Everyone likes Gyoza (Japanese dumplings)! This delicious, quick and easy Vegetable Gyoza is the perfect umami rich, authentic Japanese comfort food. Learn how to make gyoza from scratch today!
Vegetable Gyoza
Gyoza is Japanese dumplings. It's the country's soul food and is one of the most popular home cooked dishes everyone enjoys. You will enjoy vegetable gyoza with a hot, and flavour packed dipping sauce. Once you try this, you’ll keep coming back to this vegetable gyoza recipe time and time again.
It may seem difficult, but wrapping gyoza filling is not hard at all. After making a few, you’ll be a gyoza wrapping expert in no time!
As a kid, I helped my mother often, and we enjoyed making enormous batchestogether. Japanese people seem to love the art of folding. Just check out Marie Kondo! And it’s the perfect way to involve the kids in cooking – they’ll love it!
This vegetable gyoza recipe uses a pan-fried gyoza technique, rather than steaming. It's called yaki gyoza, which is the preferred cooking style for gyoza in Japan.
The outside of the gyozo becomes crispy and golden when cooked. It’s to die for!
Bring joy into your life and share it with love ones. Read on to learn how to make these vegetable gyoza!
Why You Will Love this Vegetable Gyoza
This gyoza recipe will help your everyday cooking because it’s:
Quick & easy
The thing that can take time in making gyoza is the wrapping. But this recipe uses a super easy wrapping technique.
There’s no need to make multiple complicated folds for each gyoza. You can just fold each one once with my approach. It’s the quickest folding method ever!
And you don’t have to cook the ingredients and waiting for them to be cooled down before wrapping.
This easy gyoza recipe takes no time at all to make!
Convenient
We call vegetable gyoza yasai gyoza, and usually homemade gyoza is made fresh in Japan.
But you can easily make extra and keep this veggie gyoza recipe in the freezer. And there’s no need to defrost. Fresh and delicious gyoza can be ready out of the freezer in less than ten minutes whenever you feel like it!
Versatile
While this recipe uses the yaki gyoza method of cooking, you can cook Japanese gyoza a variety of ways. (source) Try some with this veggie gyoza:
- Yaki gyoza - when people talk about gyoza, it usually means pan-fried gyoza in Japan. It's the most popular cooking style.
- Sui gyoza - boiled gyoza served with a light and seasoned soup broth.
- Age gyoza - crispy and golden, you can enjoy deep fried gyoza as a snack. It's the fancied cooking style among kids.
- Mushi gyoza - steamed gyoza without using oil.
My favourite is yaki gyoza but they’re all worth trying. It’s a good way to branch out using the same recipe.
Veggie Gyoza Ingredients
Ingredients for gyoza filling
Cabbage is a must item for Japanese style gyoza.
Mushrooms: I use a combination of dried and fresh shiitake mushrooms. Dried are great for their condensed umami flavour, and fresh add texture.
Sesame oil: Use the toasted, dark coloured sesame oil as it has more flavour than yellow (non-toasted) sesame oil.
Wonton round wrappers: I use round wonton wrappers called Gow Gee or Gyoza wrappers. I avoid the thicker dumpling wrappers for this recipe.
How to find wrappers
Check the refrigerator section at your local supermarket – often they’re near to the tofu or noodles. You can also find them the freezer section in the local Japanese grocery store. One packet usually has 30 wrappers so get two packets if you want to make extra for freezing!
Gyoza Sauce ingredients
This gyoza sauce is easy to make. It's rich, spicy and oh so more-ish!
Rayu: a must item for the sauce. You should be able to find it at your local supermarket. You can also find rayu at Japanese supermarkets.
Japanese rice vinegar: When you mix soy sauce with rice vinegar, magic happens. Japanese rice vinegar is milder and more mellow than Western white vinegar. It's a must item for this gyoza sauce.
Japanese dark soy sauce: I use Japanese dark soy sauce, "Kikkoman Yuki Organic Soy Sauce". Any koikuchi (dark coloured) shoyu works.
How to Make Gyoza
Gyoza filling
This gyoza filling recipe is straight forward. There’s no need to cook the ingredients and wait while they cool down before you start wrapping the vegetable filling.
After you salt the shredded cabbage, drain water well by hands. Then start seasoning vegetables with traditional Japanese ingredients. It's already tasty!
How to wrap the gyoza filling
Before you start wrapping, add oil on to the frying pan. You will be cooking each gyoza as you finish making ten of them. This saves time. Set aside.
Put gyoza wrapper on a plate or tray, and put a tablespoon of the gyoza filling in the center. Rub a bit water all the round edge of the wrapper with your finger.
Pick up the front and back edges from the top, and seal them with your fingertips by gently pressing them together. This allows you to folds each gyoza in no time at all! Make sure all the edges stick together and there’s no air bubbles.
Place each wrapped gyoza in the frying pan as you finish wrapping it, and keep wrapping the rest!
