Bao buns substitutes

Supermarket brioche-style, potato or Hawaiian-style rolls, split most of the way through and warmed.

Best for

pork belly gua bao, fried chicken bao, feeding a crowd

The realistic answer for most kitchens. Straight from the bag they are wrong in two ways: they have a browned crust that fights a soft filling, and they taste richer and more buttery, so pork belly bao made with them eats like a slider. Both problems shrink if you wrap the split rolls in a damp tea towel and steam them for three to four minutes. Serve immediately, because steamed bread turns tough as it cools.

Plain white steamed buns from the freezer section of an Asian grocery, the same dough as bao without the fold or filling.

Best for

gua bao, any bao filling, the closest possible match

This is the same product under a different name and a different shape, so nothing about the flavour or texture changes. Steam from frozen for eight to ten minutes, then split them with a serrated knife rather than tearing, since the crumb is tender and shreds. Round mantou hold slightly less filling than a purpose-made folded gua bao, so expect to make one or two extra.

Soft wheat tortillas, doubled up so they do not tear under a wet filling.

Best for

pork belly, crispy tofu, gluten-light quick fix

Structurally excellent and the fold is identical, which is why bao fillings work so well as tacos. What you lose is the whole point of bao, the pillow: a tortilla has almost no crumb, so you go from a soft cushion around the filling to a thin flexible wrapper. Double them and warm them in a dry pan for 20 seconds a side. Corn tortillas also work but the corn flavour reads clearly and takes the dish somewhere else.

Plain soft sliced white bread with the crusts cut off, flattened slightly with a rolling pin and steamed before folding.

Best for

gua bao, using what is already in the house

It sounds like a compromise and it is, but it works better than almost anyone expects, because supermarket white bread is a soft low-crust enriched dough not far from bao dough. Two minutes in the steamer turns it slightly translucent, springy and fold-friendly. The differences are a faintly gummier chew and a plainer, wheatier taste with none of bao's gentle sweetness, so a pinch of sugar in the filling helps.

Cupped raw lettuce leaves used as a cool, crisp wrapper instead of a warm soft one.

Best for

low-carb bao fillings, gluten-free, rich fatty fillings

A genuinely nice dish, but understand what changes. Bao dough is doing two jobs beyond holding the filling: it is soft and warm against something rich, and its faint sweetness and starch balance fat. Lettuce provides neither, so pork belly in a lettuce cup can taste greasy and one-note. Put a tablespoon of steamed rice in the leaf first and the balance comes back almost entirely.

Soft flatbreads and split breads that hold a wet filling without falling apart.

Best for

saucy braised fillings, packed lunches, improvising

Reliable and sturdy, and the pocket of a pita is genuinely useful for a saucy filling that would run out of a folded bao. The trade is chew and dryness: all three are firmer and drier than bao, with a bready flavour of their own, so the filling has to be juicy and generously sauced or the whole thing eats dry. Warm them until flexible, never toast them crisp.

A simple yeasted steamed dough, rested about an hour, shaped and steamed for ten to twelve minutes.

Best for

filled baozi, when the bun itself is the dish, batch cooking and freezing

Say the honest thing here: for gua bao, where the bun is a holder, any soft roll will do. For baozi, where a filling is sealed inside a bun and steamed, there is no substitute at all, because the dough is the dish. If you cannot get bao and cannot make dough, turn the filling into something else, such as a rice bowl or a wrap. Use cake flour, or all-purpose with two tablespoons per cup swapped for cornstarch; bread flour makes them chewy and slightly grey.