Dumplings are lovely widely and homemade dumpling wrappers can make the dumplings to the next level. It is extremely simple to make dumpling wrappers at home, all needed is flour, water and salt. Then I will give you some inspirations of how to turn plain dumpling wrappers into something really interesting.

Quick Reading

• Why you should try homemade dumpling wrappers
• 📋 What you will need
• Make a dumpling dough by hand
• Roll out the wrapper
• Cooking tips
• How to keep the wrappers
• Dumpling fillings
• 🧾Recipe
• Recipe FAQ

Why you should try homemade dumpling wrappers

Dumplings are the most symbolized Chinese food for Chinese New Year. We have ample access to machine made store-bought dumpling wrappers. And yes, store bought dumpling wrapper can save lots of time and energy. But making your own dumpling wrappers at home is a quite rewarding family activity during the holiday and it creates much stronger wrappers. And you can use homemade wrappers to create creative dumpling foldings. So I hope you can have a try. Just follow the instructions. This can be interesting. Many of the yummy dishes using dumpling wrapper as the main ingredients like boiled dumplings, potstickers, steamed dumplings or shumai.

There are two major parts of the process, make a dumpling wrapper dough and circle the wrappers. The first part is quite easy while the second parts needs some practice.

📋 What you will need

The basic components for regular dumpling wrappers is water and flour, so it is a wheat flour based dough. Sometimes salt is added to make the wrapper chewier and more strong to avoid breaking in cooking process. So the list can be quite short.

1. a large operating board
2. all purpose flour
3. water, use room temperature or warm water | hot water is only for steamed dumplings
4. salt , optional but recommend adding a very small amount, bring no salty flavor to the wrappers.
5. a rolling pin

There is no need to buy "dumpling wrapper dough", all purpose flour with the right range of protein can work fine for dumpling wrappers. Don't use bread flour because strong gluten will make the rolling process quite hard to handle.

Make a dumpling dough by hand

1.Mix salt if using with flour within a bow. You may see experienced chef make this process on board. But the bow method is much easier for beginners. Stir the flour with chopsticks with one hand when the water is poured by the other hand. Mix them for a while until the water is almost absorbed and floccus texture formed.

2. Transfer the dough to the operating board, continue kneading for 2-3 minutes until the surface is almost smooth. It is ok if you can't knead the dough to smooth one time. If you feel tired, just cover the dough whatever form it is and let it rest for 15 minutes. After the resting, continue kneading the dough will be much easier. Then continue kneading until the dough gets very smooth surface.

3.Then cover the dough and let is rest for 30 to 45 minutes. Resting can relax the gluten and soften the dough. This is a preparation step for the rolling process. If the dough is too hard and firm, it will be quite hard to roll out. If you are in a hurry, at least make sure the dumpling dough is rest for 30 minutes. Remember to cover the dough either with a bowl or a cloth during all resting time.

The dough kneading process can be finished by a stand mixer, Simply add all the ingredients in a stand mixer and then knead for 6-8 minutes. You need to shape it into a round ball too before resting.

Roll out the wrapper

Make a hole in the center of the dumpling dough with fingers and then stretch and rotate with two wrists so the circle becomes larger and thiner, finally ends with a 3cm in diameter log circle.

Cut the circle in into two logs. Then roll each one backwards and forwards with force until the surface becomes very smooth and the log becomes firm. This step is extremely important and can save you lots of time in re-kneading the single dough piece.

This can save you lots of time from kneading single dumpling pieces.

Then divide the long log into small dumpling dough pieces (each around 12g). Each single log should be divided into 20 to 22 pieces.

I recommend rotating the log between each cutting so the small dough pieces can line up in two queues, which can avoid them sticking to each other.

Dust each of them to prevent sticky problem.

This process might be quite challenging at the very beginning. Rolling out dumpling wrappers is not as difficult as it might seem. With a little practice, you'll be able to get the perfect thickness and shape for your dumplings.

Before rolling out your dumpling wrappers, dust your working surface again. Take one piece of dough and press it to a round disc with the palm. Hold the wrapper with your left hand and hold the rolling pin with right hand. Rotate the wrapper when moving the rolling pin. The wrappers will have thicker center and thinner edges naturally. The wrapper should be around 8cm to 10cm in diameter. Check video for details.

Do a small batch (6-10 wrappers for beginners) and wrap them firstly, (you can check how to fold dumplings for more details about how to make the pleats. Otherwise the wrapper becomes too soft to handle very quickly. The best working process is to get assistants to help assembling the dumplings.

Cooking tips

1. The dumpling dough should be well kneaded until smooth in surface and well rested.
2. The two logs cut from the dough circle should be rolling back and forth until very firm and smooth in surface.
3. Keep dust the operating board and the wrapper to avoid sticky problems. Lightly, please.
4. Make a smaller batch each time and then wrap with filling.
5. Cover the rest of the dough pieces if you need longer rolling time to avoid drying out.

How to keep the wrappers

If you have leftover dumpling wrappers, slightly dust each of them and then freeze in air-tight bag. Next time before using, rest for around 30 minutes to 1 hour in room temperature until soften back.

Dumpling fillings

• Chive and pork
• Roasted eggplants with coriander  (vegan friendly)
• Shrimp and corn

🧾Recipe

Recipe FAQ