How Many Calories Are in Xiao Long Bao (Soup Dumplings)?

July 28, 2026 · 5 min read

Xiao long bao are deceptive in a specific way: each individual dumpling is small enough to look harmless, so it's easy to lose count of how many you've actually eaten. A single piece is genuinely light. A basket is a full meal.

Per piece (standard pork xiao long bao)

Most people order more than one basket, or pair it with fried rice or noodles on the side — which is where a "light" appetizer quietly becomes the biggest part of the meal.

Where the calories actually come from

Each dumpling is mostly wrapper (a thin dough skin) and filling (seasoned pork plus a piece of aspic — jellied broth that melts into soup once steamed). The aspic itself is low-calorie; the pork fat content of the filling is what varies most between kitchens.

• Pure pork filling: the baseline in the table above
• Pork + crab roe: richer, typically +10–15 kcal per piece from the added fat
• Truffle or mushroom variations: similar to pure pork, sometimes slightly lower fat

Steamed vs. pan-fried (sheng jian bao)

Sheng jian bao — the pan-fried cousin with a crisped bottom — is a meaningfully different dish nutritionally, not just a cooking variation:

How Bao handles it

Bao counts xiao long bao per piece from a photo of the steamer basket, distinguishes steamed from pan-fried, and adjusts for crab-and-pork versus plain pork filling — rather than logging "dumplings" as one generic entry regardless of how many you actually ate.