How To Make Dumplings

Welcome to our weekly Foodie Friday link up! I’m linking up with Annmarie from the Fit Foodie Mama, Esther from Chocolate Runner Girl + Jess from Hello To Fit to create awesome healthy recipes each week! This week’s theme = Free For All!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I’m working this entire week because the hospital never sleeps, so you’ll have to enjoy it for me so I can live vicariously through you. :o

I feel like in every cuisine out there, there’s probably some variation of pastry dough filled with stuff in em’ (ravioli, momos, manti, pierogies, gyoza, samosas…), and I can definitely see why! Dumplings are probably one of my favorite make-ahead meals ever.

I’ve made them before many a time (just search “dumplings” on my blog and you’ll see all the previous attempts!), and much like with onigiri, they’re especially awesome to make with friends.

Trish and I had originally planned to have a dumpling party at my place so that we’d have tons of almost-ready-made meals for the future, but…we ended up going out for a sushi buffet and food coma-ing on my bed afterward, so I decided to make em’ the following weekend!

A photo posted by Farrah @ fairyburger (@fairyburger) on Aug 28, 2016 at 4:16pm PDT

Folding 100 dumplings gets to be a bit tedious after a while, so I put on some review videos in the background so I could simultaneously study whilst food-prepping for the week/month. Yay for multi-tasking at its finest!

I actually originally meant to put ground meat in this, but I may or may not have had wayyyy too much filling even without the meat, so these became vegetarian dumplings!

I folded the first few like this…

You can also put them in soup with noodles for wonton noodle soup! I ended up folding the rest of these like wontons because they were more compact that way!

They’re also very freezer-friendly, so when you want to eat em’, all you need to do is boil a pot of water and throw em’ in–when they float, you’re good to go!

For the record, this variety would be best prepared by boiling! If you want the pan-fried variety, check out this post! I also have directions on how to boil, pan-fry, and steam them at the end of this post!) There’s also a recipe for a 3-ingredient dipping sauce in there! (I also like eating these with sweet chili sauce!)

I lay them flat in quart-sized freezer storage bags. :]

The bags of dumplings at the store are something like $4 each, so making your own is wayyyy cheaper. Plus, a lot of the ones at the store have pork in em’, which I can’t eat, so I like that you can customize these however you want when you make em’ on your own!

I made about 50 of these for my friend when I went to visit him so he’d have something quick to eat whilst on his 12937123-hour work weeks! :O

How To Make Dumplings

Ingredients:

• 1 package dumpling wrappers (or you can make your own)

(Filling*)

• 1/2 cabbage, finely shredded
• 3/4 cup cremini mushrooms, finely chopped
• 2 medium-sized carrots, finely chopped
• 3 sprigs green onion, finely diced
• 1″ piece ginger, finely minced
• 4 cloves garlic, finely minced
• ~2 tbsp sesame oil
• ~2 tbsp soy sauce (or liquid aminos)

Instructions:

1. Combine the cabbage, carrots, mushrooms, sesame oil and soy sauce in a large bowl and stir until well combined.
2. Add scant 1-tbsp portions to the middle of each wrapper. Avoid over-filling or the wrappers may not close properly!
3. Fold the wrapper in half diagonally and tuck the ends into the middle.
4. Boil a pot of water and drop the dumplings in. When they float, they’re ready!
5. If storing in the freezer, lay them out individually in rows in freezer-safe bags.

*You can also add egg and/or a little cornstarch to the filling to make it stick together a bit better!

This recipe actually left me with a surplus of dumpling filling despite the 100 dumplings I made, so I combined it with some quinoa for extra make-ahead meals!

End-of-Week-ish Recap!

• Ever tried making bread in your crockpot? I decided to try for some Crockpot Pumpkin Cranberry Bread and it actually turned out pretty well! :D Super moist (sorry if you hate that word) and flavorful!
• It’s time for another Travel Tuesday! Check out my hike up to the Lanikai Pillboxes (otherwise known as the Ka’iwa Ridge Trail)

 Loading InLinkz ...

Interested in getting to know more about any of your super-awesome co-hosts? :]

• Farrah | blog | facebook | instagram | pinterest | twitter | bloglovin’
• Annmarie | blog | facebook | instagram | pinterest | twitter | bloglovin’
• Esther | blog | facebook | instagram | pinterest | twitter | bloglovin’
• Jess | blog | facebook | instagram | pinterest | twitter | bloglovin‘

Join us next week for Holiday Baking!