Gluten Free Chicken Potstickers
(Are you out there Colleen? I hope so! You’re the inspiration for this late night creation.)
Late last fall, my husband and I set out to recreate some egg rolls. Culling tips from his Chinese heritage, we had the filling in no time. It was the dough for the egg roll wraps that took us a tad longer – but not much. We played around a bit with starch and flour ratios and came up with a winning recipe.
While we were making egg rolls, my love remarked on how easily he thought we could make potstickers from the same dough. Lo and behold, Colleen asked about potstickers in February and I told her of his idea. And now, she’s posted another comment and let me know that the recipe did indeed work for her for potstickers. (Hooray!)
When my love got home, I told her of Colleen’s successful potstickers. That whole conversation just triggered a huge potsticker craving around the house and before I knew it, we were once again cooking at 11:30 PM. (Seriously, what is wrong with us? LOL)
I’m happy to report that not only do potstickers work very well with this wrapper recipe, but they are also easily frozen and made whenever you want them. (And this is told to you by someone who doesn’t freeze much because I prefer not too and hate defrosting breads, etc)
While forming potstickers does take a bit of practice and a little time, this one recipe will make two dozen potstickers. (Perfect for taste testing and freezing.) Don’t worry about crimping the edges of the potstickers perfectly, you just want them sealed. Potstickers are usually pinched/folded along the edges and the dough cooperates well with this IF you keep it moist while working.
IMPORTANT TIPS/HINTS:
- Keep the prepared dough covered with a damp (not wet!) paper towel to keep it moist. I rolled the dough out in three of four batches and then used a large 3.5″ biscuit/circle cutter to cut out the wrappers. I kept the cut wrappers and the dough covered with the damp paper towels the entire time we worked.
- Make the filling FIRST and have it ready to go so the wrappers are not sitting out while you make it.
- Work with a buddy if you can find one. The work goes much faster. (We finished making one recipe in under an hour together.)
- Potstickers are usually thicker than ravioli, but you can make yours thinner if you would like. Please adjust your cooking time for this change.
- The filling does not need to be precooked for potstickers. Precooked filling (like in egg rolls) may be more crumbly than a potsticker filling which usually sets together as it cooks.
- You can substitute pork for the chicken in this recipe to make a more traditional potsticker.
Here’s a picture of the crimped edges.
(Sorry the photo is a bit blurry, but I thought it might help to see the edges.)
Gluten Free Chicken Potstickers
Gluten Free Potstickers – Chicken Filling
Makes two dozen potstickers
Ingredients:
2 chicken thighs, deboned, skinned and trimmed
3 garlic cloves
1 egg
1 Tablespoon cornstarch
2 Tablespoons GF Soy Sauce (We use San-J Gold)
1 Tablespoon sesame oil (or toasted sesame oil)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon Chinese five spice
2 stalks of green onions, finely chopped
1/4 cup minced onion
1/2 cup chopped parsley
Directions:
- Put chicken meat into the food processor with the garlic, egg, cornstarch, soy sauce, sesame oil, salt, pepper, and five spice. (Everything EXCEPT the green onion, onion, and parsley.) Process until you have a fine ground meat (which my husband is calling a “meat paste”.)
- Stir in by hand, onions, parsley and green onions.
- Set aside a make the potsticker wrappers.
Gluten Free Potsticker Wrappers
(Same recipe as for my GF egg rolls which can be found here.)
Ingredients:
1/2 cup cold water + 1/4 cup cold water (added tablespoon by tablespoon) (**Or more! Depends on your flours)
1 egg (whisked in to 1/2 cup cold water) + 1 egg for sealing egg rolls
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup rice flour
1/3 cup tapioca starch (+ more for dusting)
1/3 cup corn starch
1/3 cup sweet rice flour (+ more to avoid sticky dough)
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
1 teaspoon gelatin
Directions:
- Blend all of the dry ingredients together in the bowl of your food processor.
