’s actually a lot easier then you might think.

Most tang yuan with black sesame filling recipes involve a few stages:

1. Make the filling
2. Make the dough
3. Wrap the filling inside of the dough
4. Making the ginger syrup
5. Cooking the tang yuan

And my tang yuan black sesame filling recipe is no different, but I’ll be showing you some additional hacks to make the process as easy and seamless as possible.

Now let’s discuss some of the key ingredients for this glutinous rice balls with black sesame filling recipe.

Tang Yuan Ingredient Notes

Black sesame seeds: These are the star of the show when making tang yuan dessert soup. Make sure to get raw black sesame seeds and not toasted ones, since we’re going to be toasting the black sesame seeds ourselves to bring out the aroma.

White sesame seeds: The white sesame seeds, in addition to adding aroma and flavor to our filling, will also help tell us when our sesame seeds are done toasting. Make sure to use raw white sesame seeds, otherwise you won’t be able to tell when the white sesame seeds change color since they are already toasted.

Glutinous rice flour: The glutinous rice flour is our main ingredient for creating those soft and chewy glutinous rice balls that we’ve all come to love. Make sure to use either a Chinese or Thai brand when making sweet rice balls with black sesame filling.

Chinese brown sugar slabs: Chinese brown sugar will add a nice golden yellow color to our sugar syrup and isn’t overly sweet either. It has a clean, pure sugar taste unlike regular brown sugar. Don’t try to substitute regular brown sugar with Chinese brown cane sugar, it’s not the same thing!

How to Make Tang Yuan With Black Sesame Filling

Making the filling:

1. Wash the sesame seeds and walnuts
2. Drain out the water and set them aside.
3. Then add them to a frying pan or wok and toast them on low to medium-low heat until the white sesame seeds change color to a beige color and the sesame seeds become aromatic. It should take around 8-10 minutes. You might start to see the sesame seeds start to jump up too when they are ready.

4. Once done, remove them from the wok and let them cool down.
5. Next, add the sesame seeds, walnuts, white sugar, lard, and water into a blender or food processor.
6. Blend everything together until it reaches a fine semi-liquid texture.

7. Once done, transfer everything to a flat container covered with plastic wrap. The plastic wrap will make removing the filling a whole lot easier.

8. Cover the container and let it freeze for at least 1 hour in the freezer so that it solidifies.
9. Now, take the container out and divide the black sesame filling into balls that weigh about 10g each. You should get about 29 pieces in total.

10. Cover the black sesame balls, and let them freeze for another hour or two, or until they’re frozen solid. Don’t take it out until you’re ready to start wrapping the tang yuan, as the filling melts quickly.

Making the dough:

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil.
2. In a large bowl add in your glutinous rice flour + lard. Mix everything together.

3. Now, add in about 85-90% of the boiling hot water onto the glutinous rice flour. Save the rest for later.

4. Now mix the water with the glutinous rice flour and lard.
5. Knead the dough until nice and smooth and elastic and shape it into a round ball.

6. If you notice the dough is still too dry then slowly add in the leftover hot water onto the dough and continue kneading it.
7. The dough should be neither too dry nor too wet and sticky.
8. Once done, cover the dough and let it rest for 20 minutes.
9. After 20 minutes, divide the dough into balls weighing about 20g each and cover the balls.

Making the tang yuan balls:

1. Take a few pieces of the frozen black sesame filling out of the freezer and set them aside.
2. Take 1 dough ball, flatten it out and put the filling in the center using either your hands or chopsticks.

3. Wrap the dough over the filling, making sure to seal off the top of the dough ball.

4. Now, roll it into a ball and set them aside.

5. Wipe your fingers with some paper towels or a cloth if you get the black sesame filling onto them.
6. Once done using up all of the filling in this batch, cover the tang yuan balls and place all of the tang yuan balls into the freezer.

7. Repeat the steps for the rest of the filling and dough balls.
8. Once done, place all of the tang yuan inside of a sealed airtight container and place them into the freezer.

Ginger sugar syrup:

1. Wash your ginger and peel off the skin.
2. Slice the ginger into 5-6 thick slices.
3. Smash the ginger slices with your cleaver or a blunt object and add them to a pot of water with 1.5 slabs of Chinese brown sugar.

