# Shumai (烧卖)
**Shumai** (烧卖; traditional 燒賣; pinyin shāomài; [Cantonese](https://www.edgepedia.org/cantonese) siu maai) is a Chinese open-topped steamed dumpling: a thin wheat wrapper gathers around a filling into a cup or flower shape, leaving the seasoned meat exposed at the crown rather than sealed inside a pouch.[1](https://www.tasteatlas.com/shumai) The name covers a family of regional dishes: the Cantonese pork-and-shrimp form is the dim sum standard known worldwide, while northern China favors larger mutton dumplings eaten as a full breakfast, and southern styles often use sticky rice.[1](https://www.tasteatlas.com/shumai)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Definition | Open-topped steamed dumpling; the wrapper gathers into a cup or flower rather than a sealed pouch[1](https://www.tasteatlas.com/shumai) |
| Cantonese form | Ground pork, sometimes with chopped shrimp or Chinese black mushroom, garnished with a pea, fish egg, or carrot dot; a dim sum staple[1](https://www.tasteatlas.com/shumai) |
| Northern form | Hohhot shaomai: large mutton, scallion, and ginger dumplings sold by the traditional weight unit liang as a breakfast food[2](https://society.people.com.cn/n1/2018/0325/c1008-29887058.html) |
| Earliest records | Yuan-era cookbook writing 稍麥; the 14th-century textbook 《朴通事》 records shao mai sold in Yuan Dadu eateries[3](https://www.etymology.life/word/shaomai) • [4](https://m.fx361.com/news/2012/0429/24291007.html) |
| Name variants | Many homophones and folk etymologies exist, with no settled origin for the name[5](https://www.28228.cn/miandian/zhongshi/165.html) |
| Heritage status | Shanghai's Xiasha shumai and Beijing's Du Yi Chu shumai craft are recognized intangible cultural heritage items[6](https://bkso.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%8A%E6%B5%B7%E7%83%A7%E5%8D%96/10585837?fromModule=lemma_inlink) • [7](https://english.beijing.gov.cn/latest/news/202512/P020251203371727887894.pdf) |
| Spread abroad | Popular in Indonesia, Japan, and the Philippines[1](https://www.tasteatlas.com/shumai) |
## What it is
Every shumai shares one construction. The cook rolls a thin round of dough, sometimes with fluted or ruffled edges, places the filling in the center, and gathers the sides upward without closing them, so the finished piece stands as a small cup or pleated flower with the filling visible at the top; it is then steamed.[1](https://www.tasteatlas.com/shumai) This openness is what separates shumai from sealed dumplings such as jiaozi or soup dumplings.[3](https://www.etymology.life/word/shaomai) In the Cantonese dim sum repertoire it is customarily served in a bamboo steamer alongside har gow, the shrimp dumpling, as a classic pair.[1](https://www.tasteatlas.com/shumai)
Fillings mark the regional divide more than shape does. In the north the filling is meat-based, classically mutton with scallion and ginger; after the dish spread south, glutinous rice became a principal ingredient, mixed with mushrooms or minced meat.[5](https://www.28228.cn/miandian/zhongshi/165.html) The Inner Mongolian version, written 稍美 and pronounced Shāo Mài or Shāo Měi locally, uses only mutton and scallion, in contrast to the many fillings found in southern shumai.[8](https://www.xiangha.com/techan/2560.html)
