I love dumplings, you love dumplings, we all love dumplings! Dumplings are the best! Dumplings are not just the most delicious food, they’re also a part of me my culture. They are a key dish of family gathering times for Chinese New Year celebrations and other special occasions. Dumplings bring me happy memories from my childhood to adulthood. Nowadays eating dumplings is not a novelty anymore; opposite from the time when I grew up in China, when we could only make them once a month or for holidays with limited supplies. Dumplings are my kids’ most beloved food. My kids learned many family stories and some Chinese culture from making and eating dumplings. Now I have all three of my kids help me make the dumplings. Yes, they are perhaps more creative at making all kinds of funny strange shaped dumplings 😉, but I’m happy with them as long as they don’t break in the pot. Their help saves me time and it’s a lot of fun to make dumplings with them.
My favorite dumpling has always been the Three Fresh Stuffing – pork, shrimp and egg with chives. But shrimp was very expensive so we didn’t have this kind of stuffing often. The most common dumplings were made with either cabbage or celery as the main vegetable. There are many good choices of vegetables for the stuffing like white onion, eggplant, dill, leeks and even tomatoes. One helpful tip for the meat is not to choose very lean meat, 85% or less lean will bring more flavor to the dumplings. I’m going to try the ground beef with onion and tomatoes for my next dumpling stuffing.
The dumplings I made are northeastern style since I grew up in Shenyang, in the northeastern part of China. There are many other styles of dumplings in different regions. I hope you give it try to make your own dumplings very soon. Have your whole family help you. It’s a great bonding experience!
Ling’s Chinese Dumplings
Equipment
- Big Saucepan
- Large cutting board
- Rolling Pin
- Dumpling Press set/Dough Press set
- mixer
Ingredients
Dough (3 cups of flour and slightly shy of 1 cup of water) by hand kneading or mixer
- 435 g Unbleached all purpose flour
- 200 g Water room temp
Stuffing
Ingredients for marinating the pork the night before or at least for 2 hours prior cooking
- 1 pound ground pork 85% or less lean (for better flavor)
- 1 tsp salt to taste
- 1/2 cup soy sauce can be more or less as your preference, soy sauce gives more umami flavor
- 1 tbsp ginger minced
- 1 teaspoon Chinese Five Spice Powder
- 1/4 teaspoon anise powder
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
The rest of ingredients for the stuffing
- 2 cup Napa cabbage diced in the food processor
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1/2 cup green onion diced in the food process
Dumpling sauce
- 1/2 cup Chinese black vinegar
- 2 tbsp Soy sauce
- 1 tbsp Sesame oil
- 1 tbsp Chili oil to taste, feel free to skip if you don't like spicy food
Instructions
- (see the pictures and extra detail below)
Marinate the grund pork (or other ground meat chicken or turkey) the night before or 2 hours prior cooking
- Add the Chinese Five Spice Powder, Anise Powder, minced ginger, salt and Soy sauce to the ground pork. Mix them well. Cover the meat and store it overnight in the fridge.
Dough prep
- Pour the flour to a big mixing bowl, add the water to mix and knead the dough until its surface is pretty smooth. When you're done kneading and mixing, the dough should have a slightly smooth surface.
- Cover the bowl to let the dough rest at least for one hour.
Stuffing
- While the dough is resting, we can get the stuffing ready.
- Bring the meat out of the fridge.
- Take apart the cabbage and wash all the leaves
- Cut them to 2 inches pieces, and load into the food processor until it's half-full.
- Use the Pulse button to dice the cabbage to small pieces instead of pressing the On button, to avoid the mushy texture
- Pour the diced cabbage to a large cheese cloth in a strainer. Leave it for 10 minutes to let juice drain from the cabbage
- Dice the green onion in the food processor. Add it to the marinated meat and mix them well.
- Squeeze 95% of the liquid out of the cabbage that’s in the cheese cloth.
- Pour the dry cabbage over the meat, coat with the vegetable oil, then sprinkle the 1/2 teaspoon salt over the cabbage to mix. This method prevents the cabbage from leaking its liquid to the meat. Then the last step is to mix the cabbage and the meat together well.
Dumpling shells
- It’s time to make the dumpling shells. This is a labor intensive process. But it’s fun for me, even more fun to do this with my kids. Prepare a large wooden cutting board or a large kitchen counter for making the shells. And 1 cup of dry flour on the side.(You can always skip this part to use the store bought shells to save you a lot of time.)
