Tapioca Pearl Balls Recipe

This recipe for Homemade Tapioca Pearls (Boba) is simple to make with only 3 ingredients. These chewy, round spheres are a delightful addition to milk tea or fruit drinks.

If you've been around an Asian mall food court, you will have seen them: pastel-coloured drinks with neon-coloured wide fat straws sticking up and black mini spherical balls on the bottom.

It's a tea-based drink consisting of tapioca pearls (more commonly known as boba in the States) and was invented in the late '80s in Taiwan.

How To Cook Tapioca Pearls For Boba & Bubble Tea

Next, pour into the boiling hot water to the starch and mix with a spoon or spatula until a shaggy dough forms. (It may look dry at first. Don't add too much water at first or else your mixture will turn into a gooey mess). (Step 3 and 4 below)

Use your hands to knead the dough until it becomes smooth, pliable and not chalky (similar to the texture of play-doh). (Step 5 below)

If the dough is a little too dry, add a little bit of water to it and knead until it comes together.

Mango Sago (coconut Tapioca Pudding)

Form the dough into a long rope about 1 cm in diameter, and use a dough scraper or sharp knife to cut into 1 cm pieces (Step 6 below).

Use a slotted spoon to remove pearls and place the cooked tapioca pearls into the brown sugar. Give the mixture a stir (Step 9 above).

Serve the homemade tapioca boba pearls in a classic green or black tea, such as HK-style Milk Tea Bubble Tea or Matcha Latte.

Homemade Boba Pearls

Make sure that the water is boiling hot. If the temperature of the water is not hot enough, the dough will not form.

I found that straining the tapioca pearls and adding them right to the brown sugar (without water) created a stronger flavoured syrup -- and some of the residual water ends up dissolving the brown sugar anyhow.

You can leave the tapioca boba pearls to soak in the brown sugar syrup for a longer period of time, which will absorb more flavour.

Brown Tapioca Pearls Or Boba Balls Recipe By Zma

For a tea twist on the tapioca pearls, add 1 black tea bag to the brown sugar and let the pearls soak in the brown sugar tea syrup.

Be sure to let me know if you try my recipe -- tag me on Instagram @ or leave me a comment/rating below!

Note 1: Tapioca pearls can be kept at room temperature soaking the syrup for up to 4 hours. You may choose to store leftover tapioca pearls in the refrigerator. Before serving, heat the chilled tapioca pearls in hot boiling water for 1-2 minutes. This prevents the tapioca pearls from being too tough and chewy from being cold while stored in the refrigerator.

Blue Butterfly Pea Boba Pearl Balls

Note 2: If you don't care about the colour, you can leave the activated charcoal out. It will taste the same, minus the black colour. The tapioca pearls will just look more brown than black, and that's how I would actually prefer them.

Calories: 87 kcal | Carbohydrates: 23 g | Protein: 1 g | Sodium: 3 mg | Potassium: 19 mg | Sugar: 12 g | Calcium: 10 mg | Iron: 1 mg

The nutritional information provided should be considered as approximate and is not guaranteed. Please use your best judgment to ensure food is safely prepared and/or a good fit for your diet.

Homemade Tapioca Pearls Aka Boba Pearls — Damn, Spicy!

I'm Michelle, an avid home cook and self-taught baker with over 18 years of experience in the kitchen. On my website, you'll find creative, modern Asian baking recipes, matcha green tea recipes and traditional recipes inspired by my Chinese and Southeast Asian heritage. With easy-to-follow instructions alongside tried-and-tested recipes, I'll assist you in creating delicious dishes in the comfort of your own kitchen.Learn how to make black tapioca pearls or boba pearls from scratch with this simple tutorial. You'll only need 3 main ingredients. It is so easy and fun to make and much better than using the store-bought dried ones.

Making your own boba pearls is really easy and it could be a fun and rewarding project for the family. Plus you can have bubble teas anytime the cravings hits and save some bucks too. I also find that fresh tapioca pearls are much better than the dried ones. They cook faster, for one and you know exactly what's in it. They are just like the ones we had in bubble teas when we were in Taipei.

