Ranked by TableJourney editorial score.
Qingtuan are jade green rice balls stained with mugwort or wheatgrass juice, a springtime treat around Qingming Festival filled with sweet red bean paste or savoury salted egg yolk and pork floss.
Qingtuan descends from the Cold Food Festival, a custom more than two thousand years old in which fires were forbidden for a day and food was prepared in advance to eat cold. By the Southern Dynasties, records already describe rice flour mixed with wild herb juice, and by the Tang and Song dynasties a herb stained rice dish called qingjing fan was common. The dumpling closer to today's qingtuan is documented from the Ming and Qing dynasties, when herbal juice was worked into glutinous rice flour and shaped around a filling, and it became tied to the Jiangnan region's Qingming grave visiting customs each spring.
4 editor picks for Qingtuan (mugwort rice dumplings) in Shanghai, ranked by editorial score. All Shanghai signature dishes · Qingtuan (mugwort rice dumplings) across every city.
Shen Da Cheng on East Nanjing Road in Shanghai has sold glutinous rice pastries, dim sum and spring qingtuan since 1875, with a queue at its street counter.
TipIn spring pick red bean paste for the classic qingtuan, or salted egg yolk with pork floss for the savoury one.
Xing Hua Lou on Fuzhou Road in Shanghai is the flagship of a century-old Cantonese brand, known for its mooncakes, dim sum and seasonal qingtuan.
TipIn spring the pork floss and salted egg yolk qingtuan draws long queues, with a limit on boxes per person.
Taikang Foods on East Nanjing Road in Shanghai is a long-standing counter for freshly fried pork mooncakes, plus red bean and malted milk qingtuan in spring.
TipIn spring look for the red bean and malted milk qingtuan, a local favourite alongside the pork mooncakes.
Wang Bao He on Fuzhou Road in Shanghai began in 1744 as a Shaoxing wine maker and moved here in 1936, when it started steaming crabs to go with its wine.
OrderOrder the wine-soaked crab and the fried bean curd jelly with crab paste, the kitchen's proudest dish.
TipAbout nine in ten dishes on the menu carry crab in some form, down to the xiaolongbao and the Lion's Head meatballs.
Qingtuan (mugwort rice dumplings) makes more sense with someone from Shanghai explaining it. These are the classes and tours we have checked, with booking links.
4 hours
Immerse yourself in Chinese culture with a Kung Fu class and a soup dumpling workshop in Shanghai. Choose between Tai Chi or Wing Chun, then learn to make dumplings fr...
Day trip · 9 hours
Discover the beauty of Suzhou on a day trip from Shanghai. Visit the Humble Administrator's Garden, stroll through Shantang Street, and learn to make dumplings with a ...
Guided tour · 3 hours
Learn to cook two classic Chinese dishes in a cooking class in Shanghai. Visit a traditional wet market to select fresh ingredients and enjoy a hands-on cooking class ...
