These Potsticker Dumplings are easier to make than you think, and they taste so better than the store-bought ones! Crispy on the outside and juicy in the middle, with an addictive dipping sauce!

 potsticker dumplings on board

Why This Potsticker Dumplings Recipe Is So Good

  • Perfect potstickers from scratch – crisp bottoms that are not greasy, steamed filling that’s not soggy
  • How to make Mom’s homemade wrappers with a bowl, spoon & rolling pin
  • Clear, step-by-step photos – how to pleat potstickers so they never leak or fall apart
  • Loaded with tips from my Mom, who has been making potstickers from scratch for over 45 years

Ingredients

For The Wrappers

  • All purpose flour
  • Salt
  • Hot water
  • Cold water

For The Filling

  • Cabbage
  • Ground pork (or ground meat of your choice)
  • Soy sauce
  • White or black pepper
  • Cornstarch
  • Chinese rice wine
  • Sesame oil
  • Chives
  • Chestnuts
  • Mushrooms
  • Ginger

For The Dipping Sauce

  • Soy sauce
  • Rice vinegar
  • Sugar
  • Garlic
  • Asian sesame oil
  • chili pepper (optional)

How To Make Potsticker Dumplings – Step By Step  

Make The Wrappers

To a large bowl, measure in the flour and salt, give it a little stir.

flour in pot

Add the just-boiled hot water (tip: water in a coffee cup, microwaved until just about to boil is just fine)

pouring water in pot

Quickly stir with chopsticks or a wooden spoon.

stirring flour for potsticker dumpling wrappers

still stirring flour

Once it becomes a crumbly mixture, add in the cold water (tip: use ice-cold water, or water from your refrigerator)

pouring more water in flour

Quickly stir vigorously.

top down shot of stirring flour mix

Until the flour becomes a scraggly mess.

hand holding flour mix

Put your wooden spoon down and it’s time to work the dough with your hands. Begin kneading the dough in the bowl, working to pick up all of the dough on the sides of the bowl. Use the heel of your hand to knead.

working the wrapper dough

This should take 2 minutes. You’ll see the dough turn from crumbly to forming a large ball of dough.

still working the wrapper dough

Once you’ve got a rough ball of dough (and there’s barely any dough left in the bowl) turn the dough out onto your clean work surface to continue kneading. 

Remember to use the heel of your hands and the meaty parts of your thumbs. In kneading, there are no fingers involved – you can put your fingers away 🙂

kneading dough for potsticker dumpling wrapper

Knead, push, rotate, fold and repeat.

rolling dough

In just a couple of minutes, your dough will become smoother. It’s not quite ready yet.

hands holding dough

So keep kneading.

hands kneading dough

still rolling the dough on counter

After 3-5 minutes of kneading, it should be ready. Smooth, stays round, firm yet gives slightly when poked and will ease back slooooowly.

ball of dough for potsticker dumpling wrappers

Place ball in a bowl.

ball in dough

Cover with a barely damp paper towel (tip: this keeps the soft dough moist as it rests)

cover dough

Cover with plastic wrap. Let rest for 20 minutes on the counter.

clingwrap over dough

While the dough rests, we’ll make the potsticker filling.

Make Potsticker Filling

Finely chop the leafy portion of the cabbage first.

chopped cabbage

Then dice the thicker sections. (tip: I cut lengthwise into strips first, then dice)

chopping cabbage

The next step is crucial to perfect potstickers – salt the cabbage to draw out the water. Cabbage contains a lot of water, and the cabbage releases the water when it cooks, which makes the potstickers soggy (and prevents crisp bottoms.) The salt will draw out the water, later we’ll squeeze the cabbage and discard the water.

Add a little salt to the cabbage. Give it a good stir and let sit for 7-10 minutes while you move forward with the rest of the recipe.

salted cabbage in pot

In a bowl, marinate the meat of your choice. (Hey, where did my photo of meat go? Sorry.) Stir together ground pork, soy sauce, ground white pepper (or black), cornstarch, sesame oil and a little cooking wine. Give it a good stir.

