If you like rolls, you should also try this classic dim sum dish — Cheung Fun or steamed rice noodle rolls. You can make this at home with pantry ingredients, such as rice, water, and sweet potato flour. For the filling, choose your favorite meat and vegetables and season them just the way you like them.
What Is Cheung Fun (Steamed Rice Noodle Rolls)?
In Guangdong, it’s common to find Cheung Fun at small roadside eateries, often served alongside other breakfast staples like Century Egg and Pork Congee and tea eggs.
If you order Cheung Fun, you won’t need to wait long, as street-side eateries typically make it in about 3 minutes
For me, Cheung Fun is a regular part of my morning routine, offering a delightful start to the day with its soft, silky texture and savory flavor.
Cheung Fun, also spelled as cheong fun, is one of the most classic dim sum delicacies crafted from steamed sheets of rice batter. Unlike other classic dim sum treats like Steamed Spare Ribs With Black Bean Sauce, Char Siu Bao and Ma Lai Gao, which are steamed in bamboo steamers, making Cheung Fun requires the use of a flat tray.
To make the rice batter, soaked rice is blended with water and mixed with sweet potato flour and a bit of oil. The rice batter is steamed on a tray and becomes chewy and slippery when cooked.
It gets its flavor with your chosen filling, whether you like meat or vegetable ingredients. For this recipe, I made different Cheung Fun variations using marinated meat, pork liver, shrimp, and eggs. Once the steamed rice noodle roll is ready, simply scrape it or roll it into a roll.
You can serve this as a snack or light breakfast. It is best enjoyed with a sauce, such as a drizzle of peanut oil and light soy sauce.
For more classic dim sum dishes, you can make these recipes as well:
- Rice Paper Dumplings
- Steamed Cabbage Rolls
- Shrimp Shumai
- Turnip Cake (Chinese Classic Dim Sum – Lo Bak Go)
- Sesame Balls (Deep-Fried Jiandui)
- Bunny Steamed Buns
- Chinese Sausage Fried Rice (Lap Cheong Chow Fan)
- Sichuan Wontons In Chili Oil (Spicy Chao Shou)
Expert Tips To Make Authentic Cheung Fun
If this is your first time making Cheung Fun, do not skip this part. Below are my expert tips on ingredient alternatives and tools to use.
Rice Batter
The rice batter is a mix of rice water slurry, sweet potato flour, and a drizzle of oil. You can achieve the slippery texture of Cheung Fun as long as you follow the correct batter ratio. All the ingredients are listed in weight, so make sure to follow the correct weight by using a kitchen weighing scale.
After mixing the rice batter ingredients, set it aside to allow the flour ingredients to absorb the water and relax the gluten strands. This will also remove air and dissolve any remaining lumps. If you want to skip making the batter from scratch, you can buy ready-to-use Cheung Fun flour in Chinese grocery stores or online markets like Amazon.
- Rice water slurry: I blended soaked rice with water to make the rice water slurry. You can replace rice with rice flour (粘米粉) to skip the soaking step. Keep in mind rice flour is not the same as glutinous rice flour.
- Sweet potato flour: Sweet potato flour improves the texture. Aside from sweet potato flour, you can use wheat starch, cornstarch, tapioca starch, or cassava flour. However, this will yield a slightly different texture.
- Oil: Adding oil to the batter helps keep the steamed rice noodle roll moist when cooked. Any cooking oil will do for this recipe. Go for neutral-tasting oil, such as peanut, soybean, or vegetable oil. You can also opt for healthier types like olive, avocado, sesame, or safflower oil.
Filling
For my version of Cheung Fun, I used marinated lean meat, pork liver, shrimp, and beaten eggs, but feel free to customize with your preferred proteins such as beef to make beef Cheung Fun or chicken.
You can use your choice of marinade, such as a mix of soy sauce, cooking wine, oyster sauce, ginger, oil, and pepper. Other great filling options are abalone, lobster, char siu pork, and marinated pork.