Actually, I get mixed reviews with this tapioca pearls recipe. There are a lot who were able to make it successfully without any problem, there those who were able to work it out and there are those who are not so lucky. I collected some tips and advices from our readers who tried making it and I did some more trials to find out what works and what doesn't so please read the whole post.

How To Cook White Tapioca Pearls (step By Step)

Tapioca pearls or balls are small, edible orbs, slightly smaller than marbles that are typically used for desserts and drinks in Southeast Asian cuisine. They are made from the starch or cassava roots that gives them their chewy, transluscent characteristics. They also have neutral flavors and are sometimes soaked in sugar syrup to sweeten them.

There are just two main ingredients for making tapioca pearls, tapioca starch and water. The tapioca starch is the starch extracted from the cassava roots. Sometimes also called cassava starch, but do not confuse it with cassava flour as the latter is typically powdered cassava roots. The other ingredient is water that binds the starch together to form a dough. For it to work it must be boiling hot.

Dark brown sugar can be added to give them a darker shade and make them sweet. But for the real black color, you have to use food coloring.

Making Perfect Tapioca Pearl Milk Tea

If using dried boba pearls, add the balls in a pot of boiling water. Cover and cook for several minutes depending on the size of the balls, 15 minutes for the tiny ones and 30 minutes or up to an hour for the bigger ones. Just cook them until there is no longer a white or solid core visible. You may need to add more water if it starts to get too thick and slimy.

This recipe will make about a cup of tapioca balls or about 2-3 servings. You can make a bigger batch, but I will not really recommend it. First, because fresh ones cooks faster and has better texture and they are not that difficult to make anyway. Second, working in smaller scale is easier and more manageable. Bigger scale means bigger dough and if you have nobody helping you to roll them into those tiny balls, the dough will start to dry up and will no longer be as pliable and you might have difficulty forming the balls.

But in case you like to make them ahead or was not able to use them all up at once, here are my tips for storage:

Pork Stuffed Tapioca Pearls: Saku Sai Moo(สาคูไส้หมู)

To store fresh uncooked tapioca pearls, place the balls on a plate and just leave them on the kitchen counter for a day or two to dry up completely. Then transfer them to a container or jar for future use.

To store cooked tapioca pearls, place them on a container with lid and add sugar syrup or water to cover. Refrigerate for up to 3 days. For longer storage, place them in a Ziplock bag and remove as much air as you can, then freeze.

Using room temperature water will not work! It has to be boiling hot, directly from the pot/kettle of boiling water would be best. Once the hot water is added to the tapioca starch, it will cook the part it touches that will turn into transparent slime in seconds. This will act as a paste while you fold in the rest of the starch to make the dough.

How To Make Boba Pearls At Home (tapioca Pearls From Scratch)

If the dough is too crumbly and won't form, then water was not enough. Like I said it could be that the starch you got absorbs more liquid than others. Do this instead: Initially use only 2:1 ratio to make the dough, it might be too soft and sticky then just add a bit more of tapioca starch until you get a play-dough consistency.

You can skip the food color and have plain transparent balls instead. You can also add dark brown sugar to the water and boil them together and use that to make brown balls.

Learn how to make black tapioca pearls (boba pearls) from scratch with this simple tutorial. It is so easy and fun to make and much better than using the dried one.

How To Make Bubble Tea (boba)

Calories: 79 kcal Carbohydrates: 20 g Protein: 0 g Fat: 0 g Saturated Fat: 0 g Cholesterol: 0 mg Sodium: 0 mg Sugar: 0 g Iron: 0.3 mgLearn how to make tapioca pearls (boba) with perfect springy and toothsome chewiness. In this recipe, I’ll explain how to make boba in a variety of colors: plain white, green, brown, and black.

) is one of my favorite beverages. I love the experience of sipping chilled sweetened milk tea and munching on chewy tapioca pearls (boba). I tend to make bubble tea at