I’m also adding some freshly grated ginger and minced chives. You can use Chinese chives (strong in flavor, a little tougher), or just regular chives.

grated garlic

Water chestnuts – I love fresh water chestnuts, but they are hard to find! Canned water chestnuts are used mainly for texture, not for the taste (it’s too mild in taste). Water chestnuts add a delicate crisp-crunch, like an Asian pear or Fuji apple.

chopped chestnuts for these potsticker dumplings

Other ingredients that I like to use in the dumplings: finely chopped fresh shiitake mushrooms or Chinese black mushrooms. Chinese black mushrooms are usually sold dried, they are thicker and heartier than Japanese shiitake mushrooms.

You must soak in water to reconstitute these mushrooms before use. Soak in a bowlful of water for a few hours until soft enough to cut, discard the water, discard tough stem, dice the mushroom caps. 

Take a handful of the salted cabbage and squeeze hard to expel the water into a small bowl or in the sink. Of course, you can use a cheesecloth, but it’s faster and easier with your hands.

hand squeezing cabbage

Look how much water came out of the cabbage! Discard the water. All of that water would have made the potstickers very soggy.

water in bowl

Put all of the filling ingredients into the bowl with the cabbage – ground meat, chives, ginger, mushrooms, water chestnut. Mix it up good. (Tip: instead of ground meat, you can use finely minced raw shrimp. I would caution against using expensive lobster in potstickers – you won’t be able to taste the lobster. Lobster is best used in steamed dumplings.)

filling in pot

(Tip: Remember that the cabbage is already salty, so be careful of adding too much soy sauce or additional salt to the filling. Also, remember that potstickers are served with a dipping sauce too. I like to heat a small frying pan, add a drop of oil and fry a spoonful of the filling for a taste. I can always adjust the flavor – many times, I will add more grated ginger or a touch more soy sauce, if needed.)

Fold Perfect Potstickers

Hey, remember the dough? It’s been resting now, all relaxed and ready to go.

Turn out the dough onto lightly floured work surface. Don’t expect the dough to rise (there is no yeast), but it will be come more smooth, soft and elastic.

big ball of dough

Divide the ball in half. Keep one half covered in the bowl, or under the damp paper towel while you work with the other half.

chopping dough

Roll out the dough half into a sausage shape.

rolling a line of dough

As you roll, move your hands wider apart to create a long snake, about 1-1/4 inches in diameter. 

stretching dough

Now, it’s time to cut. You’ll be cutting this snake into 20 pieces (for a total of 40 pieces using both halves of the dough ball.)

chopping dough for potsticker dumplings

(Tip: with each cut, my Mom likes to roll the snake forward 1/4 turn. This creates pieces that are more uniform in size and easier to roll out into round dumpling wrappers. Cut, roll snake forward a bit, cut.)

dough chopping

chopped dough

Once you’ve cut 20 pieces, it’s time to roll them out. Take one piece and pull up the edges of the dough and pinch together to create a tight, taut surface to begin. This will help create a evenly round ball.

Roll the piece in the palms of your hands to create a smooth, round ball.

rolling small ball of dough

Smash the ball in between the palms of your hands to flatten the ball.

hands pressing dough

Just like this.

pressed dough

Use a small rolling pin to flatten. Chinese rolling pins for dim sum and dumplings are small in diameter (about 1 1/2 inches wide) and even in thickness – just like the end of a broomstick. In fact, I’ve known people who have cut the end of a new broomstick to use as a dumpling roller!

 You’ll be holding the dough with one hand, while you use the rolling pin with the other. No Chinese rolling pin? Just use whatever rolling pin you have, it just will take you a tad bit longer to make the wrappers.

rolled dough

Once your wrapper is about 2-1/2 inches wide, it’s time to focus the rolling on the outside edges of the wrapper.

flattened dough for potsticker dumplings

Your potsticker wrapper doesn’t have to be perfectly round. Round-ish is just fine. The wrapper should be about 3-1/4 to 3-1/2 inches in diameter.

round flat dough

We’ll learn how to fold the potsticker dumplings.

