Chicken and Tang Yuan (Glutinous Rice Dumpling) Soup

Have You Eaten Yet? Here’s a new recipe from my kitchen to yours that I hope you’ll love! For more recipes, you can order my new cookbook, Chinese Enough, or purchase Mooncakes and Milk Bread for all things Chinese Baking!

So I woke up this morning to some really exciting news! Chinese Enough was named one of The New York Times’ 16 Best Cookbooks of 2024! Wow! For both my books, I simply write with the hopes that the recipes and my stories connect with people and inspire them to actually get into the kitchen. Every award and best of list is truly just a bonus and I’m so honored to be seen and included. Thank you to all of you have supported this book and cooked the recipes! If you’re looking for a holiday present, I think Chinese Enough would make a great one for the cook or eater in your life!

Okay, now for this week’s recipe!

You know how some people love Thanksgiving food so much that they wish they could make stuffing on a regular Wednesday night (no one is stopping you!)? Well, that’s how I feel about Lunar New Year food. Just to give you a picture of where I’m at with recipe developing these days, I’m in the process of wrapping up my holiday cookie package (recipes coming out soon) and then I’m diving deep into Lunar New Year recipes (falls on January 29th!). Of course there are foods like spring rolls, long life noodles, whole steamed fish, and lucky dumplings that you can enjoy any time of year, but one dish that I wished I ate more than once a year was savory tang yuan.

Tang yuan are glutinous rice dumplings, they can either be sweet and stuffed with black sesame paste (or red bean, peanuts, chocolate, etc) or savory and stuffed with meat and vegetables or simply left unstuffed. It’s tradition to eat a bowl of tang yuan on the last day of Lunar New Year as part of the lantern festival (15th day of the first lunar month) for good luck and all that jazz. Ever since I was little, I was obsessed with the texture of these little dumplings. They are chewy like mochi and super tender, especially in a soup.

I don’t quite understand why we don’t make tang yuan more often the rest of the year because they are so easy to make, especially if you don’t stuff them! The dough is simply glutinous rice flour (not the same as sweet rice flour or regular rice flour), a little salt, and warm water. It forms a playdough-like textured dough that feels satisfying to form into small dumplings. Since there is no gluten in the dough you have to be gentle with it. If you apply too much pressure while rolling the dough into balls it might fall apart, but just apply more pressure and it should come back together again. The round dumplings cook right in the soup until they start to float to the surface a few minutes later.

The soup is a very chicken forward tong or brothy Chinese soup. The carrots and kohlrabi add a really nice sweetness that balances the gentle heat of the ginger and fat of the chicken. You can swap out the kohlrabi for hearty cabbage, chayote, or even celery instead. The very first time I tested out this idea I made the soup with a classic mirepoix and it tasted like a classic chicken and dumplings or my mother-in-law’s matzo ball soup but the balls where chewier. But unlike her matzo ball soup, this broth has an instant boost of flavor by way of a dashi packet. That and chicken bouillon are my favorite shortcuts for making a great soup. A small sheet of kombu will contribute a similar flavor if you can’t find dashi packets. The scrappy chicken stock from Chinese Enough uses kombu as well to give the stock extra depth and natural salinity.

I’m excited to make more tang yuan soups this winter and I hope you love this take on cozy Chicken and Dumplings!

Chicken and Tang Yuan (Glutinous Rice Dumpling) Soup

Serves 4