SIOPAO RECIPE (STEP BY STEP VIDEO ON FLUFFY DOUGH). Filipino Style Steamed Buns Recipe is a favorite Filipino snacks in the Philippines. It has a soft and fluffy dough that is a bit sweet. Having the balance of sweetness could make or break the taste of your steamed buns, so today I made sure that on your next steamed buns, you will get the most wonderful taste of it.
Today, I am sharing with this soft and fluffy Filipino Style Steamed Buns Recipe. I have tried this dough so many times and had not failed in it. YOU CAN CUSTOMIZE THE FILLING according to your taste. I have tried it with Siopao with Bola-bola (meatballs) filling and Pork Asado and loved them the same… Be adventurous !
For More Budget Friendly Recipe and one pot meal:
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3 INGREDIENT SIOPAO FILLING RECIPE
Siopao is a Filipino version of chinese pork buns or steamed pork buns .It can be filled with various forms of stuffing, depending to your liking. It is so famous in the Philippines as snacks that you can see them sold in small stalls lined in nooks and sidewalks in Philippine streets. Char Siu Buns is cook by steaming and it can be stored by freezing. It can be easily packed for lunch and handy enough to bring several in the office to share with colleagues. I love char siu bao/siopao so much, that I can eat 13 pieces of these…
Check the Chinese Pork Barbecue, How to Clean Leeks and these recipes that has Hoisin Sauce and Leeks in them: Chicken Buns with Chicken Breast Filling, Honeyed Chicken Wings, How to Clean Leeks, Shrimp with Leeks .
Soft and Fluffy Siopao Recipe
Ingredients
FOR THE DOUGH:
- 3 cups All Purpose Flour flour plus 1/3 cup all purpose flour separate use
- 1/4 cup white granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 1/4 teaspoon Rapid Rise Highly Active Yeast or 1 packet of Rapid Rise Highly Active Yeast
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- 2/3 cup milk plus 1/3 cup separate use
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 egg room temperature
- 2 tablespoon melted butter
FOR THE FILLING:
- 1 stem leek or 1 small red onion chopped
- 2/3 cup of red or orange bell pepper finely chopped
- 1/4 cup fresh cilantro finely chopped
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1/4 cup Hoisin Sauce
- 4 cups char siu/ Chinese Barbecue link here
- 1/8 cup cooking oil
Instructions
- Grease a large bowl with cooking oil set aside- we will use it to rise the dough.
- Place 3 cups flour,granulated sugar,salt,baking powder and yeast in the mixing bowl and mix completely using a wire whisk.Set aside.
- Place the additional 1/3 cup flour, 1/2 cup water and 1/3 cup milk in a small sauce pan and mix with spoon or whisk to incorporate, then heat it a low fire until pasty in texture ( as shown in the photo above).
- When the flour is already pasty, add it to the 3 cups flour mixture.
- Place the butter in a microwave safe cup and heat for 1 minute or until the butter is lightly melted and pour into the mixing bowl.
- Heat the 2/3 cup of milk in the microwave for 1 minute and add into the mixing bowl. Mix all of the ingredients TWO TO THREE TIMES using the electric mixer THEN add in the egg
- Mix the dough using an electric mixer with a hook on. Mix until it will for a fluffy and soft dough. NOTE: You will notice that the dough is not mixing well, but continue mixing because eventually, the dough will become soft and smooth.Transfer the dough to the greased bowl and let the dough rise in a warm place for around 1 hour.
TO PREPARE THE FILLING:
- Heat the oil and add in the leeks/onion until it turns transparent. Add in the chopped pepper and Pork Char Siu and mix. Let the veggie flavor incorporate with the meat by cooking for 2 more minutes. Add in the Hoisin Sauce and sugar and mix. Cook for 2 more minutes. Add in the cilantro and mix. Turn off the heat and let the filling cool.
PREPARING THE SIOPAO OR PORK CHAR BAO:
- When the dough had risen after an hour, form the dough into a small log and cut it into 7-14 small balls-IN MY CASE, THIS RECIPE YIELDED 14 LARGE SIOPAO .Using your hand, flatten the dough and place the filling on the middle. Seal the dough on the edges and arrange it on the steamer. Do the same to the remaining dough.
COOKING THE SIOPAO:
- Cut parchment paper into 14 pieces. Around 2x2 size
- Boil 4-10 cups of water and steam the siopao for 20 minutes. You can freeze these siopao and microwave it wrap with wet paper towels and heat it for 1 minutes before eating or steam it so that it is soft and fluffy.
I’ve been wanting a recipe for this since 1994. When my family were fortunate ENOUGH to be stationed in NAPLES , ITALY. Across the road from a wonderful women Mary married to another Navy vet. She would make these for our money raising events and I never could get ENOUGH of them. Thank you for posting this here. I’ll let you know if I need to start a diet club.
Hahaahah. Thank you and I hope this recipe will work for you.
Hi to make a smaller batch can I just cut all the ingredients in half or would that mess with the final outcome? It won’t mess the outcome. If it’s too wet to work on, add just a tad of flour until the dough is workable.
Yes, you can.:)
My favorite buns! I mean that dough is something special, isn’t it? It feels so nice and warm and… OK now, I’ve got to make this recipe ASAP before I starve myself to death! 🙂 Yum!
What a wonderful recipe! This would be a great meal to make on Sundays. Then you can have on hand for after school snacks.
I tried making these yesterday and I followed your instructions. They were delicious and really quite easy to make. I thought they’d be difficult but I was wrong. The whole family loved them and are asking for more.
I am glad you like it, Marisa.Thank you.
I have never seen such a thing before, but oh my, these look incredibly delicious!! Can’t wait to make these for my husband!
