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Better than take out and so easy to make at home, these Asian style vegan potstickers have a crispy bottom (gyozas!) and are filled with a very delicious vegetable filling tossed in Chinese sauces giving you the perfect dumplings to enjoy as a delicious appetizer or double up and enjoy as a yummy meatless main dish!
I am here to walk you through a step by step recipe on making these beauties! Remember me talking about my love for dumplings and gyozas on this post about mushroom potstickers recipe? Do I feel ashamed or do I feel good that my obsession with Asian food just keeps getting better (worse!?). I am more likely to be caught eating embarrassing amount of dumplings on a brunch and its weird how I equally enjoy the dumpling-project also at home, specially when I have an Asian night planned where I would also include a heavy serving of hakka noodles and Asian style meatless meatballs for mains.
Making potstickers at home is very easy, specially if you have gyoza wrappers/ wonton wrappers or any dumpling wrappers in hand. I have got you covered with all potential questions on what kind of wrappers to use or how to make ahead or freeze them - all of these answered towards the end of the post, so keep reading how to make these yummy meatless crispy dumplings!
Honestly what seems like a project, is really not so challenging. Its truly so fun to make them at home - specially because you can enjoy them without needing an actual steamer or any fancy equipment to cook your potstickers! Plus you can cook so many at once. And no one is watching you when you eat 15 dumplings all by yourself.
How to make vegan potstickers?
Ingredients for meatless vegan gyozas (pan fried dumplings)
Here's my ingredient list to make plant based dumplings:
- Mix of veggies -> I like using shredded carrot, cabbage, chopped mushrooms, some crumbled tofu - all of this cooked in some oil thats fragrant with ginger and garlic. The filling is inspired by my recipe for crispy vegan spring rolls with an addition of some tofu. Feel free to add some chopped spring onions (scallions) or baby corn or any other vegetable of your choice.
- 2 simple pantry staple Chinese sauces -> soy sauce and sriracha. -
- Some brown sugar or maple syrup making is sticky sweet that adds a little sweetness towards the end:
- A tablespoon of sesame oil to elevate the flavour.
Once the dumpling veggie mixture is cooked and cooled, its time to shape your potstickers.
How to fold or shape a potsticker?
- Take help from the picture below! Step 1 -> Fill a small bowl with some water (not cold; room temp). Place your circular gyoza wrapper on a flat surface. Add a tbsp of your filling to the middle. Dip your finger in water and move it over the outer shape (circumference) so that it gets moist. Now bring the two sides together as shown in the picture below.
- Step 2 -> Hold up the potsticker in your another hand and start pleating from the centre towards outside making 2 or three pleats pinching them inwards.
- Step 3 -> Repeat for the other side and keep tapping them to the flat surface to make sure they are really smooth and flat at the bottom.
- Step 4 -> Transfer every potsticker on its turn to a plate and cover with a kitchen towel at every turn. Do not leave the potstickers uncovered at any point as they dry out very soon.
Now that you have shaped your vegan potstickers, its time to cook these beauties. The best part about making crunchy pan fried dumplings is that you dont need an actual steamer and neither do you need a wok! You simply cook them in a pan giving them a crunchy bottom and then adding some water, covering your pan and letting them steam.
How to cook vegan potstickers?
- Start by heating some oil in a pan (not a wok, a regular flat pan: preferably non stick). Spread oil evenly on the pan. Add 10-12 dumplings at once. Let the dumplings cook until they get a crispy bottom.
- Once you see a golden bottom, carefully pour some water and cover immediately.
- Let cook covered for a couple of minutes until all water is evaporated and the skin of the wrappers is nice and soft.
- Uncover and you will notice the potstickers puffed up - which is normal. Now let cook on low flame for an additional minute - at this point, they will shrink and the puffiness will disappear. Let them sizzle for a few seconds and they are ready to serve!
Possible questions/ storage/ freezing options
- Where can I find gyoza or dumpling wrappers? If you are in India, you can find them at modern super markets like FoodHall - of course that includes Delhi, where you can also find them at INA market. This is the brand I use(not affiliate) If you are in Europe, I have been able to find the same brand at Asian stores.
- What to serve with potstickers? There are a variety of dipping sauces that I like to serve with dumplings! 1) Simple Soy Dipping Sauce -> Simply mix together low sodium soy sauce with vinegar. Add some grated garlic & ginger, some honey/ sugar and chopped scallions. or 2) Sriracha mixed with Vinegar (this is what I have used for the pictures in this blog post) or 3) Delicious peanut butter dipping sauce that is SO yummy!
- Make ahead tip for dumplings -> If you plan to have them for dinner/ next day, but would like to prepare ahead. Prepare upto the step of filling them up, then store in air tight container and pan fry and steam when you'd like to eat them.
- How to freeze dumplings -> Same as above. I love how this recipe for vegan potstickers is freezer friendly! Transfer the shaped potstickers to an air tight container or a zip lock and transfer to freezer - good for upto 2 months! When you'd like to eat, simply add frozen dumplings to oil and pan fry - no need to thaw them or let them reach room temperature.
More vegan Asian recipes to try:
- mushroom potstickers/ pan fried dumplings
- sticky sesame crispy cauliflower
- crispy Asian style spring rolls
- rice paper summer spring rolls
- ginger garlic fried rice
- veggie meatless meatballs
- sweet and spicy noodles with hoisin tofu
Description
Better than take out and so easy to make at home, these Asian style vegan potstickers have a crispy bottom (gyozas!) and are filled with a very delicious vegetable filling tossed in Chinese sauces giving you the perfect dumplings to enjoy as a delicious appetizer or double up and enjoy as a yummy meatless main dish!
Ingredients
Scale
- 30-36 gyoza/ dumpling/ wonton wrappers
- 6 tbsp vegetableoil (3 tbsp for cooking the filling/ mixture and 3 tbsp for cooking dumplings/ potstickers)
- 1 cup cabbage (shredded in food processor or very finely chopped or grated)
- 1 cup carrot (shredded in food processor or very finely chopped or grated)
- 2 cups mushrooms (finely chopped) - used regular white button mushrooms for this recipe
- 3/4 cup firm or extra firm tofu (crumbled or finely chopped)
- 2 tsp ginger (grated)
- 2 tsp garlic (grated)
- 2 tbsp soy sauce (light or dark - both should work)
- 2 tbsp sriracha sauce
- 1 tbsp sesame oil
- 1 tbsp sugar or brown sugar
- water
Instructions
- Heat 3 tbsp oil in a pan and add mushrooms. Cook on medium flame stirring every every few minutes until all moisture from mushrooms is evaporated and they start turning light brown.
- Add ginger, garlic, cabbage, carrot, salt, pepper and mix well. Let cook for a few minutes until all liquid is evaporated and the mixture begins to reduce. This should take 5-6 minutes on medium flame. Keep stirring.
- Once the mixture begins to cook more (starts changing colour), add soy sauce, sugar, sriracha, sesame oil, mix and continue to cook for a couple of minutes. Transfer the filling mixture to a bowl and let cool or come down to room temperature.
- Add about 1 tbsp mixture into dumpling wrappers and fold (shown elaborately in blog post). Keep the dumplings covered until its time to cook them.
- To a pan, add 1 tbsp oil and let spread evenly all over the pan. Add about 10-12 dumplings and let brown on the bottom on medium flame. Add 3-4 tbsp of water for every 12 dumplings and immediately cover. Let cook for 2-3 minutes and then further for one minute uncovered.
- Repeat for remaining potstickers and serve hot with dipping sauce of your choice.
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