How to Fold Potsticker Dumplings

The key to folding beautiful potstickers is to not put too much filling into each potsticker. Use a heaping teaspoon of filling for each dumpling.

scooping out filling for potsticker dumplings

placing filling in potsticker dumpling wrapper

Place the filling in the middle of the wrapper and fold over.

folding potsticker dumpling part 1

Pinch the middle. We’ll work one side at a time, pleating towards the center.

potsticker dumpling part 2

Mom like to work the right side first. Pleat just one side of the wrapper and fold TOWARDS the middle.  This is what will make the crescent shape. Notice that you are only pleating ONE edge of the wrapper – or as my son likes to say, “Just pleat one side of the taco!”

folding potsticker dumpling part 3

Do this 2 more times, for a total of 3 pleats on the right side.

folding potsticker dumpling part 4

Now, we’ll do the same for the left side. Pleat towards the middle.

folding potsticker dumpling part 5

Repeat for a total of 3 pleats on the left side.

folding potsticker dumpling part 6

Little holes are bad. it causes the filling to spill out and the potsticker to break. If you can fit one more pleat to close the hole, feel free to make one more.

folding potsticker dumpling part 7

Or just squeeze it shut.

folding potsticker dumpling part 8

The last step is important – pinch all around one more time. Holes are bad. The pleats should be pinched tight.

pinching dumpling

See? Bad hole! Pinch to seal.

folded dumpling

pinching dumpling

Place your potsticker on a baking sheet. (Tip – if you are not cooking the potstickers right away, you must line the baking sheet with a sheet of tin foil or parchment paper dusted with flour. Freshly made wrappers stick very easily. You’ll have a really hard time lifting the potstickers off a baking sheet if you’ve let it rest too long.)

 potsticker dumpling before cooking

My Mom rolled out the wrappers, I folded dumplings. Notice the tin foil lined sheet with a good dusting of flour to prevent the potstickers from sticking. Make sure there’s plenty of place between each potsticker. If they touch each other on the baking sheet, they’ll stick to each other. Fresh dough is sticky.

tray of dumplings

Next page, we’ll fry the dumplings.

How to Cook the Potstickers

Heat a nonstick frying pan (or saute pan) over medium heat. Swirl in a little cooking oil, not too much, just enough to swirl and coat the bottom of the pan. Once the oil starts to get hot, lay the potstickers in a single layer.

cooking potsticker dumplings

They can touch, but don’t overcrowd – the dumplings will expand as they cook and you want to give them plenty of space so that the bottoms can brown properly.

potsticker dumplings in pan

Let cook for 1-2 minutes. While they are browning, get 1/4 cup of water and the pan’s lid ready – you’ll need these at your side shortly. Peek underneath a dumpling to give it a look. Not brown yet. Cook a little longer!

checking potsticker dumplings in pan

This is good.

picking up dumpling from pan

Check a couple of different dumpling bottoms – sometimes your pan can cook unevenly. When the bottoms are browned, grab your 1/4 cup of water in one hand, and the lid in the other. Carefully and slowly pour in the water (it might splatter a bit) and immediately cover with the lid to trap the steam.

pouring water in panlid on pan

Let cook for 2 minutes. Then, open the lid. There should be lots of water bubbles as the water heats up and steams. The steam cooks the dumplings on the inside. Keep the lid off and let the water continue to cook and evaporate.

dumplings simmering

(Tip: While the dumplings brown in the first step, frying in the pan, the most important browning actually happens as the water evaporates. When almost all of the water is gone, the extra starch from the dumpling wrappers will begin browning again and really give good crust on the bottoms of the potstickers.)

