This Hanami Dango recipe is amazingly chewy and tender with the perfect amount of sweetness. Easy to make & requires just 3-ingredients to make this popular Japanese dessert!
Dango is one of those desserts that bring me right back to my childhood in grandmas small apartment. I was fortunate enough to travel to Japan every summer to visit my grandparents and eat so much good food. Every night, we would end the day with something sweet. My choice of dessert was always homemade dango and mochi over ice cream and cake. Something about chewy, tender, sticky morsels of subtly sweet rice cakes was so satisfying to eat. There are many different varieties of dango, but I wanted to first share a recipe for Hanami Dango because it’s beautiful and the most simplest to make.
What is Hanami Dango?
Hanami Dango, also called Sanshoku Dango (3 coloured dango) is another variant of the dango family. It is the iconic pink, white and green dango on a stick, there is even an emoji for it on iPhones! This special tri-coloured dango is sold year around, but is especially popular during the spring during the cherry blossom viewing. This is where the name Hanami Dango stems from where Hanami literally translates to “flower looking”.
What Does Hanami Dango Taste like?
Plain dango balls tastes like sweet rice. It sounds boring, but what makes this Japanese dessert so special is the texture. Chewy, tender, soft but still firm and toothsome. Some dangos comes with a topping such as sweetened black sesame paste, sweet soy sauce or anko (sweet red bean paste). However, Hanami Dango is served as is. The green dango typically is slightly earth because it is subtly flavoured with mugfort (yomogi), but matcha can also be used. The pink dango is also sometimes flavoured with sakura or strawberry powder but usually tastes the same as the white dango.
Dango Ingredients
Dango traditionally is made with only rice or rice flour. However, my grandma always incorporated tofu to achieve a more tender, soft and chewy texture. I’ve always made it with the addition of the tofu but was curious how it would turn out if I only used Japanese rice flour. I attempted to make dango with just rice flour and found it to be much more tough and not as springy in texture.
So to achieve soft and chewy dango with the right amount of firmness, these are the 3 main ingredients needed:
- glutinous rice flour or mochiko
- fresh silken tofu
- white sugar
To make green dango, I used matcha powder and for the pink dango, I used strawberry powder. The colouring really is for presentation purposes only, so you can still enjoy dango without the powders.
How to Make Hanami Dango Step by Step
Step 1: The first step is to make the dough by combining the tofu, flour and sugar in a large bowl. Use your hands to squeeze the mixture together, almost in a kneading motion until everything is well incorporated. Then divide the dough into 3 equal portions.
Step 2: Add the matcha powder into one portion of dough and mix until the colour is uniform. Add the strawberry powder or pink food colouring into another portion of dough and mix until the colour is uniform.
Step 3: Divide the dough into 5-6 equal sized pieces. For 5 pieces, each piece should weigh 14-15 grams. If 6 pieces, 11-12 grams each.
Step 4: Roll each piece into a ball using your palms.
TIP: To achieve perfect round balls, dust your hands with a little bit of rice flour so the don’t stick to your hands.
Step 5: Bring a pot of water to a boil and add the dango balls in. Let them cook until they start floating to the top. Then use a strainer ladle to scoop them out.
Step 6: Place the dango into a bowl of ice water to stop them from cooking. Step 7: Once cooled, place the dango balls in a bamboo skewer in this order: green, white pink. Repeat for the remaining balls.
And… thats it! Easy right? I hope this recipe leaves you inspired to make Hanami Dango right in your own kitchen! Stay tuned for more dango recipes coming in the near future!
If you recreate this Hanami Dango recipe let me know how you liked it by leaving a comment and rating below or by tagging me on Instagram @Okonomikitchen, I love seeing all of your tasty recreations!
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Hanami Dango
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 20 minutes
- Yield: 5 skewers 1x
Print Recipe
Pin RecipeDescription
This Hanami Dango recipe is amazingly chewy and tender with the perfect amount of sweetness. Easy to make & requires just 3-ingredients to make this popular Japanese dessert!
Ingredients
- 1/2 block of silken soft tofu (100g)
- 3/4 cup glutinous rice flour (90g)
- 1/4 cup white sugar (50g)
- 1/4 tsp strawberry powder*, optional
- 1/4 tsp matcha powder*, optional
- 5–6 bamboo skewer sticks
Instructions
- Weigh the rice flour, silken tofu and sugar and then add Into a large bowl. Mix well using your hands. Using a kneading motion until a dough forms.