- Mix together the egg and water. Slowly drizzle this liquid into the dough mixture with the food processor on. Process until the dough comes together. If the dough is sticky, add sweet rice flour by the tablespoon until it is no longer sticky. If the dough is too dry, add cold water by the tablespoon to pull it together.
- Roll out about 1/3 of the dough (keep the remaining dough under a damp paper towel) between two sheets of parchment paper. The dough should not stick to the parchment paper. If it does stick, knead some sweet rice flour into the dough until it no longer sticks.
- Roll the dough to 1/8 of an inch. (No thinner than 1/16″ or the dough will rip while cooking.)
- Cut into 3.5″ wide circles.
- Cover prepared/cut wrappers with a damp paper towel.
- Work quickly to roll out and cut remaining dough.
ASSEMBLY:
- Into each circle place a teaspoon or a teaspoon and a half of filling.
- Fold the dough in half, matching the edges.
- Crimp the edges by folding and tucking the edges as you would for a pie crust. (If the crimping is difficult, you can also seal them with a ravioli cutter or with a fork. Be careful not to pierce the dough with the tines.)
- Once the potstickers are assembled, there is no reason to cover them with a damp towel.
COOKING FRESH POTSTICKERS:
- Boil the potstickers (fresh, not frozen) for 8-10 minutes in rapidly boiling salted water.
- Drain.
- Pan fry the potstickers with olive oil to crisp the edges.
- Serve with dipping sauce.
COOKING FROZEN POTSTICKERS:
- Boil frozen potstickers in rapidly boiling water for 16-20 minutes.
- Drain.
- Pan fry with olive oil to crisp edges.
- Serve with dipping sauce.
POTSTICKER DIPPING SAUCE
1 part white wine vinegar
2 parts GF soy sauce
minced garlic
minced ginger
red pepper flakes
(add a bit of sugar if too bitter for your taste)
Happy eating all!
-Kate
PS. What’s a potsticker? Well, it’s a Chinese dumpling. And this dough? We’re using it next on peirogies. 
Anything is possible. You just have to give it a try.
THANK YOU COLLEEN! 
Will you marry me? Ok, if you won’t marry me, you have to at least cook for me. I miss Asian food so much…my problem is I just don’t have the patience to make something like this, though it looks so darn good. Your photos are great and these potstickers look wonderful. And seriously, cooking at 11:30 at night…don’t you ever sleep?!
Oh sleep – I love sleep! I love my Saturday nights more!
And Steve, you could totally do this. I’ve seen those beautiful renovation photos at your house. Really – that is MUCH more time consuming and detailed! We made these together and were sitting down to snack on them within the hour.
Tie an apron on the Artist and start up that food processor.
On a side note – I’m happy to see a comment from you.. been wondering about you after the storms in your area.
-Kate
Gluten Free Steve
May 26, 2008 at 11:59 am
I have all of these ingredients!!! Wohooo! I can’t wait to try these. They look terrific. I haven’t been able to find GF soy sauce yet though. I’m not too sensitive so I can use up what I have in the house, but when I restock I want GF. Any recommendations?
=) Hiya Zebe.
Glad to hear that your pantry is stocked for this recipe.
As far as the GF soy sauce goes, we only use SAN*J’s Gold label tamari sauce. When we can’t find that, we use the low-sodium silver label. I hope you find it!
-Kate
zebe912
May 26, 2008 at 12:46 pm
oh. my. god. you are SO my favourite person right now!! I cannot wait to make these!!! thank you thank you thank you!!!!
gaile
May 26, 2008 at 2:53 pm
thank you soo much for posting this! i was going to experiment with a wrapper the other day and did all sorts of searching for dumpling recipes and finally gave up— everyone said it was impossible
i can’t wait to try these!
nooshin
May 26, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Does anyone have any recipes for soy replacement? I love these Chinese recipes but am sooo allergic to all soy products – POOH! Thank you so much for this recipe – I will see what i can do on my own.
