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Home / Recipes / Chinese

Taro Balls Recipe: A Traditional Taiwanese Dessert

Last Updated: Dec 31, 2021 · Author: Juliet Huang · Jump to Recipe

Taro balls are a famous Taiwanese dessert, which you can certainly make at home to enjoy. This article explains what this dessert is and provides a tested recipe for you to try making it yourself!

Taro balls, sweet potato balls, and herbal jelly dessert
A traditional bowl of delicious Taiwanese dessert. | Image from sf.foodcravs
Jump to:
  • What is it?
  • Calories
  • How to enjoy
  • Ingredients
  • How to make Taro balls
  • Cooking Tips
  • How to Store
  • Taro Ball and Sweet Potato Ball Recipe | Taiwanese Dessert
  • Conclusion

What is it?

Taro balls may look grey or purple depending on the root vegetable used. Taste-wise, they are slightly sticky with a starchy flavour. 

They are also known as taro and sweet potato balls. That’s because this dessert commonly uses both taro (also known as dasheen) or sweet potato root vegetables. 

The former root plant is purplish, resulting in a purple-greyish hue when steamed. Hence, some people also call this dessert purple potato balls. Meanwhile, sweet potato produces a light orange hue when cooked. When served together, the colour balances each other providing aesthetically pleasing taro balls and sweet potatoes dessert.

Traditional Taiwanese dessert with a variety of toppings
Oftentimes, this refreshing dessert is served together with herbal jelly and milk. | Image from foodieadbrentures

Calories

Taro balls are approximately 150 calories alone without any soup. In other words, it requires about 25 minutes of cycling to burn off. 

However, many consider this traditional Taiwanese dessert a healthy treat. This is because it contains minimal added sugar and no added fat. 

How to enjoy

You can eat this traditional Tawinesse dessert hot or cold. Many Asian grandmothers recommend drinking a soothing ginger syrup taro ball soup regularly. Ginger is supposed to be good for warming the body and boosting vitality. Another way to eat it is over shaved ice, common in Asia where some parts of the continent can get hot in Summer. 

Generous helpings of the Taiwanese dessert are layered over thin toppings of shaved iced to make a nice cold treat. You will also see the taro balls in coconut milk, which is good for balancing the flavour of creamy coconut milk. 

You may also have seen the dessert in boba tea. What is the difference between taro balls versus boba? The former has a melt in your mouth texture. This difference is because the root vegetables used to make these desserts are different. Many bubble tea shops usually use cassava to make the boba in your boba tea, which results in a springy texture. 

Grass jelly and sweet condensed milk are other toppings that are usually added. Check out our Grass Jelly recipe to make a cooling base for your desserts. 

Dessert with bean curd, grass jelly, ai-yu jelly, black pearl and taro balls
A sweet dessert containing bean curd, grass jelly, ai-yu jelly, black pearls and taro balls. | Image from thebelly_eats

Ingredients

To make taro balls, you will need dasheen, sweet potato and tapioca starch. Look out for peeled vegetables, as they are easier to handle than dicing them yourself. We also recommend that you buy purple sweet potato with purple flesh so that the final dessert is a brilliant hue of purple. You can buy these at any Asian supermarket. If you can’t find sweet potato starch, you can also try corn flour. 

If you use tapioca flour instead of sweet potato starch, you will get a slightly chewier, elastic texture that you can sink your teeth into. On the other hand, sweet potato starch produces a much softer product! 

Pre-cooked dasheen balls
Beautiful and vibrant pre-cooked balls of dasheen. | Image from visitedencenter

How to make Taro balls

To make taro balls, just steam diced dasheen. Smash all of them and add sugar into the mixture. 

Next, add tapioca flour, then knead to form a spherical shape. You can add water if the mix is too dry and flour when the mixture gets too wet. 

Finally, boil them in hot water for a few minutes, and serve hot or cold based on your preference. 

Cooking Tips

To make your taro balls successfully, you need to note that more flour means that the final product will be chewier. A tip is that dasheen has the most starch content while sweet potato has less. 

So, the flour to root vegetable ratio will differ depending on what root vegetable you decide to use. You can try a 1: 2 balance of mixing flour to the root vegetable, to begin with. However, take note that adding too much flour will make the dessert crack, so adjust accordingly. 

