Red Bean Mochi Soup {红豆圆子汤}

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Red Bean Mochi Soup { Hong Dou Yuan Zi Tang 红豆圆子汤} is such a classical and well-liked Huai Yang style dessert. It features mini soft & chewy sweet rice flour balls in the sweet nutty adzuki bean soup. We usually top the soup with the dried sweet osmanthus flowers (Gui Hua) that add a subtle while deep pleasant floral fragrant.

Keep reading to learn the simple ingredients that go into this amazingly delicious & healthy dessert and how to make this perfectly every time!

Red Bean Mochi Soup Key Ingredients

You will need water-milled sweet rice mini balls (xiao yuan zi 小圆子). Read here for homemade sweet rice mini balls.

You will also need mashed adzuki beans, sugar and sweet osmanthus flowers (optional).

Adzuki beans are a popular food in the Yangtze River Delta area, home to Huai Yang cuisine. It is super delicious with wonderful health benefits too. Read more about adzuki beans and how to make mashed adzuki beans here. See “Homemade Red Bean Paste” Recipe on how to make the mashed adzuki beans.

Sweet Osmanthus Flowers are a highlight of Huai Yang style Red Bean Mochi Soup. Gui Hua (桂花) in Chinese, sweet osmanthus are flowers from the sweet olive tree, a typical 10-meter (33-foot) evergreen commonly seen in southern China.

The flowers can be golden or silver, dependent on the species. The golden one is more popular. Sweet osmanthus flowers are small and do not have a flashy look at all. But boy, they carry such an extremely pleasant sweet floral fragrant. Did I mention they also present outstanding health benefits?

Per TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine), people believe osmanthus can help improve skin, detoxify the boy, and boost lung health. Osmanthus tea is a popular floral tea.

Huai Yang style cooking has been tapping sweet osmanthus flowers ever since the ancient time for making sweets such as sweet rice cake, regular rice cake, candies, tea, and red bean mochi soup. You name it. No doubt I am a huge fan of it.

Tips & Tricks of Making Perfect Red Bean Mochi Soup

Cook the sweet rice mini balls

We use a very similar technique to that of cooking wontons. Fill about 75% of a large stockpot (8 Qt.) with water and bring it to a boil and then add either freshly made or previously frozen sweet rice mini balls.

If you are using previously frozen sweet rice mini balls, no need to defrost first, simply add them directly into the boiling water.

Immediately stir and separate them to avoid them stick to the bottom of the pot or to each other. Cover the pot with a lid and wait for it to reach boiling pointing again. Right before the water rises to the top of the pot, add a cup of tap water and close the lid.

Repeat the process a few times until all sweet rice mini-balls float to the top of the water surface, showing they are fully cooked.

Serve the Red Bean Mochi Soup

Prepare 4 bowls, and divide the freshly cooked sweet-rice mini-balls among the four bowls. Add about 1.5 cups of steaming water from the stockpot into each bowl.

For each bowl, add 2 tablespoons of mashed adzuki beans, 1 tablespoon of sugar in the raw, and then gently stir to mix.

Garnish with 1/2 teaspoon of dried osmanthus flowers and serve hot. Enjoy!

Do you like yummy and healthy Huai Yang style food? Make sure you check out:

• Huai Yang style wonton soup
• Lion’s Head Soup
• Yang Chun Noodle
• Nanjing Salted Duck
• Rice Cake Stir-fry Shanghai Classic Way
• Shanghai Style Soup Dumplings
• Shanghai Style Red Braised Pork Chop