Add a mild sweet and onion taste by topping the filling with some chopped green onions. It is easy to make this vegetarian or vegan by adding only vegetables. Excellent non-meat ingredients for an all-veggie Cheung Fun are fried tofu, fresh or rehydrated dried shiitake mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, other types of mushrooms, bean sprouts, carrots, and soy meat. Bean Sprouts Cheung Fun is my go-to order for breakfast at restaurants when I don’t want to eat meat.
Sauce
It wouldn’t be Cheung Fun without a drizzle of a delicious sauce for a boost of flavor. I made the sauce simple with just a splash of peanut oil and light soy sauce. You can use any of your favorite sauces, such as chili oil, sweet soy sauce, sweetened hoisin sauce, teriyaki sauce, and chili garlic sauce.
Tools
You don’t need any special equipment to make Cheung Fun, just a few of your basic kitchenware. Here’s what you need to make Cheung Fun:
- Blender or food processor: If you are using rice grains, you will need a blender or a food processor to grind the rice with water. If you are using rice flour, you won’t need this.
- Strainer: This is essential to separate large bits from the blended rice water slurry. You need to make sure the slurry is free from clumps to have a smooth, slippery texture of the rice noodle rolls when steamed.
- Tray: You can use any flat plate to create a thin sheet of rice noodle roll. Options include a baking tray, cake pan, stainless steel tray, or a large round plate.Ideally, the shape you want to go for is a rectangular sheet to make the perfect roll. Whichever flat plate you use, make sure it is safe for steaming. Moreover, the size of the tray should be able to fit in your steaming equipment. You can brush the tray with oil to prevent the rice noodle from sticking and make it easier to roll it out. If you want to speed up making Cheung Fun, you can have two trays prepared. In this way, you can quickly place a new tray of rice noodles in the steamer while you are rolling up the freshly cooked steamed rice noodles.
- Steamer: Use a regular steaming appliance. If you don’t have a steamer, you can still steam without a steamer using a pan with a steamer rack, or a pan with a sieve.
- Scraper: It helps to have a silicone dough scraper or stainless steel scraper to scrape off the steamed rice noodle without sticking. You can also use a spatula. If your scraper tends to stick, you can first brush it with oil to prevent the rice noodle from sticking.
- Hot plate gripper: Although a plate gripper is optional, it will make it easier to take the tray in and out of a hot steamer.
Ingredients And Kitchenware
Here’s what you need to prepare:
Kitchenware
- Blender or food processor
- Strainer
- Tray
- Steamer
- Scraper
- Hot plate gripper
Ingredients
For the rice batter:
- 300g of rice
- 400ml of water
- 60g of sweet potato flour
- 1 tbsp of oil
For the filling: Marinate the ingredients and adjust the amount accordingly.
- A bowl of pork liver
- A bowl of lean meat
- A bowl of shrimp
- A bowl of beaten eggs
- Optional fillings: vegetables, abalone, or lobster
- Chopped green onions
For the sauce:
- A drizzle of peanut oil
- A drizzle of light soy sauce
10 Steps To Make Cheung Fun
Simply make the rice batter, prepare your filling, and steam the rice noodle rolls for 5 minutes – and you’re done! You can probably whip this up in just 15 minutes. Learn about each step in my Instagram or TikTok tutorial video.
Have you finished making this recipe? Share your own versions of Cheung Fun by posting a photo and tagging me @kitchenmisadventures. If you have tips and recommendations, share them in the comments section as well.
- First, soak the rice overnight. You can skip this step if using rice flour.
- Then, blend the soaked rice with water in a blender until it becomes a rice slurry.
- Strain the rice slurry with a strainer to remove clumps.
- Add sweet potato flour and a little bit of oil to the rice slurry and mix well. Set aside to let the glutens relax.
- Prepare your choice of filling, such as marinated pork liver, lean meat, shrimp, and beaten eggs. You can do the marinade step in advance for better flavor absorption.