Cook, uncovered, until all water has evaporated and the bottoms are now crisp and browned.

Like this.

browned bottomed dumplings

Repeat with the remaining potstickers. In between batches, just wipe down the pan with a paper towel – there’s no need to wash the pan – but make sure there’s no water in the pan.

Perfectly pleated, beautifully cooked potstickers with a crisp bottom that stays crispy!

potsticker dumplings on dish

Different Dipping Sauces

My Dad loves Chinese black vinegar with soy sauce, slivers of fresh ginger and a little sesame oil. My kids like soy sauce, a little sugar, sesame oil. My husband loves Thai sweet chili sauce, straight from the bottle (I like Mae Ploy brand or Trader Joe’s brand – I’ve linked to Amazon so you can see what they look like but their prices are outrageous. Just go to your supermarket and get Sweet Chili Sauce). My brother loves spicy – we add chopped fresh hot chili peppers or a dollop of Chinese garlic-chili sauce or a squirt of sriracha.

dipping sauce

Dad’s Chinese Black Vinegar Sauce

Dad likes to use a mixture of Chinese black vinegar, soy sauce and the thinnest slivers of fresh ginger. The most famous Chinese black vinegar is Chinkiang Black Vinegar, though Koon Chun brand is easier to find and will do just fine. What works just as well (and I often use) is cheap balsamic vinegar. Not the expensive, thick, sweet kind (save that for the strawberries!), but just regular ol’ supermarket balsamic vinegar.

Why black vinegar? It’s aged vinegar, so it provides an earthy, smoky, mellow zip and tang that goes well with Chinese dumplings and egg rolls.

Fresh ginger
2 tablespoons Chinese Chinkiang black vinegar
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon Asian sesame oil

Peel the ginger skin off and discard. Use a vegetable peeler and peel thin slices of ginger. Use a chef’s knife to further cut these thin slices into slivers. You’ll need about a teaspoons worth of ginger. In a small dipping bowl, mix together the black vinegar, sesame oil and ginger. To enjoy, dip your potsticker into the sauce. Use your chopsticks to pick up a few slivers of ginger and eat together with your potsticker.

 
 

The Best Potsticker Dumplings

The perfect potstickers, whether you are making Korean Guun-Mandu, Japanese Yaki-Gyōza or Chinese Guōtiē (Mandarin) / Wortip (Cantonese) are pan fried, crisp-crunchy bottoms without being greasy, and steamed, flavorful filling that’s not soggy. The dumpling skin has the perfect bite to it, and the folds of the potsticker are not gummy or too thick.

how to make potsticker dumpling wrappers-5383

Why Hot Water Dough for Potsticker Dumplings

The perfect dumpling wrapper uses both hot water AND cold water. Adding boiling hot water to flour cooks the flour just enough to denature the protein and prevent much of the gluten from forming. Asian dumplings wrappers don’t need a lot of gluten – we want our wrappers to be soft, relaxed enough to fold easily, but still with enough structure to hold its shape. The right combination of hot water and cold water will do the trick. Too much hot water and the dumplings will sag and be too soft. Too little hot water will make the dumplings too chewy.

batch of dumplings

 

 