## Regional forms
**Cantonese siu mai.** The Guangdong tea-house version is the form that carried the name into international food vocabulary through Hong Kong: a small cylinder of seasoned ground pork, sometimes with finely chopped shrimp or Chinese black mushroom, in a thin yellowish wrapper, finished with a single pea, a fish egg, or a piece of carrot on top.[1](https://www.tasteatlas.com/shumai)
**Hohhot shaomai.** In Inner Mongolia the dumpling is a heftier breakfast staple. Hohhot shops sell it by the liang, a traditional weight unit, though the local liang is measured differently from the liang used for baozi or jiaozi.[2](https://society.people.com.cn/n1/2018/0325/c1008-29887058.html) The classic filling is mutton and the white part of scallion, without rice; well-known shops there also offer beef, vegetable, seafood, and other variants alongside the classic.[5](https://www.28228.cn/miandian/zhongshi/165.html) • [2](https://society.people.com.cn/n1/2018/0325/c1008-29887058.html)
**Beijing.** Beijing's most famous shaomai house, Du Yi Chu at Qianmen, owes its name, by legend, to a visit by the [Qianlong Emperor](https://www.edgepedia.org/qianlong-emperor). Its shumai are made with hot-water dough wrappers rolled into lotus-leaf shapes with a special pin, and the gathered crown carries exactly 24 pleats, symbolizing the 24 solar terms of the calendar; the shop rotates fillings by season, from spring chives to summer squash, autumn crab meat, and winter pork-and-scallion or three-delicacy versions.[7](https://english.beijing.gov.cn/latest/news/202512/P020251203371727887894.pdf) Its making technique is listed as national intangible cultural heritage.[7](https://english.beijing.gov.cn/latest/news/202512/P020251203371727887894.pdf)
**Jiangnan and Shanghai.** Southern styles often wrap sticky rice with mushrooms or minced meat.[5](https://www.28228.cn/miandian/zhongshi/165.html) Shanghai's representative form is the Xiasha shumai of Pudong, entered on an intangible cultural heritage protection list and said to begin in the [Ming dynasty](https://www.edgepedia.org/ming-dynasty), when, according to the account, it got its name from being "cooked and sold" (bian shao bian mai) as workers prepared food to honor soldiers resisting the Japanese pirates.[6](https://bkso.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%8A%E6%B5%B7%E7%83%A7%E5%8D%96/10585837?fromModule=lemma_inlink) Nearby Fengjing makes a juicy pork shumai with winter bamboo shoot and freshly boiled pork skin jelly, whose craft is part of a Jinshan district heritage listing.[9](https://bkso.baidu.com/item/%E7%8C%AA%E8%82%89%E7%83%A7%E5%8D%96/2365066?fromModule=lemma_inlink) Spring shumai filled with fresh bamboo shoot and pork is a seasonal specialty of Shanghai-area old towns.[10](https://www.shobserver.cn/wx/detail.do?id=892597)
## History and name
The documentary trail starts in the [Yuan dynasty](https://www.edgepedia.org/yuan-dynasty) (13th to 14th century). The earliest known written reference appears in a Yuan cookbook, where the dish is written 稍麥, glossed as "a little wheat" for the thin skin that barely enclosed the meat filling; by the Ming dynasty the name appears as 燒賣, "cook-sell", marking it as a commercial product rather than a home preparation.[3](https://www.etymology.life/word/shaomai) A Chinese-language study of the name notes that the 14th-century Korean textbook 《朴通事》 records "suān-suì xiān shāo mai" (sour-vegetable filling shao mai) sold in the food shops of Yuan Dadu, present-day Beijing, eaten with soup and wine.[4](https://m.fx361.com/news/2012/0429/24291007.html) The same study counts more than a dozen historical aliases for the dish, including 稍麦, 稍梅, 烧梅, 肖米, and 纱帽, more name variants than for older Chinese pasta dishes.[4](https://m.fx361.com/news/2012/0429/24291007.html) The earliest attestation in a literary text is usually placed in the huaben tale 《快嘴李翠莲记》, where the heroine boasts she can make shumai and dumplings, though the dating of that story is itself debated.[11](https://dfz.nanjing.gov.cn/gzdt/202501/t20250117_5059418.html) • [4](https://m.fx361.com/news/2012/0429/24291007.html)
