Vegetarian Dumplings
The idea of making your own dumplings can seem so mystifying but I promise you it’s so easy and so satisfying! Dumplings might be my desert-island food, I can’t think of one time that eating dumplings didn't make a bad day into a good one, or a good one into a great one. Tender, savory, pop-able, maybe even crunchy(?), Dumplings can be a finger-food appetizer or the whole meal, choose your own adventure. Making them, in my opinion, brings the experience to the next level. The craft of sealing them up with a delicate (but easy!) folding pattern is such a fun thing to do with friends for a weeknight dinner, or even by yourself if you want to hit a state of zen. Speaking of choosing your own adventure, let’s talk fillings. We’ve chosen an umami-bomb vegetable filling for this one, but dumplings are such a blank canvas for any number of fillings and flavors. I once recreated three iconic thanksgiving dishes in dumpling form because why not, no regrets, it was amazing. Anyways, I digress, check out this recipe, demystify DIY dumplings, make them for yourself or a party, live your best life.
Yield : 18-25 Pieces
Ingredients
~25 Dumplings Wrappers: You can often find them at common grocery stores, but you will almost always find them at any grocery store that specializes in Asian cuisine/ingredients. You may also encounter wonton wrappers instead of dumplings wrappers, while not the same, these are very similar and will yield similar results. For this recipe, the grocery store I typically go to for dumplings wrappers was out of stock (?!) so I deferred to wonton wrappers and just cut them into circular shapes (wonton wrappers will come as squares as opposed to circles)
4-5oz Shitake Mushrooms: diced
½ cup of Shredded Carrots: diced
1 Large Handful of Greens: Chopped. We know this is imprecise in both ingredient and quantity. It’s hard to measure the exact amount of leafy-greens because how you get them can differ in so many ways. Additionally, various leafy-greens will work great for this. Spinach, Kale, Collard Greens, Mustard Greens, give it a shot!
6 Scallions: thinly sliced, with the darkest 2 inches reserved to the side.
1-inch knob of Ginger Root: peeled and minced
3 cloves of Garlic: peeled and minced
2.5 tbsp of Soy Sauce
1 tbsp of Sesame Oil
Sesame Seeds
½ tbsp of Rice Vinegar
3 tbsp Neutral Oil: This oil is for searing/frying the bottom of the dumplings, not so much for flavor. Peanut Oil, Canola Oil, Grapeseed Oil, or Avocado Oil will all work great.
1 egg: whisked
Preparation:
If your wrappers are frozen, thaw them in the refrigerator 1 day in advance
Peel/Mince/Chop/Slice all of your vegetables and set them aside
Heat 1tbsp of neutral oil in a large skillet on medium heat. Once the oil is hot, add your garlic and ginger and stir.
Once the garlic and ginger have just begun to develop color (if the garlic develops too much color it will become very bitter, so take it slow!), add your scallions (excluding the darkest 2 inches of the end), mushrooms, and carrots, and stir.
Once the scallions have softened and the mushrooms have released a lot of their water (maybe 5-10 minutes), add the leafy-greens and stir.
Cook everything for another 5-10 minutes, being sure to cook off as much water as you can without burning anything.
Once the vegetables are done cooking, transfer them to a large plate, spread them out evenly, and place the plate in your refrigerator to cool.
While the vegetables are cooling, prepare your dipping sauce, the wet portion of your filling, and your wrapping station!
For the dipping sauce, combine 2 tbsp of your soy sauce, ½ tbsp of your sesame oil, all of your rice vinegar, and the thinly sliced dark green ends of your scallions into a small bowl and mix to combine.
For the wet portion of your filling, mix the remaining sauce sauce, the remaining sesame oil, and your egg in a large bowl, being sure to completely whisk your egg until its smooth.
For the wrapping station, you’ll want a large, dry working surface (a large wooden cutting board will work perfectly), a parchment-lined sheet pan or plate (the parchment lining isn’t absolutely critical, but it ensures that your dumplings make it safely from the plate/sheet-pan to the cooking pan without breaking), and a small bowl of water.
Once your filling mixture has cooled, remove it from the refrigerator and add it to the large bowl of wet-filling-ingredients. Mix completely.
Time to create your dumplings! While I would be happy to try and teach you myself, I figured I might as well refer you to the video-guide that I learned from in the first place : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAcMQWqVln0. For these dumplings, I would portion approximately 1tsp of filling per dumpling, but again, this depends on the size of your dumpling wrappers! You’ll know right away if you overstuffed them.
Once you’ve finished filling all of your dumplings, add 2-3 tbsp of neutral oil (it depends on the size of your pan, you want a solid layer of oil completely covering the bottom of the pan) to your pan and heat on medium-high. Once your oil is hot (you can check by flicking a small amount of water into the pan), you can begin cooking! Before you begin, just be warned that water+hot oil = splattering. So be careful during the cooking process. I will sometimes put on oven mitts to protect my hands if the oil is splattering.
Gently add your dumplings into the oil, being sure to not overcrowd the pan (none of your dumplings should be touching). Cook the dumplings for 1-2 minutes in the oil (you can cover the pan if you’d like), then add a quarter cup of water and quickly cover the pan back up. The added water will steam-cook the dumplings from above. After approximately 2-3 minutes, check on your dumplings, the wrappers should be significantly less opaque and should have begun to shrink and hug the filling.
Once they’re done, remove them from the pan onto a plate, sprinkle sesame seeds over them, and repeat the cooking process with the rest of your dumplings!
Fight all temptation to bite into these little nuggets of joy immediately. Let the dumplings cool for ~5 minutes, then enjoy!
Best Practices:
As always:
Avoid packaged produce, or really anything packaged for that matter. This is not to say that you’ll always have the option, but when you do, go for it! For example, you may sometimes see mushrooms in their own plastic containers, scallions in plastic wrap, or garlic in a plastic mesh. These are all very often available sans any container, so take the opportunity to use your hands, smell the produce, build that relationship with your ingredients!
Try to bring your own bags when you go shopping for these ingredients
Make sure you’re not buying more than you think you’ll reasonably use! Ingredients like the mushrooms, scallions, carrots, and leafy-greens will not last very long, so make sure you buy with care! However, ingredients like garlic and ginger can last a long time in your pantry (but forever), so if you buy more than you need, you’ll likely have plenty of other opportunities to use them.
These ingredients have been chosen with several things in mind:
Most of these ingredients are household staples that are relatively inexpensive and last a long time. If you don’t already have ginger, garlic, soy sauce, sesame oil, or rice vinegar, these are amazing staples in any pantry and can add so much flavor to any number of recipes/dishes.
Many dumpling fillings feature some type of ground meat, be it pork or beef. We have chosen to go vegetarian for this recipe, partially because it is a more sustainable option, partially because its healthier, and partially because these vegetables bring such incredible flavors to the table that why not.
This recipe can also be vegan if you choose. I actually used a vegan wonton wrapper when I cooked them, and the egg does an amazing job binding your ingredients together in the cooking process, but it’s not entirely required.
Did you enjoy this recipe? Let us know! If you really loved it, share it on social media and tag us (@groundedgrub), or, better yet, share it with your friends and family!