How to pan fry gyoza
Before you turn on the heat, it's important to check the edges of each gyoza are closed. This is important.
The vegetable gyoza filling does not need to cook for long. Once the bottom of the skin is coloured golden brown, the gyoza is ready. It usually takes about 5 to 7 minutes.
That's it! Serve immediately! Enjoy!
How to make gyoza sauce
Rice vinegar and soy sauce are the secret to Japanese gyoza dipping sauce. It looks translucent light brown. Add a few drops of rayu (Japanese chili oil) which adds some kick and adds a beautiful hint of red to the sauce. That's it! Homemade gyoza sauce is ready!
FAQs
How to store vegetable gyoza
Making extra gyoza and freezing some is a great time saving dinner hack!
Place uncooked gyoza on a tray and cover them with wrapping film. Put them into the freezer until frozen. Once frozen, transfer them into a freezer bag. You can keep them in the freezer for 3 months.
Cooking veggie frozen gyoza
No need to defrost before you cook. Add oil to the frying pan skillet and place the frozen gyoza straight into the pan. Turn on medium heat. Once the gyoza starts making a light frying noise, add ¼ cup water (59 ml). Put a lid on and steam for three to five minutes. Keep cooking until dried and the water evaporates. Once the wrapping turns golden,it's ready!
More easy Japanese dinner recipes
Vegetable Yakisoba (fried vegetable noodles)
Ramen broth (authentic ramen broth and various ramen recipes)
More vegetarian dinner recipes
Vegetable Gyoza (Japanese Pan Fried Veggie Gyoza)
Print Recipe Pin Recipe Leave a Review!Ingredients
Gyoza filling
- 4 cups cabbage (finely shredded) (200g)
- 1 cup spring onion (finely chopped) (note 2)
- 1 cup fresh shiitake mushroom (finely chopped)
- 1 cup vermichelli (finely chopped)
Gyoza filling seasoning
- ½ tablespoons garlic (grated)
- ½ tablespoons ginger (grated)
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons sesame oil
- 2 tablespoons mushroom powder (note 3)
- 2 tablespoon potato starch (or corn starch or corn flour)
- 1 teaspoon sugar
Gyoza wrapping & cooking
- 60 gyoza wrapping (note 1)
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
Gyoza sauce per serving
- 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
- ½ tablespoon Japanese soy sauce
- rayu (Japanese chili oil) (note 4: a few drops or homemade rayu)
Instructions
Preparation
- Combine shredded cabbage and salt in a bowl. Set aside, and leave for 15 minutes.
- Soak vermicelli with warm water for five minutes. Drain water and chop vermicelli finely with a knife. Set aside.
- Place oil in a frying pan. Use one tablespoon oil at one time. Set aside. (note 5)
- Prepare water in a small plate for wrapping. Set aside.
Filling
- Squeeze the water out of the cabbage completely. Add the cabbage into a bowl. Add the rest of the filling ingredients into the bowl and combine well by a spatula.
Wrapping
- Divide the filling in the bowl into six sections. Each section will yield around ten gyoza dumplings each.
- Place each wrapper on a plate or tray, and add a spoonful gyoza filling on it. Lightly moisturize the edge of the wrapper by wiping it with a finger. This allows you to seal the wrapper.
- Fold the wrapper into half, seal the top of the wrapper while pushing the filling down. Seal one side and then another side in the same way.
- After making one wrapped gyoza, place it in the frying pan. Add each gyoza as you finish making it and keep wrapping the other gyoza until the pan is full.
Cooking
- Once the pan is full with gyoza, turn on medium heat for two minutes. When the gyoza started making a light frying noise, add ¼ cup of water. Put the lid on and steam for another three minutes.
- Cook until the water is evaporated, and the top of the wrapper is slightly translucent. Then lift up the edge of one gyoza. Check to see if the wrapper is dry. If it's coloured golden, it's cooked and ready!
- Turn off the heat. Take cooked gyoza out with a spatula. Arrange so that the crispy and golden colours of the gyoza are on display.
- That's it! Serve the fresh and with a dipping sauce!
Gyoza dipping sauce
- Combine the same potion of soy sauce and rice wine vinegar into a small bowl. Add some rayu to your spice/heat preference. Start from dropping a few drops and check the amount of spiciness until it’s just right for you.
Recipe Notes:
- Dumpling wrappers are thicker than gyoza wrappers in Japan. So I use wonton wrappers, Gow Gee Pastry or Gyoza Wrappers, from a local supermarket. They are usually located in the refrigerator section next to noodles or tofu.
- You can also use ½ cup garlic chive and replace with 1 cup of spring onion.
- Mushroom powder makes this gyoza umami condensed. I highly recommend to use it for this recipe.
- Rayu is necessary for Japanese gyoza. You can find it at local supermarket these days. It's also easily found at any Japanese grocery stores. Or you can try my homemade rayu.
- I recommend to use a skillet to cook gyoza. Or use a non-stick frying pan.
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