Spring Lantern Festival sticky rice dumplings with osmanthus flowers 

15 minutes to prep 
30 minutes to cook 
4 servings

Description
​
It’s traditionally eaten with family on the 15th day after the Lunar New Year. 
Some restaurants serve dessert with osmanthus flowers. Studies show osmanthus flowers have antioxidants. Here are some studies and precautions on osmanthus flowers. 

Unlike some rice dumplings, these are made without animal lard or butter and wheat starch. 

Each sticky rice dumpling for certain Chinese holidays has its own name. And all of them aren’t “mochi,” a Japanese word. In Mandarin, this dumpling is sometimes called yuanxiao 元宵 for the Lantern Festival in Northern China. On Winter Solstice Day, it’s called tangyuan 湯園. But most people I know call them tangyuan.


Where to get more affordable, bulk ingredients

You might be able to get ingredients below more affordably and without plastic packaging from bulk bins at places below. Also, it’s legal to put unpackaged food in your own containers at food providers, such as stores, restaurants, farmer’s markets, and food trucks (at least in California and Maine).

Tea, herb, or natural food shops:
  • Osmanthus flowers

Natural food stores
  • Glutinous rice flour

Ingredients

Soup:
  • 5 cups water
  • 3 inch piece of ginger, sliced
  • 2 tablespoon sugar-free monkfruit (a fruit grown in China) or another sweetener. Monkfruit is safe for diabetics. The only plastic-free and organic monkfruit I could find is by SweetLeaf.

Dough:
  • 2 cups glutinous rice flour
  • ¾ cup room temperature water
  • 1 tablespoon sweet osmanthus flower (guìhuā 桂花, sometimes called “sweet olive”). I couldn’t find a plastic-free brand. But the only brand selling osmanthus that I found that claims to visit farms to make sure teas aren’t sprayed with pesticides is Spirit Tea.

Instructions

Prepare soup:
  1. Put ginger in a covered pot with 5 cups water. I use a glass pot so I can see when the water is boiling.  If you can, avoid non-stick cookware because they can have toxic PFAS. 
  2. Add monkfruit or other sweetener.
  3. Put the lid on. Turn on high heat. Once water boils, turn heat to medium.

Prepare dough:
  1. When soup is simmering:
  2. Put 1 3/4 cups of flour in a bowl.
  3. Add room temperature water and stir.
  4. Knead with hands until smooth and divide into 12 equal portions.
  5. If dough is too dry or cracking, add a teaspoon of room temperature water at a time and knead the dough gently until it is soft and not sticky. 
  6. If dough sticks to your fingers, add one teaspoon of glutinous rice flour at a time and gently knead the dough until it is soft and not sticky. 

Cook dumplings:
  1. After soup simmers for at least 15 minutes, remove ginger from soup with ladle spoon.
  2. Gently lower balls into boiling water, stirring occasionally so they don’t stick to each other or the pot. 
  3. Lower the heat to a slow boil. 
  4. Cook for about 6 minutes or until your balls float to the top, stirring periodically.
  5. Turn off heat.
  6. Add osmanthus flowers. Let steep for 3 minutes while soup cools.
  7. With a soup spoon, ladle soup and balls into serving bowls. 

Leftovers

If you have leftover uncooked dumplings, freeze them in a container. Gently reboil them until they float.
​
If you have leftover cooked dumplings, refrigerate and eat them ideally within four days by gently reboiling them until they’re warm.

Updated August 21, 2026

This content is not available for artificial intelligence (AI) or AI training.
All rights reserved. Copyright © Jessian Choy 2023-present