Gyoza | Pan Fried Dumplings

Delicious homemade gyoza and dipping sauce recipe. Crispy pan fried dumplings stuffed with chicken mince, vegetables, and simple seasonings.

So simple and easy to make at home with few ingredients. I’ve used store-bought gyoza (dumpling) wrappers in this recipe to save some time. You can serve this dish as a starter or a savoury snack or a light meal.

What Is Gyoza

Gyoza is a popular Japanese pan-fried dumpling also known as potstickers. Filled with ground meat, cabbage, and spring onions, wrapped in thin gyoza wrappers. Juicy filling and crispy golden brown skin make these dumplings unique.

Very similar to Chinese potstickers, the only difference is the size of the wrapper. Japanese gyoza wrappers are smaller than Chinese dumpling paper but the fillings are basically very similar.

Gyoza Fillings

Protein: I love to add chicken thigh mince in my fillings. Use any of your favourite mincemeat or seafood ( ground meat ) like chicken, lamb, beef, prawns, etc.

Vegetarian Gyoza: To make it vegetarian, add meshed firm tofu, finely chopped mushroom, or vegetarian meat like Quorn mince.

Cabbage: I use sweetheart cabbage in this recipe. Add any soft and sweet cabbage such as green, sweet, sweetheart, or napa cabbage.

Spring Onions & Chives: Chinese chives ( garlic chives ) or spring onions are one of the must-add ingredients to the gyoza fillings. They have a distinct mild onion and garlicky taste that makes the fillings so flavourful.

Ginger & Garlic: Freshly grated garlic and ginger taste best. If you are not a ginger fan, omit ginger but highly recommend adding garlic in the fillings.

Seasonings: Simple seasonings such as soy sauce, sesame oil, salt, and black pepper to taste.

Corn starch/ Potato starch: A teaspoon of corn starch creates a silkly texture and helps the fillings stick to each other.

As this is a versatile dish, you don’t need to use exactly the same ingredients. You can adjust the ingredients according to your taste, if you prefer if meatier, reduce the cabbage and spring onions amount. If you prefer it with more veggies, you can increase the vegetables or add extra vegetables like a shiitake mushroom.

How To Make It

Finely chop the cabbage, put in a bowl, sprinkle  some salt, mix well and set aside for 15 mins.

Finely chop the spring onions.

Squeeze all the liquid out from the cabbage set aside.

In a large mixing bowl add the minced chicken, cabbage, spring onions and all the ingredients from the seasonings list. Mix all the ingredients well.

To make the dipping sauce, mix all ingredients from the dipping sauce list in a small mixing bowl. Mix well and set aside.

To fold the dumpling, place one wrapper in the palm, wet the wrapper edges with water. Add a teaspoon full of fillings in the centre of the wrapper. Fold the wrapper in half over the filling, pinch on the left edge, make a pleat on top part of the wrapper from left to right.

Use a non-dominant thumb and finger to press the pleat and bottom wrapper together to seal the dumpling.  Pinch at the end of the right edge and seal the dumpling. Repeat to all wrappers till all the filling run out. ( You can get 25-30 dumplings with this amount of filling. )

Heat up a pan to medium heat, drizzle 1-2 tablespoon of oil, place the dumpling with the pleat upward and fry for 1 min, then add the water. Close the lid and cook for another 6-7 mins till the water evaporates and the dumplings are crispy golden brown on the bottom.

Transfer to serving plate and serve immediately. Delicious crispy pan fried dumplings are ready! Perfect as a starter or savoury snack.

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