Bánh Ú (Vietnamese Pyramid Sticky Rice Cakes with Pork & Mung Beans)

If you’re celebrating Vietnamese Lunar New Year (Tết) and want to impress your family, friends, and even your ancestors, try making Bánh Ú.

What is Banh U?

Bánh Ú is a traditional Vietnamese glutinous rice cake filled with pork belly and mung beans, wrapped in banana leaves. It’s known for its pyramid shape, with either a triangular or square base.

If you’re familiar with Bánh Tét or Bánh Chưng, Bánh Ú is essentially their single-serving cousin.

The filling in all three of these rice cakes is the same—only the shape differs. Bánh Tét is cylindrical (log-shaped), Bánh Chưng is square, and Bánh Ú is a triangle or pyramid.

Bánh Tét and Bánh Chưng are great for a crowd—slice them up and pan-fry for a crispy, golden crust.

Bánh Ú, on the other hand, is perfect for one person (or two). Unwrap it like a little present and dig in with a spoon.

Chinese Zongzi

Bánh Ú is very similar to Zongzi, a traditional Chinese rice cake wrapped in bamboo leaves.

While Zongzi is traditionally wrapped in bamboo leaves, Bánh Ú is always wrapped in banana leaves, which give it a distinct aroma and flavor.

Modern Cooking Tips

Traditionally, Bánh Ú is boiled for hours—up to 8! But with modern tools like a pressure cooker or Instant Pot, you can cut that time down significantly.

If you’re short on time this Tết, a pressure cooker will save you. You will have more time to tackle other Tet tasks—like the ever-joyous fun of cleaning your entire house.

In this recipe, we are using an 8-quart Instant Pot pressure cooker to cook these babies in, not 8 hours, but 2.5 hours.

What You Will Need

To make Bánh Ú at home, gather the following ingredients and kitchen items:

• Pork Belly: Pork belly is readily available at Asian supermarkets. If pork belly is unavailable, you can substitute it with pork shoulder, also referred to as pork butt. Pork shoulder is a less fatty alternative.
• Glutinous Rice: Glutinous rice is also known as sweet rice. Make sure that the package says sweet rice or glutinous rice to ensure you are getting the right kind.
• Mung Beans: Look for dried split mung beans. Look for them in the dry goods aisles in clear bags. Choose the very thin variety. While shopping at 99 Ranch Market, I noticed two types of split mung beans. One, located in the Middle Eastern cuisine section, was much thicker and typically labeled as Moong Dal or Mung Dal. Avoid those. You want the one in the regular Asian section, which is thinner and doesn’t include those labels.
• Seasonings: To season the pork belly, we will be using shallots, salt, sugar, fish sauce, ground black pepper, Want a bit more flavor, add a pinch of MSG but that’s entirely optional.
• Banana Leaves: You can typically find banana leaves at Asian supermarkets, usually in the freezer section, packaged in large rectangular clear packets.
• Pressure cooker: I’m using an 8-quart Instant Pot pressure cooker for this recipe. If you have a smaller one, you’ll need to cook in two batches. Alternatively and traditionally, you can use a large stock pot and boil for about 8 hours on the stovetop.
• Strings: For tying the rice cakes, you can use twine or those colorful plastic strings commonly found in the houseware section of Asian supermarkets.

How to Make Banh U

Step 1: Overnight Preparations

Rice: Rinse the dried glutinous rice in a colander until water runs clear. Transfer to a mixing bowl and cover with water. Cover the bowl and let it soak overnight on the counter or at least 4 hours.

Mung Beans: Repeat the same process for the dried mung beans.

Pork: To remove surface impurities and any unwanted odor, generously rub the pork belly with salt. Rinse thoroughly under running water to remove the salt and pat the pork belly dry with paper towels. Slice pork belly into small chunks and season with salt, sugar, fish sauce, ground black pepper, shallots, and MSG (if using).

Banana Leaves: Thaw the banana leaves if frozen. Cut out 24 sheets of roughly 11×11-inches. They do not have to be perfect squares. Use 2 sheets per Banh U so there will be a total of 12 rice cakes.

If you have extras, keep them in case of tearing.

Rinse sheets with hot water to clean. The hot water also makes them more pliable and less prone to tearing. Dry each sheet with paper towels.

Step 2: Next Day Assembly

Place one banana leaf with the shiny side down. This makes an attractive wrapping as the glossy, green side of the banana leaves face outward.

Place another banana leaf on top with shiny side up with veins running the opposite way.

This arrangement imparts a beautiful light green color and banana leaf aroma to the rice cakes when they finish cooking.

Now, wrap the Bánh Ú with string as best as you can. The general rule is place one end of the string (leaving a bit of slack for tying) in one spot by holding it down with your thumb and tuck the string around each corner as snugly as possible without breaking the banana leaves.

As you can see from the picture above, some are wrapped in banana leaves and tied with string, while others are wrapped in foil first, then tied with string. Do whatever works best for you.

Using foil over the banana leaves is the easiest option because it quickly holds the leaves in place. Some people use plastic saran wrap instead of foil, which probably would have been easier if I’d thought of it in the moment—but sadly, I didn’t.

Step 3: Pressure Cooking

Add the cakes into the inner pot of the pressure cooker. Add water to the maximum fill line. Add a heavy ceramic plate to the top to keep the rice cakes from floating (don’t worry, ceramic will not explode in a pressure cooker).

Pressure cook on high for two hours and 30 minutes. It will take about 30 minutes to come to pressure.

Once done, allow the pressure cooker to depressurize on its own (about 40 minutes). Once it’s safe to open the lid, remove ceramic plate and transfer the rice cakes to a wire rack to drain. Pat dry with paper towels if needed.

Step 4: Serving

Allow the rice cakes to cool to warm or room temperature and enjoy.

Serve it with Vietnamese Fermented Dried Daikon in Fish Sauce (Dưa Món) for the ultimate taste of Vietnamese Lunar New Year.

The top and bottom Bánh Ú are the ones I got from Thanh Son Tofu in Sacramento. If you’re ever in the area and don’t feel like making this, pick some up from there and call it a day. They were delicious!

Storage & Reheating

If you have extra Banh U’s, wrap the cooked rice cakes in plastic wrap to shield them from air exposure. Store them in the fridge for up to one week or in the freezer for up to 8 months.

To reheat Bánh Ú, microwave it in 30-second intervals until heated through. If it’s wrapped in foil, be sure to remove that before reheating. You definitely don’t want to start a fire—who needs that kind of excitement in the New Year?

Recipe below. Happy cooking and from my family to yours, chúc mừng năm mới!

Other Tết Recipes

If you enjoy this recipe, you might like these other traditional dishes for the Lunar New Year celebrations:

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