I don’t take credit for any of these ideas, but I found a couple of GF/Soy-Free Mock “Soy” sauce recipes online. Here they are:
SOY SAUCE SUBSTITUTE #1
2 cups beef broth
2 tsp cider vinegar
1 tsp molassas
1/8 tsp ground ginger
dash of pepper/onion powder/garlic powder
Combine all in saucepan. Boil until reduced to 1/2 cup. Store in fridge.
SOY SAUCE SUBSTITUTE #2
8 oz molasses
3 oz balsamic vinegar
sugar to taste
Combine ingredients. Refrigerate.
(This seems rather sweet to me. I think I would cut back on the molasses and make it more like 1 part balsamic vinegar and 2 parts molasses.)
SOY SAUCE SUBSTITUTE #3
* 2 tablespoons reduced sodium beef broth
* 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
* 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
* 2 teaspoons molasses
* 1 teaspoon sesame oil
* 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
* black pepper to taste
* 1/4 cup boiling water
Preparation:
1. Combine all the ingredients. At this point, you can either a) use the sauce as is, leaving for an hour to give the flavors a chance to blend, or b) for a thicker, richer sauce, boil the liquid until it is reduced by half, about 3 tablespoons. 2. Store in a sealed container in the refrigerator. Use the sauce within 3 – 4 days.
I hope this helps!
-Kate
gluten and soy free mama
May 27, 2008 at 10:15 am
LaChoy soy sauce is GF – which I can find at the *regular* grocery stores… some asian’s look down upon it though, say it tastes bad, esp when I bring it to a sushi restaurant. Oh well, make your soy sauce only out of soy and not wheat and I would happily eat your Kikkoman’s!
Also, Bragg’s amino acid is like soy sauce, found at the health food store, and I *think* it is soy free – but you’d have to check…
renee
May 28, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Kate –
Do you have a good recipe for making stir-fried bok choy, cabbage or greens? My husband and I fell in love with them when we were in China back in March. We were in Beijing and Shanghai. We ate a lot of them with white rice! They also make a wonderful stir-fried celery dish that we were frequently served. We haven’t found the right recipe yet…can’t figure out the sauce…
renee
Renee -
We make a lot of stir-fry greens (Spinach, gai lan, snap pea vine, etc). Which kind of sauce are you looking for? If you can describe the one you like, we can get you the recipe!
=)
Kate
renee
May 28, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Great. Looks nice. I just want to have it all. I could make one of for myself. Thank you.
Mark
May 28, 2008 at 10:48 pm
Yum Yum. You are so awesome. MUST make potstickers. I MUST.
Renee- Bragg’s amino acid is made from soybeans, so unfortunately isn’t soy free. It is gluten-free, though.
-Sea
Seamaiden
May 30, 2008 at 9:55 am
gasp! I sooo love you! *dancing in my chair* Yippee!!! I really missed potstickers
Also, we are ok here in Denver. I noticed your comment to Steve, and fortunately, the tornadoes skipped over Denver. Despite what everyones news said, the tornadoes were actually up north, close to Wyoming. Those poor people, though. It is just devestating.
Tiffany
May 30, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Ah, bliss is a GF potsticker. I am making these for my next Asian dinner! Thanks for the recipe!
For a soy replacement (for all those commenters above) try a mixture of fish sauce (for non veg soy replacement only) and mix some rice wine and lime jiuce and add a little red chile, garlic and dash of sugar or siracha paste. Not quite the same but a mighty fine dipping sauce that is tart and salty. More of a Vietnamese style dipping delight.
Ginger
June 3, 2008 at 2:09 pm
This looks fabulous. I’ve really missed having some of our Asian favorites since having to go GF. Thank you so much for working up this recipe. I’ll have to give it try pretty soon.
Sheltie Girl @ Gluten A Go Go
Sheltie Girl
June 3, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Has anyone else actually tried making these? I failed miserably – the dough was so stiff, it actually tripped the overload sensor on my Cuisinart food processor. I am sure I did something wrong, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what. I measured everything carefully and followed the recipe to the letter.
