Smooth bean paste is mainly used as a filling for Chinese pastries. Although the dry paste can be directly sweetened and used, oil, either vegetable oil or lard, is usually used to cook the dry paste and improve its texture and mouth feel. The slurry is then strained through a sieve to remove the husk, filtered, and squeezed dry using cheesecloth. Smooth Adzuki beans are boiled without sugar, mashed, and diluted into a slurry. It can also be eaten on its own or in sweet soups. This is the most common and popular type of red bean paste eaten in Chinese confections. Some unmashed beans can also be added back into the bean paste for additional texture. Depending on the intended texture, the beans can be vigorously or lightly mashed. The paste is smooth with bits of broken beans and bean husk. In Chinese cuisine, the most common types are: Mashed Adzuki beans are boiled with sugar and mashed. Red bean paste is graded according to its consistency, sweetness, and color.

Geopi ( 거피, 'hulled, skinned, peeled, shelled, etc.') attached to pat makes geopipat ( 거피팥), the dehulled red beans and the white paste made of geopipat is called geopipat-so ( 거피팥소). Dan ( 단, 'sweet') attached to patso makes danpat-so ( 단팥소), the sweetened red bean paste, which is often called danpat ( 단팥 'sweet pat'). As so ( 소) means 'filling', the word patso ( 팥소) means ' pat filling', with unsweetened dark-red paste as its prototype. Kong ('beans') without qualifiers usually means soybeans. angularis') contrasts with kong ( 콩, 'bean'), rather than being considered a type of it. Similarly, the Chinese term dòushā ( 豆沙), applies to red bean paste when used without qualifiers, although hóngdòushā ( 紅豆沙) explicitly means 'red bean paste.' Other common forms of an include shiroan ( 白餡, 'white bean paste'), made from navy or other white beans, green beans and kurian ( 栗餡), made from chestnuts. Strictly speaking, the term an can refer to almost any sweet, edible, mashed paste, although without qualifiers red beans are assumed, while azukian ( 小豆餡) refers specifically to the paste made with red beans. In Japanese, a number of names are used to refer to red bean paste these include an ( 餡), anko ( 餡子) and ogura ( 小倉).

Bean paste