After two meat dumpling filling recipes it’s only fair I give two vegan fillings recipes to our vegan and vegetarian friends. Check out also how to make dumplings video.
You can experiment with all kinds of vegetables to make any combination. Just remember, if you include vegetables that contain a lot of water, like celery or Chinese cabbage, you need to remove as much liquid as possible otherwise the filling will be too soupy. I talked more in details in another post about the importance to remove excess water, see explanation here.
In the first vegan filling recipe, I used Savoy cabbage which contains less water than other cabbages. In the second recipe, the fennel and bell peppers have been sautéed to remove water and bring out more flavor.
Classic cabbage mushroom vegan filling for dumplings
Prep
Total
Yield 40 dumplings
Ingredients
- Half head of Savoy cabbage (about 1lb/450g), stem removed and minced
- 1/4 lb of shiitake mushroom (about 8 medium size ones), stem removed and diced.
- 1 carrot, diced
- 1 tbsp of peanut oil
- 3 garlic cloves, pressed through a garlic press
- 3 scallions, minced
- 1 small piece of ginger, grated or minced (about 1 tbsp)
- 2 tbsp tamari, or vegan friendly light soy sauce
- 1 tbsp Porcini powder (optional)
- 2 tsp Sesame oil
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper (or to taste)
Instructions
- Use a salad spinner to remove excess water from washing cabbage and mushrooms.
- After dicing vegetables, mix everything together in a large mixing bowl.
- Make dumplings with homemade or store bought wrappers.
Courses Main
Cuisine Chinese
I’ve added Porcini powder in my vegan dumpling recipe to add more umami. You can make your own Porcini powder, just buy dried Porcini mushrooms then use a food processor or spice grinder to turn them into powder. You can also use dried shiitake mushrooms to make shiitake powder to use in this recipe.
Potato flour and porcini powder in the small dish on the top right.
Lightly sautéed bell peppers, fennel, and garlic.
These dumplings can be boiled or pan fried. I made pan-fried version, also called potstickers. I put some sesame seeds on the bottoms of the pan, like some restaurants do, to have a crisper and prettier potsticker bottom. The thing is, I put too many, and when I added water to the hot pan, the sesame seeds just started jumping around and stuck on top of the dumplings. If you want the same look potstickers, please repeat my mistake. You are welcome!
Fennel bell pepper filling for dumplings
Prep
Cook
Total
Yield 40 dumplings
Ingredients
- 3 bell peppers, seeds removed, diced
- 1 large bulb of fennel with leaves (about 1lb/450g), diced, tops reserved
- 1 tbsp of olive oil
- 4 garlic cloves, pressed through a garlic press
- 2 scallions, minced
- 1 small piece of ginger, grated or minced (about 1 tbsp)
- 1 tbsp tamari, or vegan friendly light soy sauce
- 1 tbsp potato flour
- 1 tbsp Porcini powder (optional)
- 1 tsp Sesame oil
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper (or to taste)
Instructions
- Heat a 12-inch skillet on medium-heat for 1 minute, add olive oil, heat one more minute then add fennel cook until fragrant, about 3 minutes, add bell peppers, sprinkle 1/2 tsp of salt, let the vegetables sweat. Turn heat to high. When liquid rendered by vegetables has evaporated, turn off the heat and add garlic. Mix everything well, garlic will be slightly cooked with the residual heat and turns fragrant. This step of lightly sautéing vegetables is to bring out more flavor and ensure excess water has evaporated.
- Transform cooked fennel and bell peppers to a large mixing bowl, and let vegetables cool completely. Then add reserved fennel tops, and all other ingredients, mix everything well.
- Make dumplings with homemade or store bought wrappers.
Notes
*If you are using a food processor to chop bell peppers and fennel, there is a big chance that you can see some juice in the bowl of food processor, DO NOT add that to your filling.
*If you want to skip sauté part, you can extract liquid from vegetables using a nut milk bag or cheesecloth.
Courses Main
Cuisine Chinese
Either you are an animal-friendly fellow or just want to eat more vegetables, these vegan dumplings are made for you. Let me know what you think.
If you are on Instagram, tag me #simpleindeedtaste so I can see your version.
Happy lunar new year!
x. Qi
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