Hello Greg -
The dough needs to have enough water added to make it pliable. Since all GF flours vary in their moisture content, it is possible you need to add much more water than I do. (This is one of the draw backs of GF recipes. Regular gluten recipes add more flour to adjust consistency of the dough whereas we have to add more/less liquids.)
I have received quite a few email from people who have made the recipe successfully. I am sorry to hear that it didn’t work for you the first time around. =(. Next time with a bit more liquid/water, hopefully it will work successfully for you.
-Kate
Greg
June 8, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Thanks, Kate. I’ll definitely keep trying. Gluten-free is brand new to me! I have a lot to learn. Quick question, is it 1 egg whisked into 1/2 cup water PLUS another 1/2 cup water?
Yes – I whisk the egg into the water and then keep adding water little by little until the dough is pliable.
Like last night, a bread I make usually takes 3/4c of water, but I had to use 1 1/4 cups of water to get the consistency I needed. It just takes a little practice…. or a lot of practice, in MY case. LOL
-Kate
Greg
June 9, 2008 at 5:15 am
Woo Hoo! I am so excited to see this recipe. I cannot wait to try it. Your egg roll wrapper recipe worked so well for our potstickers, my daughter is still talking about it, even though her birthday was weeks ago.
My husband has in mind some crab rangoon too, and I think it would work smashingly for that as well.
Keep up the great work. I will keep reading – and eating!
Colleen
June 13, 2008 at 8:39 am
I made potstickers tonight with this dough and a different filling recipe (pork and cabbage), and they came out *fantastic*. My mom, who has always made hers with a wheat-flour dough, said they were the best she’s ever had– and I’m pretty happy with myself when I can outcook Mom.
I wound up using my usual potsticker recipe, just with this flour mix instead of wheat. I left the egg out entirely, and mixed the dough with chopsticks and my hands (it needed a little extra water and some kneading). To roll out the dough, I divided it in thirds, rolled into long snakes about an inch in diameter, and cut those into pieces about an inch long, then rolled out the little chunks of dough between pieces of wax paper to about 3 inches in diameter. I got 24 potstickers from this recipe.
After filling and closing the dumplings, I browned them in a little oil, then added a cup of GF chicken broth and covered them to steam, with the lid a little tilted to let some steam out. After the broth evaporated, the bottoms browned up again beautifully.
They were so good! I can’t say it enough! I can’t wait to try this for pierogies.
Joe
June 13, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Let the record show that my first failed attempt was caused 100% by operator error. I tried again last night, and the wrappers turned out wonderfully! (thanks Kate for the coaching)! It is my considered opinion that these wrappers are FAR superior to those wheat based ones you buy in the store.
Hooray! Greg, I’m so happy that this recipe worked for you too! Potstickers all around, I say!
-Kate
Greg
June 14, 2008 at 10:32 am
[...] the pasta, I started with the same recipe I’ve been using for potstickers, egg rolls and crab rangoon. It’s super simple as you can just add enough water to make the [...]
GF: Shrimp Ravioli with Lemon-Pepper Pasta « Gluten Free Gobsmacked
June 19, 2008 at 9:32 pm
These wrappers are hands down the best gluten free dough EVER! I made them last night, and will post about my results on my blog later today, but I wanted to come here and say THANK YOU! I made mine in a kitchenaid mixer, only added maybe 1 tblsp of the extra 1/2 cup water, and used 1/4 tsp of agar instead of gelatin, as we were making vegetarian potstickers this time. I am amazed at the pliability of this dough. It rolled out SO thin and tasted amazing, I’m thrilled there is some dough left to try making raviolis, and we froze about 16 potstickers (uncooked) for later dinners. THANK YOU so much Kate!!
Thank YOU, Gaile! I’m glad you are enjoying them too. Gotta love the versatile dough!
– Kate
gaile
June 21, 2008 at 3:24 pm