I know it’s January and I should have tons of goals in my mind for 2025, but honestly, I haven’t considered very many resolutions for myself.
Well, I do have a couple, but of course, they’re all cooking related.
The first is to master my new pasta roller, which already had its maiden voyage with some pretty stellar results.
The second is to get really good at making dumplings. My first few attempts have been good but not as much of a success as I hoped, and in 2025, I’m really shooting for the grand daddy of them all: soup dumplings.
With those lofty goals in mind, I started out easy with a dumpling recipe that didn’t require any dough making—just some assembly and an oven—and I was very pleased with the results overall.
This comes from the Instagram account @saltNpiipa, which is created by father and son duo Michael and Nathan Le. They have a fun dynamic. I recommend giving their channel a watch. I added a little extra garlic, changed the sesame oil amount, and decided not to make the very spicy sauce they recommended.
Rice Paper Dumpling Pockets
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground pork
- 10 ounces raw shrimp minced
- 3/4 cup green onion chopped
- 8 to 10 cloves garlic minced
- 2 tablespoons fresh ginger minced
- 1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes optional
- salt and pepper to taste
- about 16 sheets rice paper spring roll wrappers
- 1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees, and line a rimmed baking sheet with foil or parchment paper, and set it aside.
- In a bowl, combine all of the ingredients (except the rice paper and olive oil), and stir to combine.
- Set up a wrapping station. You will need a deep dinner plate with the bottom just covered in warm water, a clean spot on the countertop, your bowl of filling and your prepared baking sheet.
- To make the dumplings, carefully dip a sheet of rice paper into the warm water. Let it set for a few seconds until it is pliable.
- Carefully place it on your countertop and place a large scoop of the filling in the middle (maybe just shy of 1/4 cup’s worth). Fold the sides in over the filling and then one of the ends. Then, as you fold the last end up, roll the dumpling a bit to get as much air out as you can. Basically, you’re making a packet with all four sides of the rice paper being folded over toward the center.
- Place the packet onto your prepared baking sheet and repeat until all of the filling is used or you run out of rice paper. (You can always saute any remaining filling and eat it over rice later on.)
- Brush the dumplings all over (top, bottom and sides) with olive oil and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, flipping halfway through.
- When the filling is cooked through (at least 160 degrees internal), turn your broiler on high and let the dumplings brown for just a couple of minutes. Watch them closely, and as soon as they are as brown as you want them, take them out of the oven.
- Serve with your favorite Asian-style dipping sauce.
These were really tasty. I tried to be fancy and eat mine with chopsticks, but I had trouble with them falling apart a bit. I think I needed to wrap them a little more tightly to keep the structural integrity.
Regardless, we really enjoyed these. Joey opted to dip his in a spicy sauce with chili crisp. I was more in the mood for soy sauce with some sesame seeds. Both were great.
And now that I have my feet wet in the world of dumplings, the next project will be conquering the wrappers. Or maybe I’ll just buy rice paper a few more times—you know, just to get the hang of things.
This piece first appeared in print Jan. 2, 2025.
Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.