These siopao do look soft and fluffy! And yummy, too, with that beautiful filling. Great snack!
What great dough! I love the fluffy, light texture and how versatile it is for accommodating different fillings. Such a great recipe. Thanks for sharing!
These look so delicious! The texture is perfect and tender and they look so flavorful! I can’t wait to try them.
Thanks for this delicious recipe. Lovely snack for an hungry stomach. My kids would love it.
I love making any sort of bread, can’t wait to try this recipe!
Wow! All I can say is that I want these steamed buns in my life! Thanks for sharing!
That looks delicious! I’ve never had anything like this before. I can’t wait to make this!
Good luck!
How can I do this in bread maker machine?
Sorry, I have not made the dough with bread machine.
I’m reading your ingredients, as well as the instructions. For the yeast, don’t you bloom it first, before adding it to the other ingredients – meaning adding warm water and letting it expand?
Thanks,
Grace
In this recipe, we are using the instant yeast; so it is mixed with the ingredients. But if you use the active dry yeast,the one in which you mix with warm water, bloom it first then add to the mixture – I have not tried it like that but other people do that. Good luck.
Just a tip about rising your siopao or any other baking goods that needs rising — I just want to say that you do not need an hour to rise your dough. Before your start gathering your ingredients, heat up your oven to 200°F or lower. When it reached the target temperature, turn your oven off. DO NOT OPEN YOUR OVEN from hereon. Go on working with your dough and fillings. When you have already shaped your dough for rising and had put it in your bowl, this is when you open your oven to put your dough in. Shut your oven and wait between 10 to 15 minutes. If you can open the light in your oven without physically opening the oven, you can look inside to see how high your dough had risen, if it has risen enough, take it out. Then shape it to anything you like or how many you like.
I do this for all of my bread dough rising since I live at 6000 ft above sea level.
Hi. By any chance.. do you know the weight of each dough? So that when I make it, it will all look the same. You mentioned 14 large size of shopao?
No, I don’t know the weight, but you can weigh it yourself; just adjust the filling depending on the size of your dough. Thank you.
what you do is weigh the whole dough then divide the result with 14 or 13 or whatever number of dough you wanted to have. Then cut the amount of dough and weigh it again for the result of your division. Now that is the easy way. I do not have a hard way.
Hi! I have a small family and need a smaller amount of siapoa. What are the ingredients to make only 4 siapoas? Thanks.
Hi, Evelyn. I haven’t made siopao in small batch. How about making a whole batch and freeze the rest. That’s what I usually do. To heat up, wrap the frozen Siopao in a wet paper towel and microwave for 45 seconds to 1 minute.
Hi, I wonder, do u used the dried milk like what we typically huv n our country. Basically most our common cooking, we used a dried milk, so considering on this recipe, the kind I truly luv, can we use wet milk or dry? Just a little confused
This is the wet milk.
I heard baking soda will help whitening the dough.
I’ve not tried it with baking soda though .
Why my siopao turns dark or sometimes yellow?
I am not sure why it turns dark…. did you use the siopao recipe here?
Add white vinegar in the water this will make the dough white.
Thanks for the suggestion… 🙂
How much vinegar? Can I add sp Emulsions to softened the dough?
I look over the recipe if I mentioned a vinegar but there is none, so I assume this is a response from a commenter regarding adding vinegar on the water for steaming. I tried it before and I added 3 tablespoons of vinegar but I did not observe the dough becoming whiter:(
As for adding emulsion, I haven’t tried that before, so I cannot vouch for it. Thanks so much for visiting !!
How much vinegar?
Add in 1 tablespoon vinegar.
To make d siopao white..put 2 tbsp of vinegar in ur steaming water
just made them and it turn really good, my husband love them so much
I am so glad your husband like the Siopao. Enjoy it as well.
Do you think these would freeze well?
Yup, this Siopao In fact, I freeze them all the time and when I am ready to eat them, I just wrap it with wet paper towel and microwave for two minutes.
You didn’t knead the dough very well…
Hi! I did no t knead the dough that much. In fact, I let the mixer do almost all the kneading for me as it will make the dough really hard if I mix a lot… I only coat my hand and gently mix the dough before transferring to an oiled bowl…
in your ingredients above you have only yeast powder but no baking powder, as i was reading the procedure you have the baking powder so with the yeast? so confusing!
HI! The instruction was indeed confusing and lacking. As I am typing write this answer, I am actually eating the siopao,although different filling because I have to retest this recipe since I lost my original copy… SO, the baking powder is 2 teaspoons and then for the yeast, it was 2 1/4 teaspoons… Thank you for calling my attention about it. Look out for this Siopao filling I put in this new dough;it is really simple and delicious!!
on ur list of ingredients, u have “baking soda”. On ur instructions, u have “baking powder”. Please clarify. Thank you.
Thanks for the heads up… I changed it to baking powder 🙂
If you can eat 13 of that I can do 14 🙂
I love this and I remember mom always bring some home almost everyday after her work as a pasalubong
Hahaha.I think every Filipino has special memory attached to Siopao.
Congrats! I bet your parents can’t wait! Just like how I can’t wait for one of those buns…. GIMME!!!
Thank you, Anne. It is so hot in here…
Hi, I just started to make siopao asado a month ago. I don’t want to do it at first because I thought it’s too complicated. As time goes by, I got so many orders from my customers. Some of them they want it with boiled egg and some don’t. I got also person want it beef. Well, whatever my customers want I am doing it for them. Customize siopao too I accept but I charge them different.
I am sure your family loves you more than siopao, lol
I am glad you have a thriving business. GOod luck!