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One of my favorite things to eat is gyoza or Japanese potstickers. Crispy on the outside, yet chewy and juicy on the inside. I’ve had dreams of making a nutrient-dense and AIP version but I was too intimidated by the great feat. The dough seemed impossibly thin — how was I supposed to get an AIP dough so thin?
I overcame my fears and set out to attempt to make gyoza for the first time. I was inspired by a recent visit to the farmers market where I had some of the most delicious gyoza from an authentic Japanese vendor. I woke up one morning craving them and decided that, today’s the day!
These gyoza are surprisingly simple to make and even easier to scarf a dozen down before realizing what happened. The texture is just right, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. This recipe yields quite a bit, so you can freeze some uncooked for later or fry them up for a party. Dip them into some coconut aminos and enjoy!
- Filling:
- 1 tablespoon avocado oil for cooking
- 6 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tablespoon fresh ginger, minced
- 1 pound ground turkey
- ¼ cup cabbage, finely chopped
- 3 tablespoons coconut aminos
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 10 medium mushrooms, finely chopped
- 3 scallion stalks, chopped
- Wrappers:
- 1 cup tapioca flour
- 1 cup cassava flour
- ¾ cup hot water
- ½ cup avocado oil
- In a large pan, combine avocado oil, garlic, and ginger. Sauté on medium heat until garlic starts to brown. About 3 minutes.
- Add turkey, cabbage, coconut aminos, salt, and cinnamon, Sauté until soft. About 10 minutes.
- Add mushrooms and scallions and sauté for another 5 minutes or until soft. Remove from heat and set aside.
- In a large bowl, mix flours, avocado oil and hot water. Knead dough until well-combined.
- With a rolling pin, flatten a portion of the dough out between two pieces of floured parchment paper. Try to get it as thin as possible.
- Use a large, circle cookie cutter or large glass rim to cut out circles of dough.
- Fill the circle with about 1½ tablespoons of filling.
- Wet your finger in water and trace around the edge of the circle. Seal the edges together making pinch marks. Set aside on a floured surface until you are ready to begin frying. (You can choose to make these in bulk and freeze them at this point. I suggest freezing them on a baking sheet with parchment paper and then you can transfer them into a freezer-safe container.)
- In a large pan over medium heat, heat cooking oil and fry gyoza on each side until golden brown. About 1-3 minutes each side.
- Serve and enjoy!
15 comments
The filming was so yummy but we had a hard time with the dough cracking and splitting when trying to assemble- any suggestions?
Hi,
The filling tastes good, but I can’t figure out how to get the dough to keep from cracking when I go to fold it around the filling. Any advice?
IS there an alternate for Cassava, I have a terrible reaction to it but would love to make these..
I can’t tolerate cassava either I just used coconut flour. Turned out beautifully.
[…] Gyoza Japanese Potstickers from Autoimmune Wellness *Using coconut aminos, this filling sounds incredible! […]
The filling is SO good!! The dough is a pain in the butt.
**What I did: I added more water because as others have said, the dough is impossible to work with. It cracks and crumbles. The up-side is that, with more water, the dough was softer and I could at least work with it without wanting to toss it in the garbage. The down-side was that I had to leave it pretty thick and put in minimal filling.
**What the author needs to do: Change the dough recipe, or provide an instructional video because this IS pretty hard to work with. I’ll happily try it again (because as you eat them, you can tell what they’re supposed to taste like and it would be absolutely amazing!) and change my rating. There also needs to be salt added to the dough, or else it’s super bland.
**What I suggest: Definitely make the awesome filling but then use it in different recipes without the dough. Use it in stir fry, with AIP-compliant noodles and coconut aminos, or use it to replace the filling in this amazing calzone recipe: https://autoimmunewellness.com/aip-italian-calzone/
The dough doesn’t work for me either. A further advice on this process or a video would be great, please?
So first, these are freakin’ awesome. Second, I have a possible solution for the cracking problem. Instead of rolling and cutting like cookie dough, I portioned out the dough and smushed each ball in a tortilla press. I used parchment paper on both sides to press, and then also used the parchment paper as a helper to fold each circle around some filling. The dough is still super-delicate until cooked, but that’s the nature of the AIP/paleo beast.
I think the trick is to use hot water when mixing the dough, as the recipe says. I used very hot water and I noticed that made a difference. I also noticed that I needed to keep hydrating the dough throughout the process to keep it soft and elastic. I didn’t roll the dough, but made small balls that I pressed in a tortilla press, which also helped to make the disks very thin. Hope this helps in case you decide to give it another try.
As everyone else has said, the filling is delicious, but the dough is about impossible to work with. I just smooshed my fillings into hunks of dough and rolled it and fried it. Thicker than it was supposed to be and still hard to keep together, but really tasty.
My son has to eat AIP and we cook with cassava all the time, but the trick to the dough (as someone has mentioned in here) is to use a tortilla press, and mixing the oil and hot water together first (and using HOT water, not cold) does make a difference. Also–you can shape these into muffin tins that you then pinch together at the top and bake them. Another option I’ve used successfully is to use parchment paper to shape them. We don’t get this “pot sticker” look perfectly that way, but it does get the dough wrapped around the filling. I also used a recipe for “bao” and instead of rolling out and cutting, I rolled the dough into a ball and pressed it out into a circle, that I then pinched together to make the pouch. With this last one, GF Flour worked better than Cassava for me.
I don’t know what country claims these originally but these are bao. Meat filled steamed buns. According to some they are a meal by themselves but we had ours with broccoli as a side.
2 cups GF flour (I use King Arthur Gluten Free Flour, NOT The Measure for Measure bc that has xantham gum, which unless otherwise stated is normally made from corn).
1 T raw organic cane sugar
1 packet of red star yeast (this one works for my son as it does not appear to have been grown from corn)
2 eggs and enough almond creamer to bring it together
Roll out into dough circles and fill with your favorite filling
I made an improvised beef filling with only one steak and shredded that to make a filling.
That made about 16 bao (baos? Bai?) anyway- 16 of them.
Make your pocket in your hands, and sprinkle with OIL not flour while forming your gf flour based dough circles
Make sure you oil your hands
Make them thicker than you think you’ll need
Fry them in oil until the bottom browns slightly then pour water into the bottom of the pan and cover the pan until the water cooks off. That was about 2-3 minutes for me.
I used tin foil as a lid to my pan.
You can also make Batata Con Carne, which is pouches but with mashed potatoes. In my facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/358624744901885/ you can search Batata Con Carne to see the recipe. Also search “beef biscuit roll ups” to see the ones I made in muffin cups. This recipe will work (and her filling sounds AMAZING), you just have to get used to the flours. Hopefully these options above will help.
Just want to clarify that rice flour, cane sugar, and eggs are not AIP.
Thanks for posting this alternate dough recipe!
Just saying… Great way to finish Thanksgiving turkey. Just put someleft over in the food processor and voilà. Turn it on Gyoza that brings a new flavor to the turkey.
I had the same problem as others. The dough dries out very quickly therefore, the dough starts cracking as you work with it. You can’t roll them as thin as you want because then they stick to the floured parchment paper. You will be forced to make them thicker which will lead to a much “doughier” gyoza. The recipe creates way too much filling. If I make it again, I will cut the filling proportions in half next time and I will also use ground pork instead of turkey. I will make sure that the filling is prepared before I start rolling out the dough. I will work in smaller dough batches so that I can roll it out and immediately fill it. The recipe also does not tell you how to make the traditional gyoza sauce that is normally served with it.