- Mix the rice batter once more, take a flat plate or tray, and evenly spread a scoop of the rice batter. Spread the rice batter until it fully covers the tray like a thin sheet. Do not add too much rice batter. Otherwise, the rice noodle roll will be too thick. You can brush the tray with oil first to prevent the steamed rice noodles from sticking. Remember to mix the rice batter once more before spreading it onto the tray since the powder tends to settle at the bottom.
- After spreading the rice batter, add your filling ingredients, such as pork liver, lean meat, shrimp, and beaten eggs. Top it with some chopped green onions. Make sure the filling is drained and not too wet with the marinade. Otherwise, the extra moisture can affect the consistency of the batter and change the texture.
- Add water to the steamer and bring to a boil. Place the tray in the steamer over boiling water, cover with a lid, and steam for about 5 minutes until the mixture is set. You will know it is cooked when you see bubbles or air pockets inflating. Avoid opening the lid during steaming. Only put the tray in once the water boils, not before.
- Once cooked, roll up the Cheung Fun using a dough scraper.There’s no need to let the cooked Cheung Fun cool before scraping it off the surface. If using two prepared trays, place the second tray in the steamer. While the second tray is steaming, you can roll the finished Cheung Fun to save time.
- After rolling up the Cheung Fun, drizzle peanut oil and light soy sauce for added flavor. Store the cooked Cheung Fun in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days or in the freezer for up to a month. To reheat, steam it again without thawing for 3 minutes or more.
How To Make Cheung Fun
Ingredients
For the rice batter:
- 300 g of rice
- 400 ml of water
- 60 g of sweet potato flour
- 1 tbsp of oil
For the filling: Marinate the ingredients and adjust the amount accordingly.
- A bowl of pork liver
- A bowl of lean meat
- A bowl of shrimp
- A bowl of beaten eggs
- Optional fillings: vegetables abalone, or lobster
- Chopped green onions
For the sauce:
- A drizzle of peanut oil
- A drizzle of light soy sauce
Instructions
- First, soak the rice overnight. You can skip this step if using rice flour.
- Then, blend the soaked rice with water in a blender until it becomes a rice slurry.
- Strain the rice slurry with a strainer to remove clumps.
- Add sweet potato flour and a little bit of oil to the rice slurry and mix well. Set aside to let the glutens relax.
- Prepare your choice of filling, such as marinated pork liver, lean meat, shrimp, and beaten eggs. You can do the marinade step in advance for better flavor absorption.
- Mix the rice batter once more, take a flat plate or tray, and evenly spread a scoop of the rice batter. Spread the rice batter until it fully covers the tray like a thin sheet. Do not add too much rice batter. Otherwise, the rice noodle roll will be too thick. You can brush the tray with oil first to prevent the steamed rice noodles from sticking. Remember to mix the rice batter once more before spreading it onto the tray since the powder tends to settle at the bottom.
- After spreading the rice batter, add your filling ingredients, such as pork liver, lean meat, shrimp, and beaten eggs. Top it with some chopped green onions. Make sure the filling is drained and not too wet with the marinade. Otherwise, the extra moisture can affect the consistency of the batter and change the texture.
- Add water to the steamer and bring to a boil. Place the tray in the steamer over boiling water, cover with a lid, and steam for about 5 minutes until the mixture is set. You will know it is cooked when you see bubbles or air pockets inflating. Avoid opening the lid during steaming. Only put the tray in once the water boils, not before.
- Once cooked, roll up the Cheung Fun using a dough scraper.There's no need to let the cooked Cheung Fun cool before scraping it off the surface. If using two prepared trays, place the second tray in the steamer. While the second tray is steaming, you can roll the finished Cheung Fun to save time.
- After rolling up the Cheung Fun, drizzle peanut oil and light soy sauce for added flavor. Store the cooked Cheung Fun in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days or in the freezer for up to a month. To reheat, steam it again without thawing for 3 minutes or more.
