Mushroom and Kale Potstickers

Delicious plant-based mushroom and kale potstickers filled with veggies, ginger and garlic. First steamed, then fried for extra texture and flavour.

Mushrooms give these vegetarian potstickers a rich meaty texture and lovely savoury flavour. In fact, they are vegan mushroom kale potstickers, filled with mushrooms, kale, spring onion, ginger and garlic. Homemade dumpling wrappers mean you can make this entire meal from scratch!

The Mushroom and Kale Potstickers Filling

• Mushrooms – A mushroom medley is what will give the best texture to the dumplings – a mixture of brown and white button mushrooms and fresh shiitake mushroom if you can find them. Otherwise, dried and rehydrated shiitake can work too. However, if you’ve only got access to button mushrooms, just use those. There are plenty of other ingredients to help with flavour.
• Kale – Kale is happily growing in the garden at the moment so I love finding ways to use it. It brings a bit more texture than silverbeet or spinach too.
• Spring Onion – This brings just the right amount of onion flavour.
• Ginger & Garlic – These are must-have aromatics needed for dumplings
• Sesame Oil – The vegetables are fried in sesame oil, it’s an important flavour element.
• Soy Sauce – This brings the saltiness needed in the dumpling filling.

Preparing the Filling

Finely but roughly chop the mushrooms. They don’t need to be minced, a little size difference gives a better texture. If using dried shiitake mushrooms, let them hydrate in just boiled water for 20 minutes first. Once rehydrated, drain the shiitake and then chop.

Finely shred the kale, and grate or mince the ginger and garlic. Thinly slice the spring onion.

Heat a large saucepan over medium-high heat and add in sesame oil. Once the oil is hot, add the mushrooms, ginger and garlic and cook for around 5-7 minutes stirring occasionally until the mushrooms have softened. Add in the spring onions, kale and soy sauce and cook for a few more minutes more until the greens have wilted. Take the pan off the heat and let the filling cool down.

The Dumpling Wrappers

You can use store-bought dumpling wrappers or wonton wrappers for this recipe, or make your own wrappers.

Homemade dumpling wrappers are a bit of a process but it’s very satisfying making the entire meal from scratch. And, you can get the family involved with rolling and filling! If using homemade wrappers, roll the dumplings as quickly as possible after rolling so the dough doesn’t dry out. This also helps to avoid the dumpling wrappers sticking together when put in a pile.

Place a full teaspoon of filling on a wrapper. Fold the other half over and lightly press the middle together to secure it. Then starting from an edge of the dumpling, pleat one side of the wrapper, one pleat at a time, pressing each pleat against the straight side to make sure it is sealed tightly. Alternatively, just press the edges closed and don’t worry about the ruffled look – it’s purely aesthetic.

Store-bought wrappers will need a little water brushed along the edge to help it seal but fresh homemade wrappers don’t usually need this.

If you’re not going to cook the dumplings straight away, place the dumplings in an airtight container, not touching each other, and freeze. Don’t refrigerate them or the filling will leak out and ruin the dough.

The frozen dumplings can be steamed from frozen but for double the time that it would take a fresh dumpling.

Steaming and Frying the Potstickers

The potstickers are first steamed, to cook the dough. Fill a saucepan with water and bring it to a boil. Line a steamer with parchment paper and place in a few dumplings at a time, making sure they’re not touching each other.

Place the lid over the steamer and put the steamer over top of the boiling water. Leave the dumplings to steam for 7-8 minutes, and don’t take the lid off during this process.

Once steamed, the dumplings are fried. This gives great flavour and texture and is what turns a dumpling into a potsticker. Heat vegetable oil in a saucepan (I like using a cast-iron one for this), and place the dumplings flat side down in the hot oil. Let them fry for 2-3 minutes until golden brown and crispy on the bottom.

Serve the dumplings with sesame soy dipping sauce or sauce of your choice.

Sesame Soy Dipping Sauce

The sesame soy dipping sauce is made up of a few simple ingredients that bring the perfect balance of acid, sweet, salty and heat.

• Soy sauce
• Sesame Oil
• Rice wine vinegar (or apple cider vinegar)
• Brown sugar
• Spring onions
• Sesame seeds & chilli flakes

Simply mix it all together and serve with the dumplings, either used to dip the dumplings in or simple to drizzle over the dumplings.

Looking for more steamed doughs? Try Sourdough Bao dough to make steamed buns!

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