dumplings and dipping sauce

Top Tips For These Potsticker Dumplings

  • You shouldn’t need any additional flour on your counter, the hot water makes the dough much easier to work with and less sticky. But, if the dough really sticks to your counter, feel free to use a small amount of flour to dust the surface.
  • You can use either regular green cabbage or Napa cabbage. Red cabbage will turn your potstickers pink (fun, if that’s what you want!)
  • Napa cabbage has higher water content (lots of water in the thick part of the leaves), and is milder tasting than regular cabbage. You can use either, I tend to choose regular cabbage, as it’s on sale more often.
  • You can finely chop/shred the cabbage in a food processor, use the large holes of a box grater, or chop by hand. The recipe doesn’t use much cabbage, I’d rather chop by hand than spend the time washing the food processor. For Napa cabbage, I much prefer chopping by hand. The thick, large, white section of the cabbage leaves (would you call these stems?) becomes very mushy in the food processor.
  • Having a small, light rolling pin makes creating the wrappers so much easier and faster.
  • In Chinese cooking, ground white pepper is used more often than ground black pepper. White pepper is a little spicier, sharper, more pungent. Already-ground white pepper goes bad really fast. Instead, my Mom puts whole white peppercorns in a pepper grinder that’s dedicated just for white pepper. Grind as you need for the best flavor.
  • To peel the ginger, grate on a microplane grater instead of chopping by hand.
  • If you do not want to use canned water chestnuts (which are almost all grown in China), substitute with finely diced jicama, Asian pear, Fuji apple, or celery. For celery, use a vegetable peeler to peel away the stringy outer layer of the celery stalk first, before dicing. 
  • Soak dried mushrooms in hot water to cut soaking time in half; Microwave or boil for 3 minutes to further cut time. But it does take at least 1-2 hours of soaking, regardless, so plan early.
  • If you find rolling dough hard to do, you can cut the dough ball into quarters and work with a smaller piece. Another way to roll out to a long snake is to take a piece of dough, rub your hands together like you’re trying to start a fire with a stick. Use gravity to help elongate the snake.
  • Handmade potsticker wrappers are thinner on the outside and slightly thicker in the middle. This is because the edges of the wrapper will be pleated and pinched together when you are making the potsticker. If your outer edges are too thick, the pleats will be too thick – resulting in undercooked, chewy, doughy skins at the pleats.
  • If using store bought wrappers – in a small bowl, whisk together 1/3 cup water + 1 teaspoon cornstarch. “Finger Paint” the outside edge of the wrapper with this slurry before folding the dumpling. This will hold the pleats together.
  • If you find that the bottoms aren’t browning well enough, you can dribble in a little more cooking oil. Shake the pan back and forth to let the oil reach the bottoms of the potstickers, and to loosen the the potstickers from the pan.
  • I highly recommend a non-stick pan. Unless your pan is really well seasoned, it’s very difficult to prevent the potstickers from sticking. You can use a cast iron pan if you wish, but because the cast iron retains heat so well, I’ve had problems with controlling the heat (and burning/overcooking the potstickers)

delicious potsticker dumplings

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More Dumpling Recipes

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Potstickers Recipe (with Potsticker Dough)

Jaden
In addition to the ingredients below, you'll need water and cooking oil for cooking the potstickers (canola, grapeseed, vegetable or peanut cooking oil)
4.89 from 52 votes
Prep Time 1 hour
Cook Time 20 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 20 minutes
Course Main Course
Cuisine Chinese
Servings 6 people
Calories 330 kcal

Ingredients
  

FOR THE WRAPPERS

  • 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (2.5 cups = 300 gram plus more for dusting)
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 2/3 cup just-boiled hot water
  • 1/3 cup iced cold water

FOR THE FILLING

  • 8 ounces minced or finely shredded cabbage Napa or regular
  • 8 ounces ground pork ground meat of your choice
  • 1/2 teaspoon soy sauce
  • freshly ground white pepper or black
  • 1/2 teaspoon cornstarch
  • 1/2 teaspoon Chinese rice wine optional
  • 1/2 teaspoon Asian sesame oil
  • 2 tablespoons minced chives Chinese or regular
  • 4 ounces diced water chestnuts canned is fine
  • 3-4 large fresh shiitake mushrooms finely diced
  • 1/2 teaspoon grated fresh ginger

FOR THE DIPPING SAUCE

  • 3 tablespoons soy sauce
  • 3 teaspoons rice vinegar or cider vinegar, white vinegar
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • 2 cloves garlic very finely minced
  • 1 teaspoon Asian sesame oil
  • minced fresh chili peppers optional

Instructions
 

PREPARE THE WRAPPER DOUGH:

  • To a large bowl, measure in the flour and the salt. Pour in the boiled water and stir the flour immediately and vigorously with a large wooden spoon until the flour resembles loose crumbles (about 30 seconds). Pour in the iced-cold water (discard the ice first, but make sure you have correct measurement of water). Stir vigorously again for 30 seconds or until a shaggy dough begins to form. Set aside spoon and use your hands to knead the dough in the bowl, while picking up flour/dough on the sides of the bowl. Knead for 2 minutes in the bowl. Turn out the dough onto a clean work surface. No need to dust the work surface with flour - unless the dough really sticks). The dough should be soft and elastic enough that kneading is very easy. Continue to knead your dough for another 3-5 minutes. As you knead the dough, it should become more smooth. In a medium sized bowl, plop in the dough ball, cover dough loosely with a barely damp paper towel and then cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap. Let rest for 20 minutes while you prepare the filling and the dipping sauce.

PREPARE THE FILLING

  • In a bowl, mix the shredded cabbage with 1/4 teaspoon of salt (1/2 teaspoon kosher or sea salt, if using.) Set aside while you move on to next step of recipe.
  • In a separate bowl, mix the ground pork with soy sauce, ground pepper, cornstarch, rice wine (if using) and sesame oil. Add in the chives, water chestnuts and mushrooms.
  • Back to the cabbage - grab a handful of cabbage, squeeze hard to expel the water into the sink. Add the dry cabbage into the bowl with the rest of the filling ingredients. Mix well. You can cook a spoonful of filling in a small frying pan for a taste, if you'd like.

FOLD THE POTSTICKERS

  • Turn out the rested dough onto a lightly floured surface. Cut the dough in half, keep unused half under the damp paper towel to prevent from drying out. Roll out the other half into a long snake, about 1-1/4 inches in diameter. Cut into approximately 20 even pieces. Take 1 piece, gather up the edges and pinch together, forming a taut, round surface. Roll between palms to form ball. Squash between flat palms to flatten into disk. Use rolling pin to roll out to 3-1/2 inch diameter. Try to make the edges of wrapper thinner than the center. Repeat for remaining dough. If you don't have a helper on hand to fold the potstickers, keep wrappers under cover (plastic wrap or barely damp paper towel) to prevent drying out. Fill and fold potstickers according to the instructions and photos above in the post. Place folded potstickers on a floured piece of parchment or tin foil-lined baking sheet to prevent sticking.

MAKE DIPPING SAUCE

  • Mix together dipping sauce ingredients. Set aside until ready to serve.

COOK THE POTSTICKERS

  • Have 1/4 cup water and a tight-fitting lid for your pan at the ready, by your stove. Heat a large, nonstick frying or saute pan over medium heat. When hot, swirl in a little cooking oil, just enough to swirl around. Carefully lay potstickers into the pan, they can touch a little, but do not overcrowd. Cook for 1-2 minutes, then peek under one or two potstickers to see if the bottoms have lightly browned. Adjust your heat if needed.
  • When lightly browned, it's time for the steaming. In one hand, have the lid ready. In the other, carefully pour in 1/4 cup of water into the pan. It will splatter, so please be careful. Immediately cover pan with the lid to trap the steam. Let cook for 2 minutes, then open the lid. Continue cooking for another 2 minutes, until all of the water has evaporated. Take a peek under the potsticker. You can add a little more cooking oil if it has trouble browning (but only after all the water has evaporated, otherwise it will splatter.) Shake the pan to loosen the potstickers, swirl in the oil and tilt pan to distribute the oil. When bottoms are nicely browned, plate and serve with dipping sauce. 

Nutrition

Calories: 330kcalCarbohydrates: 46gProtein: 13gFat: 9gSaturated Fat: 3gCholesterol: 27mgSodium: 659mgPotassium: 291mgFiber: 3gSugar: 2gVitamin A: 80IUVitamin C: 15.3mgCalcium: 32mgIron: 3.3mg
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