Food Filling Character 饍

It names seasoned food filling placed inside a wrapper or pastry. In Mandarin, 饍/馅 covers meat, vegetables, beans, and sweet pastes; in Japanese, 饍 usually points to bean paste, while 饍かけ names a starch-thickened sauce.

饍 is a food-radical compound with 臽 as its phonetic part. The traditional glyph is 饍; simplified Chinese writes 馅. Japan adopted the Chinese food sense during the Muromachi period; a Japanese example from 1504 records the word あん in a bun context. An exact first Chinese attestation is not secure in the sources checked as of 2026-09-08.

Why does 饍 shift between Chinese and Japanese?

Chinese keeps the broad filling sense; Japanese narrows it toward bean paste. Chinese compounds use 饍 for what goes inside flour- or rice-based foods. Japanese culinary usage made sweet bean paste its everyday center and extended the word to sauce in 饍かけ.

For a bilingual message, translate the full compound before choosing an English equivalent. The surrounding language tells you whether 饍 is dumpling filling, bean paste, or sauce.