- Poke a hole in the middle of the dough, work both of your hands in the hole to stretch the dough outward to make a dough ring. Keep stretching and working on the dough until it becomes about an inch thick. The ring will get quite long.
- Cut the circle into two even lengths, add some flour on them to avoid having them stick. Roll them on the board to make sure they have the similar size and the round shape. Cut the dough into many 1 inch thick slices.
- Add more flour to the slices to separate them. Make sure each slice is covered with the flour on both sides. Flatten each piece somewhat with the palm of your hand.
- You need a rolling pin and a cup of flour on the side. I’m right handed so I roll the dough by my right hand, and my left hand rotates the dough shell. It takes a lot of practice to synchronize the two hands with a rolling pin. Roll the pin on the dough from the edge to the center with some pressure. Make sure to form a little bump in the center of the dough to prevent the broken shell in the process of stretching the shell to hold the stuffing.
Finally, it’s time to make some dumplings!
- First step: don’t be intimidated!Set an easy goal if this is your first time to make dumplings. The goal should be to seal each dumpling well no matter how it looks. You succeed if there is not broken dumplings in the pot.
- Use a teaspoon to scoop the stuffing and place it in the center of the shell. Fold the shell together, pinch the top center part of the shell first, then pinch the left and right side. Make sure to seal the shell well. If the shells are too floured, dip your finger in a small dish of water and wet the outer edge, so that it can stick to the other half of the shell. Here you have made a dumpling!
- My videos below will show more ways of folding the dumplings. They’re easy to learn.
- We’re almost there. Heat the big saucepan over high heat. Have a strainer ladle ready and a 1/4 cup of cold water ready near your cook top. Put in the dumplings once the water is boiled, while taking care to not splash yourself. Gently stir the dumplings to prevent the dumplings from sticking to the bottom of the pot right away once they’re all in the pot. Stir them every minute. It should take less than 5 minutes to have all the dumplings float in the pot. Pour in the cold water to the pot for the second boil. Your dumplings are ready!
Dumpling sauce
- Soy sauce, Chinese Black vinegar and sesame oil are essential for the sauce. We love to add our homemade Sichuan Chili oil to the base since everyone loves spicy taste in my family. You can find any Asian hot sauce if you prefer a little kick to the sauce.
Nutrition
Dough prep
Mixing the dough The dough ball after mixing and kneading Covered, to rest for 1 hour
Veggies
Prepare the veggies while the dough is resting. You can pick one of your favorite veggies (cabbage, celery, chives…) to pair with your choice of the meat. I choose cabbage for this recipe because this is the most common one in my region.
Napa cabbage and celery Coarsely chopped Pulse to chop it but not so much to lose all the texture Draining the excess liquid Seasoned veggies, added to the meat
Making the dumpling shells
Below is some detail on making the shells from scratch. While we like these much better than store-bought ones, if you want to save a lot of work and time, feel free to use store-bought dumpling shells instead.
Chopping the dough Flatten each piece Use some flour to keep them from sticking to each other Two-handed rolling process In the end it almost looks like a fried egg with slight bump in the middle
The dumplings before cooking
Ling’s fancy styled dumplings But these made with a dumpling press are just as delicious!
Cooked and ready to eat!
Once they’re done, I like to put them in a large pyrex glass tray. It’s a good idea to shake the tray around every couple of minutes to keep them from sticking to each other.
Potstickers!
Thank you for staying with me! Have so much fun with your homemade dumplings. You and your family will be so amazed with your yummy dumplings.
English 
简体中文
Dumplings are popular food in my hometown, especially when family and friends gather together . Everyone shares a little work while chatting. It’s the most precious moment to my hometown people .
There’re many recipes of dumplings making. This of Ling’s is the best love for almost everyone since most people love cabbage. The spices and sauces are key to the rich taste while experience playing the most important role in making and cooking dumplings. Follow Ling’s recipes and steps you’ll master the basic skills in dumplings making.
Thank you for the videos. That is very helpful to understand the small details. I am inspired to make these dumplings and will let you know how they turn out!
We enjoyed making these dumplings as a family and although ours were not as pretty as Ling’s, they were very tasty. We were nervous, as we were using gluten free flour, which normally does not hold as well as traditional flour. We only had a couple of dumplings burst. Thank you for sharing your family treasure. We will be using it over and over.