No single etymology of the name has settled the question. Explanations include the "white frost" of flour dusting the gathered rim like wheat awns (稍麦); a Qing account from Suiyuan, recorded in the 1937 《绥远通志稿》, that tea houses sold the dumpling "on the side" (shao, to carry along) and so called it 捎卖; and a Wuhan explanation that its plum-blossom edges earned the name 烧梅.[5](https://www.28228.cn/miandian/zhongshi/165.html) One widely reported scholarly view traces the dish to Mongolia and derives the name from Mongolian suumai.[12](https://uptogo.com.tw/%E7%BE%8E%E9%A3%9F/%E9%A3%9F%E5%93%81/%E7%82%BA%E4%BB%80%E9%BA%BC%E7%87%92%E8%B3%A3%E5%8F%AB%E7%87%92%E8%B3%A3%EF%BC%9F/) Folk origin stories abound, including one that places the invention with two baozi-selling brothers in late-Ming Hohhot, the younger brother creating thin-skinned open-topped "baozi" he named shaomai to sell separately from his sister-in-law's shop.[2](https://society.people.com.cn/n1/2018/0325/c1008-29887058.html)
## Shumai abroad
The dish spread through East and Southeast Asia. In Indonesia it is usually accompanied by tofu, vegetables, and peanut sauce; in the Philippines it is eaten with rice or various dips.[1](https://www.tasteatlas.com/shumai) In Japan the name is written 焼売: Yokohama's Kiyoken adapted a Chinese chef's recipe into its own shumai in 1908, a product that became a station bento staple.[12](https://uptogo.com.tw/%E7%BE%8E%E9%A3%9F/%E9%A3%9F%E5%93%81/%E7%82%BA%E4%BB%80%E9%BA%BC%E7%87%92%E8%B3%A3%E5%8F%AB%E7%87%92%E8%B3%A3%EF%BC%9F/) Overseas versions overwhelmingly follow the Cantonese model, since emigrants from Hong Kong and [Guangdong](https://www.edgepedia.org/guangdong) carried the tea-house form with them.[5](https://www.28228.cn/miandian/zhongshi/165.html)
## References
1. [Shāomài – Traditional Dumplings From Guangdong, China, TasteAtlas](https://www.tasteatlas.com/shumai)
2. [形似石榴梢如花（乡村发现·美味）, People's Daily Online](https://society.people.com.cn/n1/2018/0325/c1008-29887058.html)
3. [Shaomai – Meaning, Origin & Etymology, The Journey](https://www.etymology.life/word/shaomai)
4. [说"烧卖", 倪博洋, 现代语文 2012年第11期](https://m.fx361.com/news/2012/0429/24291007.html)
5. [烧卖文化](https://www.28228.cn/miandian/zhongshi/165.html)
6. [上海烧卖, 百度百科](https://bkso.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%8A%E6%B5%B7%E7%83%A7%E5%8D%96/10585837?fromModule=lemma_inlink)
7. [Chapter 4 · Local Cuisine: Du Yi Chu's Shumai, Beijing Municipal Government](https://english.beijing.gov.cn/latest/news/202512/P020251203371727887894.pdf)
8. [稍美（内蒙古特色小吃）, 香哈网](https://www.xiangha.com/techan/2560.html)
9. [猪肉烧卖, 百度百科](https://bkso.baidu.com/item/%E7%8C%AA%E8%82%89%E7%83%A7%E5%8D%96/2365066?fromModule=lemma_inlink)
10. [新民随笔丨"包容天下"品烧卖, 上观新闻](https://www.shobserver.cn/wx/detail.do?id=892597)
11. [志说南京｜金陵小吃之"糯"美食, 南京市地方志工作办公室](https://dfz.nanjing.gov.cn/gzdt/202501/t20250117_5059418.html)
12. [尋根溯源揭開點心身世之謎：為什麼燒賣叫燒賣？, UpToGo](https://uptogo.com.tw/%E7%BE%8E%E9%A3%9F/%E9%A3%9F%E5%93%81/%E7%82%BA%E4%BB%80%E9%BA%BC%E7%87%92%E8%B3%A3%E5%8F%AB%E7%87%92%E8%B3%A3%EF%BC%9F/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Food, customs, and everyday culture › Food, cooking and hospitality › Dishes, foods, and foodstuffs › Rice, noodle, pasta, and grain dishes*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 19, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 18, 2026; Sep 19, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license