Chinese Dumpling Wrappers

After years of believing gluten-free dumpling wrappers couldn’t be done, I found a recipe online that gave me success on the first try.

Lia and I can finally eating Chinese dumplings again after discovering this excellent wrapper recipe online.

After years of avoiding Chinese dumplings, my wife Lia, who is celiac, told me we’d be making dumplings for Chinese New Year, which fell on February 10 in 2024. She sent me a link to a gluten-free dumpling wrapper recipe she found online. I was skeptical.

Before the celiac diagnosis, we’d eaten hundreds of Chinese dumplings. Make that thousands of dumplings. Dumplings first entered my diet when we lived for a while in Taipei, Taiwan, right after college. On the corner near our apartment, there was a family-run restaurant where they made fresh noodles and dumplings—you could see them rolling out the dough in the front of the restaurant every morning. I went in regularly to order 20 dumplings for lunch (with a bowl of zha jiang or da lu noodles as well—how did I eat all that?) and learned by watching the other diners how to mix a tasty dumpling sauce at the table (soy sauce, rice vinegar, hot sauce, and toasted sesame oil).

Lia’s mom and step dad (Mr. Yin) make wonderful dumplings. Among the many things Mr. Yin has done in his life, he was once a professional cook in China, and he can turn out a perfectly round dumpling wrapper in seconds using a special rolling pin that is the length of your palm and tapered at the ends. But when they tried to substitute gluten-free flour to make dumplings for Lia, it didn’t work. It all fell apart. And so I believed it couldn’t be done.

But this recipe Lia found works. It worked for me on the very first try. I’d say these gluten-free wrappers work even better than wheat flour–based wrappers, because not a single one of the dumplings fell apart as they boiled, even the hole-filled ones we were sure would disintegrate as we slid them into the hot water.

So the wrappers were a success, and I can share the link for The Woks of Life recipe with confidence (I have no affiliation with The Woks of Life). But because websites and links don’t last forever, I’m going to rewrite it here. I followed the version that goes by metric weight, so I’m going to suggest you do the same for the best results (and I highly recommend that you get a kitchen scale if you don’t have one).

One tip for making the dough is that it will take a few minutes of kneading to fully incorporate the water into the flour. If the dough doesn’t form a perfectly smooth ball after the liquid is absorbed—if cracks form when you press it and little bits of dough fall off—add just a bit more water (I had to add 1 tablespoon) and continue kneading until you get the right consistency.

I also had to improvise when rolling out the wrappers. Because I don’t have a special rolling pin like Mr. Yin, only a big, heavy rolling pin, rolling the wrappers was challenging. I ended up using a tortilla press to get each one started in a nice round shape, then used the rolling pin to make them thinner (but losing some of the shape in the process). Lia suggested we use a round cookie cutter next time, so we may try that.

For the dumpling filling, you can probably find a thousand and one recipes (several are on the page I linked above, including pork, chicken, shrimp, and vegetable), but I’ve written the pork filling I used for this batch below. When you serve the dumplings, have bottles of gluten-free soy sauce or tamari, rice vinegar, hot sauce, and toasted sesame seed oil on the table and little bowls for each diner to make a dipping sauce. I like a sauce that uses all four ingredients—though light on the vinegar and heavy on the soy sauce and sesame oil—but I’ve seen people just douse the dumplings in hot sauce or sesame oil and leave the other stuff alone.

Equipment you’ll need for this recipe include two large bowls (one for mixing the dough, the other for the filling), a whisk or flour sifter for mixing the flour, a rolling pin, and a platter for the finished dumplings.

Dumpling wrapper ingredients:

• 110 grams (3/4 cup) gluten-free flour blend (I used King Arthur Gluten Free Measure for Measure Flour)

• 80 grams (½ cup) tapioca starch

• 70 grams (½ cup) glutinous rice flour (glutinous just means it’s sticky, not that it contains gluten!)

• 1 ½ teaspoons xanthan gum

• 160 milliliters (2/3 cup) water at room temperature

  

  Here’s what you need to make perfect gluten-free dumpling dough: xanthin gum, a gluten-free flour blend, glutinous rice flour, and tapioca starch.

Instructions:

Preparing the dough:

• Whisk together the dry ingredients (GF flour, tapioca starch, glutinous rice flour, xanthan gum) in a large bowl—I sifted it twice through a flour sifter to make sure it was blended

• Add the water and mix with a rubber spatula to bring it together, then knead the dough with your hands until it forms a smooth ball (if there are cracks in the dough, add 1 tablespoon or less of water and continue kneading until you get the right texture)

• Cut the ball of dough into four equal pieces (a kitchen scale helps with this); take one piece and cover the others in plastic wrap to keep them moist

• Roll the dough into a 6-inch log; cut each log in half and then each half into thirds, so that you have 6 equal pieces (again, a scale can help be sure you’re getting equal pieces—each piece should weigh about 20 grams)

• Take each piece and roll it with a rolling pin into a circle about 4 inches in diameter (you can do this on a wooden cutting board or on a clean granite countertop), using a light dusting of flour or tapioca starch to prevent sticking (I had a pastry scraper handy to help free the dough from the counter or the rolling pin when it stuck)

• Repeat until you have 24 wrappers

  

  You’re going to cut the main ball of dough into four equal parts, then roll each part into a log, which you’ll cut into 6 equal parts. Each part will become a wrapper.

  

  I didn’t get perfect circles, but they were good enough! The shape improved when I started using a tortilla press to get it started.

Assembling the dumplings (this is the part Lia handled; I am not good at this):

• Take each wrapper and add a tablespoon or so of filling to the center (scroll down for filling recipe)

• Have a bowl of water ready and using your fingers to moisten the edge of the wrapper, then fold it in half and press it closed (you can try to make them pretty with pleats if you want); place the dumplings on a platter lightly dusted with flour

  

  Fill each wrapper with a spoonful of filling (here, I have pork and garlic chive filling), fold it in half, and press the edges together.

Cooking the dumplings (this is for boiling; you can also fry or steam them if you prefer):

• Bring a pot of water to a rolling boil and swirl the water with a wooden spoon before dropping in the dumplings

• Cook the dumplings until they float to the surface and are cooked through, about 6–7 minutes

• Serve with condiments: gluten-free soy sauce or tamari, rice vinegar, hot sauce, and toasted sesame oil

  

  Cook the dumplings until they float and are cooked through, about 6–7 minutes.

Pork filling recipe (mix all together in a large bowl):

• 1 pound ground pork (20% fat)

• ½ cup chopped cilantro

• 1 plump clove garlic, finely chopped

• 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger

• 1 1/4 cups finely chopped garlic chives

• ¼ cup finely chopped scallions

• 3 tablespoons tamari or gluten free soy sauce

• 1 teaspoon rice vinegar

• 1 ½ teaspoons sesame oil

• 1 tablespoon gluten free oyster sauce

• ¼ teaspoon fresh ground white pepper

• ½ teaspoon fine sea salt

  

  These dumpling wrappers really hold together!