diff --git a/doc/whats-new.rst b/doc/whats-new.rst
index 3d6bcb47885..1bcd2016324 100644
--- a/doc/whats-new.rst
+++ b/doc/whats-new.rst
@@ -26,6 +26,8 @@ Deprecations
 Bug Fixes
 ~~~~~~~~~
 
+- Coerce masked dask arrays to filled (:issue:`9374` :pull:`11157`).
+  By `Julia Signell <https://github.com/jsignell>`_
 
 Documentation
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
diff --git a/xarray/core/duck_array_ops.py b/xarray/core/duck_array_ops.py
index 85ef75f352c..e10ab5a3558 100644
--- a/xarray/core/duck_array_ops.py
+++ b/xarray/core/duck_array_ops.py
@@ -127,6 +127,10 @@ def fail_on_dask_array_input(values, msg=None, func_name=None):
     "masked_invalid", eager_module=np.ma, dask_module="dask.array.ma"
 )
 
+getmaskarray = _dask_or_eager_func(
+    "getmaskarray", eager_module=np.ma, dask_module="dask.array.ma"
+)
+
 
 def sliding_window_view(array, window_shape, axis=None, **kwargs):
     # TODO: some libraries (e.g. jax) don't have this, implement an alternative?
diff --git a/xarray/core/variable.py b/xarray/core/variable.py
index 7478d48bb23..ab8b4be775b 100644
--- a/xarray/core/variable.py
+++ b/xarray/core/variable.py
@@ -50,6 +50,7 @@
 from xarray.namedarray.core import NamedArray, _raise_if_any_duplicate_dimensions
 from xarray.namedarray.parallelcompat import get_chunked_array_type
 from xarray.namedarray.pycompat import (
+    array_type,
     async_to_duck_array,
     integer_types,
     is_0d_dask_array,
@@ -292,13 +293,12 @@ def convert_non_numpy_type(data):
         else:
             data = pandas_data
 
-    if isinstance(data, np.ma.MaskedArray):
-        mask = np.ma.getmaskarray(data)
-        if mask.any():
-            _dtype, fill_value = dtypes.maybe_promote(data.dtype)
-            data = duck_array_ops.where_method(data, ~mask, fill_value)
-        else:
-            data = np.asarray(data)
+    if isinstance(data, np.ma.MaskedArray) or (
+        isinstance(data, array_type("dask"))
+        and isinstance(getattr(data, "_meta", None), np.ma.MaskedArray)
+    ):
+        mask = duck_array_ops.getmaskarray(data)
+        data = duck_array_ops.where_method(data, ~mask)
 
     if isinstance(data, np.matrix):
         data = np.asarray(data)
diff --git a/xarray/tests/test_backends.py b/xarray/tests/test_backends.py
index f7d2b516a05..ff5470094ec 100644
--- a/xarray/tests/test_backends.py
+++ b/xarray/tests/test_backends.py
@@ -85,6 +85,7 @@
     mock,
     network,
     parametrize_zarr_format,
+    raise_if_dask_computes,
     requires_cftime,
     requires_dask,
     requires_fsspec,
@@ -2231,6 +2232,28 @@ def test_create_default_indexes(self, tmp_path, create_default_indexes) -> None:
             else:
                 assert len(loaded_ds.xindexes) == 0
 
+    @requires_dask
+    def test_encoding_masked_arrays(self, tmp_path) -> None:
+        store_path = tmp_path / "tmp.nc"
+
+        with raise_if_dask_computes():
+            ds = xr.DataArray(
+                dask.array.from_array(
+                    np.ma.masked_array(
+                        np.array([[np.nan, np.nan], [np.nan, 2]]),
+                        np.array([[True, True], [True, False]]),
+                    )
+                ).astype("float32"),
+                dims=("x", "y"),
+            ).to_dataset(name="mydata")
+
+        expected = ds.mean("x")
+        expected.to_netcdf(
+            store_path, encoding=dict(mydata=dict(_FillValue=np.float32(1e20)))
+        )
+        with open_dataset(store_path, engine=self.engine) as actual:
+            assert_identical(expected.compute(), actual.compute())
+
 
 @requires_netCDF4
 class TestNetCDF4Data(NetCDF4Base):
diff --git a/xarray/tests/test_variable.py b/xarray/tests/test_variable.py
index 44a044275e2..1ef6adc9caf 100644
--- a/xarray/tests/test_variable.py
+++ b/xarray/tests/test_variable.py
@@ -2757,7 +2757,7 @@ def test_masked_array(self):
         expected = np.arange(5)
         actual: Any = as_compatible_data(original)
         assert_array_equal(expected, actual)
-        assert np.dtype(int) == actual.dtype
+        assert np.dtype(float) == actual.dtype
 
         original1: Any = np.ma.MaskedArray(np.arange(5), mask=4 * [False] + [True])
         expected1: Any = np.arange(5.0)