Another tip is to boil the root vegetables for about 15 to 20 minutes to make them soft. 

Lastly, to achieve a smooth round shape, roll the flour mixture into a log of 2cm in diameter. Then cut them out and dust the dessert generously with flour. They do not have to be perfectly spherical to look delicious! 

How to Store

While this dessert is best eaten fresh, you can freeze the dessert in an airtight container filled with baking paper. 

So how do you cook frozen taro balls? First, you need to boil them in a large pot and stir until they come to the surface. After a few minutes of boiling, strain them and transfer them to ice-cold water. 

Taro balls, sweet potato balls, and herbal jelly dessert

Taro Ball and Sweet Potato Ball Recipe | Taiwanese Dessert

In this section, we’ll find out how to make taro balls! The traditional Taiwanese dessert is perfect as a light snack or for afternoon tea. This easy recipe takes just 40 minutes of prep time and 10 minutes of cook time. 
Author: Juliet Huang
4.77 from 17 votes
Print Pin
Course: Dessert, Snack
Cuisine: Taiwan
Keyword: sweet potato, taro
Servings: 4 servings
Calories: 184kcal
Prep Time: 40 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients

Taro Balls

  • 200 g peeled taro
  • 70-90 g tapioca flour
  • 1-3 tablespoon sugar if needed optional
  • Water as required for adjusting

Sweet Potato Balls

  • 100 g peeled sweet potato 
  • 30-50 g tapioca flour
  • 1-3 tablespoon sugar if needed optional
  • Water as required for adjusting

Instructions

  • Cut the sweet potatoes and taro into small cubes. Steam for 15 to 30 minutes until soft.
    Steam the cut root vegetables until soft
  • Thoroughly smash taro, and mix in the sugar while it is still hot. Add tapioca flour in. Knead to form a softball, add water and flour if needed. Repeat the same steps for the sweet potato.
    Mash the root vegetables before adding tapioca flour
  • Cut each root vegetable dough into equal portions. Shape each one into a long thin log (around 1.5cm in diameter). Cut them into small dices. Then, dust the small diced pieces with some sweet potato starch to avoid sticking to the surface. 
    Cut the taro doughs into small pieces and dust them with tapioca flour
  • Boil a pot of water before lowering the taro balls and sweet potato balls. Add two tablespoons of cold water when they float. Continue cooking for 2-3 minutes, and you’re ready to serve. 
    Cook them in boiling water until they float

Notes

  • You can add ginger and brown sugar to hot water. Or you can serve the dessert cold with some ice-cold aiyu jelly, another popular option in many boba tea shops. 
  • If you would like, you could also add purple sweet potato or pumpkin into the mix to get a greater variety of colours and flavours! The ratio of flour to these root vegetables will be about the same (1:1).
 

Nutrition

Calories: 184kcalCarbohydrates: 46gProtein: 1gSodium: 19mgPotassium: 385mgFiber: 3gSugar: 7gVitamin A: 3585IUVitamin C: 3mgCalcium: 29mgIron: 1mg

Calories have been calculated using an online calculator. Nutritional information offered on Honest Food Talks is for general information purposes and are only rough estimations.

Tried this recipe?Follow us @honestfoodtalks for more delicious recipes!

Wondering how the whole process looks like? Panda Gourmand on Youtube has an excellent video recipe showing the whole process of making the Taiwanese Tri-color dessert!

Taiwanese Tri-color Taro Balls |台湾三色芋圆❗️

Conclusion

You can serve this easy to create Taiwanese dessert on a hot day or cold night. We hope you like this recipe, and please follow us on Instagram @honestfoodtalks for more Asian desserts! 

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Loiana

    October 07, 2022 at 6:23 am

    Wow it amazing so very delicious.

    Reply
  2. Ann

    January 18, 2022 at 7:32 pm

    5 stars
    Loved eating this when i went to Chinatown the other day and wanted to eat them! Theyre vegan friendly too so perfect for my hubbie and I

    Reply
  3. Ruiz

    January 10, 2022 at 8:46 pm

    5 stars
    My mum and I love eating this at home! Looking forward to try making this at my new place

    Reply

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