4. Bring it to a boil on medium heat.
5. Cook it for about 10 minutes on medium heat, allowing the sugar to melt and the ginger aroma to infuse into the syrup while occasionally mixing everything around. Once done, turn off the stove and serve it with the cooked tang yuan.

Cooking the tang yuan:

1. When ready to cook, add the balls into a pot of boiling water and let them cook until the balls float to the top.

2. Remove the tang yuan balls once they float to the top and add them to the ginger sugar syrup when ready to serve.

Storage Tips

The uncooked tang yuan can be frozen and stored in the freezer in an airtight container for up to a month. When you’re ready to eat the sweet glutinous rice balls, just pop them into a pot of hot water to cook. There’s no need to defrost and thaw out the frozen tang yuan balls.

The leftover ginger syrup can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days.

Other Similar Recipes

Tang yuan glutinous rice balls in sweet syrup are typically eaten during Chinese New Year along with other dishes such as Nian Gao, smiling sesame balls, water chestnut cake, and braised e-fu noodles.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

I Don’t Have Glutinous Rice Flour. Can I Use Something Else?

No.

All Chinese grocery stores sell glutinous rice flour so it should be easy to obtain.

If you want to make rice balls with black sesame filling then I’m afraid you’ll need glutinous rice flour.

Can I Use Rice Flour Instead of Glutinous Rice Flour for This Recipe?

No!

Stick to glutinous rice flour. The package for glutinous rice flour is usually in green while rice flour is in red.

One final thing to note, I highly recommend using either a Chinese brand or a Thai brand such as Erawan (3 elephants). If you use another brand from another country, then the recipe might not work.

How Many Tang Yuan Pieces Will This Recipe Make?

This tang yuan sweet soup recipe makes approximately 29-30 pieces.

My Dough Is Very Sticky. How Do I Fix This?

This is caused by adding too much water to the dough. When you’re first making the dough and kneading it, don’t pour all of the water into the dough at once. Pour about 85% of it and then knead the dough and see how wet or dry it is. It shouldn’t be too dry nor too wet. If it’s too dry, then slowly add a tiny bit more water to the dough and continue kneading. Repeat this process until you get a smooth dough that isn’t overly sticky and wet.

If you’ve already created the dough, then the next stage where you can fix this issue is when you’re ready to shape the tang yuan glutinous rice balls.

When you’re ready to shape the glutinous rice balls into tang yuan with the filling, dust a tiny amount of glutinous rice flour onto your hands to prevent the dough from sticking to your fingers, and then proceed to shape the tang yuan.

My Dough Balls Are Very Dry. How Do I Fix This?

Rub a tiny amount of water onto the dough ball and then roll it back into a ball, making sure to combine all of the water into the dough ball.

Why Is My Filling Leaking Out When I Cook My Tang Yuan?

This is caused by not properly sealing the tang yuan when you’re shaping it. Make sure to seal the tang yuan when you’re shaping it.

Also, make sure that the dough is even throughout the tang yuan. If the dough is too thin at a particular spot then there’s a high chance that it will leak out when cooking.

Finally, if your tang yuan sticks to the bottom of the pot when you’re cooking it then it might tear and leak out the filling.

Can I Use Another Filling Instead of Black Sesame for the Tang Yuan?

Typically, a peanut filling, or Chinese brown sugar cubes are used as a filling in addition to black sesame for the tang yuan. You can opt to use either one of those as a filling if you don’t want to use black sesame.

In addition, you can also leave out any filling altogether and just eat the tang yuan with the ginger syrup as is. I’d reduce the size of the tang yuan balls to half in this case.

Can I Use Pre-Roasted Black Sesame Seeds Instead of Raw?

You can, and it will save you some time, however you will lose out on the aroma and flavor of freshly toasted black sesame seeds.

Can I Make the Tang Yuan Ahead of Time?

Yes!

Just place all of the uncooked tang yuan into an airtight container and freeze them. I recommend spacing them out so that they don’t stick together.

When you’re ready to eat, just place the frozen tang yuan into hot boiling water and cook them.

There’s no need to de-frost and thaw them out.