- Divide the dough into three equal parts.
- Sift in the strawberry powder into one portion of the dough and knead until it forms a uniform pink colour.
- Sift in the matcha powder into another portion of the dough and knead well until it turns green.
- Divide each ball of dough into 5-6 balls. I weigh each ball to be around 14-15 grams each, this yields 5 skewers. For smaller balls, make them into 10-12 grams each.
- Bring a pot of water to a boil and add in the dango balls. Leave the dango balls to cook. Remove the dango balls when they rise to the top of the water. Scoop them out using a strainer ladle and place into a bowl of ice cold water to stop them from cooking further.
- Add one green dango ball onto a skewer. Follow with one white and one pink dango ball. Repeat for all 5-6 skewers then enjoy!
Notes
- Strawberry powder and matcha is added just for natural colour and a tiny bit of flavour, however is not essential or traditional. You can either leave out the colour entirely or food colour can be used instead.
- Nutritional Information Disclaimer: Nutrition information is a rough estimate calculated on an online tool (Cronometer) for 1 out of 5 skewers.
- Category: Desserts
- Method: Stove top
- Cuisine: Japanese
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 skewer
- Calories: 108
- Sugar: 8.2g
- Sodium: 4.8mg
- Fat: 0.6g
- Saturated Fat: 0
- Unsaturated Fat: 0
- Trans Fat: 0
- Carbohydrates: 22.7g
- Fiber: 0
- Protein: 2.2g
- Cholesterol: 0
Keywords: hanami dango, sanshoku dango
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Hi
Can I use sticky rice flour for this recipe?
I have bought 10 kg by excidend. Ups
Hi Marla!
Could you provide the brand name for me?
Lisa
Hi Lisa, really enjoyed watching your videos.
Thanks !!!
Hi Udi,
Thank you so much!
Hi, can you use other types of sugar?
Oh and by the way, I love your blog and I love that you also share japanese recipes and is even talking a bit about them them and such. Japan has such a fascinating food history and I love that there is meaning in every dish.
Hi Emily!
I would use white sugar if you want them to look nice. However, I’m sure you can use another dry sugar (not artificial sweeteners though). & thank you so much! I really appreciate it 🙂
Hey! Do you know how long you can keep these in fridge?
Hi Joanna!
They actually tend to get a little hard if placed in the fridge- it’s probably best to eat them fresh. BUT they will be okay for at least a day if you wrap it and place it in a container at room temp 🙂
Hey
Can i make and keep the dough in advance
And then boil it
How long will that stay…?
★★★★★
Hi Rajat!
I actually haven’t tried that! I’m thinking the dough might get a little dry, but you could try wrapping it securely to retain moisture. If you do try it out, let me know how it goes!
Can I make this ahead of time and possibly put in the refrigerator.
Hi Kayla!
They do tend to get a bit hard when places in the refrigerator. I recommend storing them at room temp in a cool-ish place 🙂
Delicious and well-written instructions. i followed everything except replaced sugar with monk fruit sugar. also love that your website doesn’t freeze up my browser with ads. Thank you for everything!
Thank you, happy to hear it was helpful 🙂
Hello, my rice flour actually says gluten free! Is there a way around this?
Way around what?
All rice is gluten-free; “glutenous” rice flour just means flour made from sticky (short-grain) rice. “Sweet” rice also means sticky. Don’t ask me why.
Do I have to use silken tofu? Or can i use normal tofu?
Hi Emma! To achieve the really soft texture you have to use silken tofu! If you can’t, you can also try fresh SOFT tofu nothing firmer than that. Goodluck!
This recipe is so easy and fun to make! Amazing that it has tofu 🤗 it came out perfectly chewy and colourful.
Thank you for the recipe !!
★★★★★
I used a slightly different recipe that only used glutinous and regular rice four. When I boiled it the dango balls just turned to goo. Did I get the wrong kind of rice flour?
Did you follow this recipe? There is no regular rice flour listed– I don’t recommend rice flour because that is not meant to make dango/mochi!
Um, I followed the directions, but I had to use ALot of strawberry powder… Also, they were hard to get cleanly on the skewer and the colors didn’t look anything like the pictures. Very disappointed
The strawberry powder is for colour, not flavour! The matcha you used might have been old which results in a darker green. Were the dangos fully cooked? What was the texture like before boiling?