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Cheng Teng - Longan and Snow Fungus Sweet Soup

An easy recipe to prepare Chinese longan and snow fungus sweet soup (Cheng Teng), with jujube/red dates and lotus seeds. Vegan, gluten-free, and sugar-free.
Cheng Teng (清汤) - Longan and Snow Fungus Sweet Soup
Cheng Teng (清汤) - Longan and Snow Fungus Sweet Soup

Longan and snow fungus sweet soup is a very basic but very delicious Chinese sweet soup. This sweet soup can be served hot when the weather is biting cold, and it is also amazingly refreshing served chilled during hot summer days.

Cheng Teng (清汤) is what we call this soup in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. My version is very simple with minimal ingredients, but you can always add more Chinese herbs to make this into a deluxe version.

Incidentally, this dessert soup is vegan friendly, and gluten-free. Also, all the dried fruits used in the soup lend enough sweetness, and most of the time I don’t even add any more sugar to this soup, talk about healthy!

Ingredients for Longan and Snow Fungus Sweet Soup
Ingredients for Longan and Snow Fungus Sweet Soup

What you need to prepare longan and snow fungus sweet soup

Here are what I use to prepare a batch of longan and snow fungus sweet soup:

  • 1 dried snow fungus (白木耳 - bai mu er)
  • 80-100 gram dried longan (桂圆肉 - gui yuan rou), using more means sweeter soup
  • 8-12 dried red dates (红枣 - hong zao), I tend to use 12 since more red dates means sweeter soup
  • 25 gram dried lotus seeds (莲子 - lian zi), this is totally optional, but I love a bit of contrast in texture the lotus seeds provide against all the other ingredients

What if I want a sweeter soup

I treat this sweet soup as healthy dessert, and as such, I try to steer clear from adding unnecessary ingredients, even sugar. But if you find the soup lacks sweetness, you can try adding rock sugar or palm sugar.

A better alternative though, is to add even more ingredients to the soup which add natural sweetness, such as peach gum, monk fruit/luo han guo, candied winter melon, and dried persimmon. If you choose this alternative, simply add them with the rest of the ingredients when boiling the soup.

Longan and Snow Fungus Sweet Soup
Longan and Snow Fungus Sweet Soup

Optional add-on ingredients for a deluxe version of Cheng Teng

There are other ingredients you can add to make your Cheng Teng more complete. Some popular choices include:

  • job’s tears/pearl barley (薏米 - yi mi)
  • malva nuts (胖⼤海 - pang da hai)
  • ginkgo nuts (白果 - bai guo)
  • sago/tapioca pearls
  • pandan leaves

How to prepare Chinese longan and snow fungus dessert soup.

Cut off small pieces from the snow fungus with a scissor. Discard the yellow tough center.

Place the snow fungus, longan, lotus seeds, jujube fruits, and water in a soup pot. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until the snow fungus is soft, about 1 1/2 hour to 2 hours.

Test for the level of sweetness and only add rock sugar/palm sugar if needed. Stir until the sugar is fully dissolved.

Turn off heat. Serve warm or chilled.

Cheng Teng (清汤) - Longan and Snow Fungus Sweet Soup
Cheng Teng (清汤) - Longan and Snow Fungus Sweet Soup

Cheng Teng - Longan and Snow Fungus Sweet Soup

5.0 from 10 reviews

Author: Anita Jacobson

Categories:   

Cuisines: 

Ingredients: 

Prep Time: 10 mins

Cook Time: 2 hours

Total Time: 2 hours 10 mins

Serves: 8

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Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Cut off small pieces from the snow fungus with a scissor. Discard the yellow tough center.
  2. Place the snow fungus, longan, lotus seeds, jujube fruits, and water in a soup pot. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until the snow fungus is soft, about 1 1/2 hour to 2 hours.
  3. Test for the level of sweetness and only add rock sugar/palm sugar if needed. Stir until the sugar is fully dissolved.
  4. Turn off heat. Serve warm or chilled.
Indonesian Pantry
Indonesian Kitchen

Comments

  • Jessie Jessie says:

    This sound interesting definitely something I have never tried before however I am adding it to my list to try both hot and cold! I am pretty sure I will need to find a specialty store to get some of the ingredients for this.

  • Sarah Sarah says:

    Time to see if I can get my hands on the dried snow fungus at our local Asian supermarket. This looks like such an interesting dish.

  • Adrianne Adrianne says:

    This looks lie a very culturally unique recipe! I love how authentic it is. The flavours sounds interesting and I am enjoying reading something so different. Thanks for a great post!

  • Veena Azmanov Veena Azmanov says:

    I have never tried this soup ever. Something totally unique to me. Looks amazing and delicious. All combinations totally new to me, so a must try option.

  • Beth Beth says:

    I've never heard of this dish before but it looks amazing! The colors and flavors look just like something that I will love, so this is a must try!

  • Ral Ral says:

    I just discovered your blog - thank you for all these recipes! Reminds me of home. I also add ginger slices in the winter to warm up the soup.

  • Joshua Lim Joshua Lim says:

    Thank you for the recipe. Just what I need.

  • Nic Nic says:

    Wow, this was delicious! We love longan but hadn't had snow fungus before, so I wasn't sure what to think, but it was very good!

  • Sharon Sharon says:

    So delicious! This is another recipe I have not tried before and it turned out really nice. I am lucky to have a number of Asian groceries close by to get these ingredients.

  • Carrie Robinson Carrie Robinson says:

    I have never heard of snow fungus before, but this soup looks amazing! Perfect bowl of comfort food. :)

  • Gwynn Galvin Gwynn Galvin says:

    This was the first time I ever tasted this soup and I am hooked! Thank you for this recipe. I will definitely be making it again.

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