A Guide to Dumplings

Sometimes, it’s better to go beyond your familiar dishes and try different flavors from around the world, such as dumplings. Believe it or not, this delicious, easy-to-make comfort food wrapped around a tasty filling has many different types.

5-Minute Crafts prepared this mouth-watering guide for you to navigate the 12 most common dumplings you may want to munch on in the near future.

1. Jiaozi

Jiaozi is eaten as an appetizer, a side dish, or the main course. It comes in wide varieties and are named differently depending on how they’re prepared. When boiled, they’re referred to as shui jiao; when steamed, zheng jiao; or pan-fried, jian jiao, guo tie, or potstickers. It’s made with an opaque, thinly rolled piece of dough shaped in a crescent moon.

• Filling: ground meat or seafood, like pork, chicken, and shrimp, mixed with vegetables⁠, like mushrooms, ginger, salted cabbage, scallions, etc.
• It’s served with a dipping sauce ⁠— soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, ginger, or some spicy element.

2. Dödölle

Dödölle is a traditional golden brown small potato dumpling that originated in Hungary. It’s made with floury potatoes, lard, onions, and salt.

• Toppings: bacon bits or sour cream
• It’s served as a side dish with roasts or as a main dish with sour cream and a sheep’s milk cheese dip.

3. Xiao long bao (soup dumplings)

Xiao long bao consists of round dumplings twisted and pinched at the top. It means “small basket buns” thanks to the bamboo baskets they’re steamed in. They’re also known as soup dumplings due to the hot soup or broth hidden inside. So be cautious when eating this steamed delicacy.

• Filling: pork (traditionally), but also meats, seafood, shrimp, crab meat, vegetarian filling, flavorful broth, or soup with a small amount of a savory jelly, called aspic
• It’s served with a dipping sauce of black vinegar with small ginger strips.

4. Wontons (hun dun)

Wontons are square, boiled dumplings made of wheat flour, egg, and water.

• Filling: vegetables, shrimp, ground pork, and bok choy
• It’s served on its own with chili-crisp, in broth, or in noodle soup. The deep-fried ones can be served with a dipping sauce.

5. Har gow (ha gao)

Har gow or Ha gow (har gau) dumplings are cute little things wrapped in translucent skin made from tapioca and wheat starch and steamed in a traditional bamboo steamer.

• Filling: shrimp, bamboo shoots, scallions, and grated ginger
• It’s served with soy or chili sauce. You can also eat it plain, without sauce.

6. Shumai

Shumai is a unique, cylindrical, open-faced dumpling wrapped in wonton-like wrappers.

• Fillings: ground pork, shrimp, bamboo shoots, and mushrooms
• It’s usually served steamed but can be fried too. It’s topped with a crown of fish roe, fish eggs, shredded carrots, or peas.

7. Mandu

Mandu is a type of Korean dumpling that come in different variations; steamed, boiled, grilled, or fried, resembling the Chinese jiaozi and Japanese gyoza. It consists of a flour wrapper.

• Filling: veggies, such as shredded cucumber, or meat, like fish, ground pork, beef, or kimchi
• It’s served with a spicy sauce.

8. Gyoza

Gyoza is a crispy Japanese version of the Chinese potsticker with the filling wrapped in thinner skin, along with a much richer garlic presence.

• Filling: a mixture of minced pork, cabbage, shiitake mushrooms, sea urchin, cheese, Japanese shiso herb, and sometimes natto (fermented soybeans)
• It’s served hot with soy sauce, vinegar, and chili oil for dipping.

9. Momo

Momos are steamed dumplings from South Asia, similar to the Chinese baozi, Mongolian buuz, Korean mandu, and Turkish manti.

• Filling: ground meat, vegetables, and even cheese, depending on the region
• It’s served with a chutney or a spiced tomato sauce.

10. Samosa

Samosas are triangular crispy dough-wrapped Indian delicacies with fried, baked pastry pockets whose filling varies depending on the region.

• Filling: potatoes, onions, meat, cheese, lentils, peas, spicy potato, chicken, or lamb
• It’s served with a dipping sauce or samosa sauces in sweet, sour, and mildly spiced variations made with fresh ingredients, like tamarind, mint leaves, Indian spices, and jaggery. They’re paired with chai.

11. Siomay

Siomay is an Indonesian cone-shaped steamed dumpling derived from the Chinese shumai. They can be eaten as a snack and a light meal.

• Filling: pork, mackerel fish, etc.
• It’s served in bite-sized portions, topped with peanut sauce, sweet soy sauce, chili sauce, and a dash of lime juice. They’re sometimes paired with steamed cabbage, potatoes, bitter gourd, boiled egg, and tofu.

12. Klösse (Klöße, Knödel)

Klöße, Klösse, or knödel, is steamed or boiled dumplings popular across Austrian, German, and Czech cuisines. It’s made with potatoes, eggs, and flour with an alternate version replacing the potato with semolina.

• Filling: either with or without filling in savory and sweet forms
• It’s often served as a side dish rather than a meal on its own, or as a dessert where the dough is wrapped around a whole fruit — like a plum boiled and sprinkled with sugar that is later paired with cheese curd or even meatballs in soup.