Open a green banana leaf gently and what appears inside is a cluster of small, wobbly, translucent pearls. Here and there pieces of yellow banana are tucked in, and when you press it with a finger it springs back with a chew. Move it to a bowl and pour over warmed coconut milk, and a sweet aroma rises from the plate. In Papua New Guinea, a country made up of the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and the islands around it, these steamed sago dumplings, saksak, have long been eaten for breakfast and as a snack.
Starch from a palm trunk, wrapped in banana leaf
The star of saksak is sago. It is the starch taken from the trunk of the sago palm, and in Papua New Guinea it is one of the important staples alongside taro and sweet potato. The starch is made into dumplings, pancakes and porridge in its powdered form, and is used in both sweet and savory dishes. The tour company Intrepid Travel describes the texture of sago as similar to cassava or tapioca pearls.
The Papua New Guinean diet centers on fruit and tubers, and plant foods rather than meat are the stars. Fish, seafood and chicken are also eaten often, but pork is said to be kept for special celebrations. In that way of life, saksak, made only of familiar plants (sago, banana and coconut), has been loved as an everyday sweet pleasure.
The traditional Papua New Guinean cooking method called mumu wraps meat, tubers and vegetables in banana leaves and steams them in a pit in the ground lined with heated stones. Saksak is likewise wrapped in banana leaves and steamed, so a faint green scent from the leaf passes into it.
There is no fixed amount for the recipe, because local cooks make it by eye. The American food blogger Sasha Martin took up saksak in her project of cooking dishes from every country, and wrote that "locals cook by feel, so it is hard to set measurements." How sweet to make it and how much banana to use depend on each household's taste.
What to know when making it in a home kitchen
Use sago pearls, made by rolling sago palm starch into beads, or small tapioca pearls made from cassava starch. Both are available at Asian grocers, baking-supply shops and online. The method here is based on Sasha Martin's recipe for saksak made with tapioca pearls. Choose small pearls about 2 to 3 mm in diameter. The large tapioca pearls used for drinks will not cook through to the center with this method.
Frozen banana leaves are available at Asian grocers and online. Wrapping in them passes on the green scent of the leaf and makes the dish look much more like the local one. If you can't get them, it can also be made wrapped in aluminum foil.
Thaw frozen banana leaves at room temperature before use and wipe the surface with a damp cloth. Folded as they are, they tend to split along the veins, so pass them over a gas flame for a few seconds at a time, until the color turns a vivid green and they gain a sheen; then they become pliable and won't crack when folded.
Use canned coconut milk. Because you warm it at the end and pour it over the dumplings, choosing a rich one gives a creamy sweetness.
Ingredients (serves 4)
Freshly steamed packets are very hot, and steam bursts out when you open them. Use tongs to take them out of the steamer, and open the packets after they have cooled a little. The dumplings are chewy, so when serving small children or older adults, cut them into small pieces.
How to make saksak
You open the packets after steaming and chilling, so the whole process takes about 1 hour 10 minutes. If you prepare the coconut milk while they chill, you can bring it to the table right away.
If coconut milk is brought to a rolling boil, it separates and the texture turns grainy. Warm it over low heat and turn it off as soon as small bubbles begin to appear at the edge.
When passing banana leaves over the flame, take care that your sleeves and hair do not come near it. A dry leaf scorches in an instant, so it is safer to pass it over the flame while it is still slightly moist, right after wiping with a damp cloth.
Cold dumplings, warm coconut milk
Saksak is a dumpling with a chewy, slippery texture. Its own flavor is very mild, and the sweetness of banana comes to the front most. Pour warm coconut milk over a chilled dumpling and it softens slowly from the outside, so that temperature and texture change with each bite.
For breakfast, adding tropical fruit such as papaya or pineapple makes it feel like a Papua New Guinean breakfast table. If you want to know more about the cooking there, do read about mumu (in Japanese), wrapped in banana leaves and steamed over hot stones. Compared with Brunei's ambuyat (in Japanese), where the same sago starch is stirred with boiling water, you will be surprised at the range of ways the same ingredient is used.
Papua New Guinea has many dishes that use coconut. They include kaukau, in which the flesh of a baked sweet potato is mixed with coconut cream, onion and ginger and returned to the skin to bake; talautu, served in the shell with grated coconut flesh and coconut milk; and chicken pot, simmered in coconut milk soup.
Variations
Mixing about 50 g of desiccated coconut (fine) into the mixture before steaming adds coconut aroma to the dumpling itself. In this case, since the desiccated coconut absorbs water, after draining the water in step 1 add 2 tbsp water before mixing.
Instead of banana, mixing in 1 cm cubes of pumpkin or sweet potato softened in the microwave gives saksak with a different, fluffy sweetness. Mixing in ripe mango makes a brightly colored dessert.
Frequently asked questions
Can I make it with large tapioca pearls?
Not with this method. Large pearls will not become translucent to the center even when they absorb water and are steamed. Use small sago or tapioca pearls 2 to 3 mm in diameter.
Can I make it ahead?
Refrigerate it still in the packets and finish it by the next day. The dumplings harden over time, so steam the packets again for about 5 minutes before eating and the chewy texture returns.
Can I eat it freshly steamed, without chilling?
You can, but fresh from the steamer the dumplings are soft and tend to stick to the leaf. If you want it to peel off cleanly, chill it once. If you eat it fresh, scooping it out of the leaf with a spoon is easy.
Can I make it without sugar?
Yes. With very ripe bananas, it comes out faintly sweet even without sugar. In that case, dissolving a little honey in the finishing coconut milk adds sweetness. However, do not give honey to children under 1 year old.
Sources
- Sasha Martin, "Tapioca & Banana Dumplings in Coconut Milk | Saksak," Global Table Adventure, published September 7, 2012. Accessed and checked October 22, 2026. https://globaltableadventure.com/?p=21902
- Intrepid Travel, "What to eat in Papua New Guinea." Accessed and checked October 22, 2026. https://www.intrepidtravel.com/en/papua-new-guinea/food-in-papua-new-guinea
