Best Juicy Filling for Dumpling and Wonton

There is nothing worse than having a dumpling or wonton and have a dry filling. My mom always made dumplings and wontons at home growing up. Now that I live alone, I make my own. However, I do find that sometimes my fillings are little bit dry. I’ve been researching to see what helps to make a dumpling or wonton filling juicy. I think I found it!

What is the trick?

Through my research, the trick to making dumpling and wonton fillings juicy after cooking is adding moisture. Normally, you would want to use regular ground meat rather really lean ground meat. However, that’s not all, you still have to add more moisture to the filling. How you ask? Well you add water! Before you turn away, let me explain, the meat can absorb water (not a lot but enough!). You just have have to beat the water into the ground meat!

That’s not all, after you need to seal the water into ground meat or else if you let it sit, the water will come out of the ground meat. To seal? You need hot oil! Hot oil will help to retain moisture. That’s why when you cook large piece of meats, you need some oil! Now that I’ve thoroughly confused you, let me explain, once you beat the ground meat with the water, you need to lock it in. Oil will help to form a barrier from the outside environment and prevents water from leaking.

Remember your high school biology class about water loving and water hating molecules? Well oil essentially coats the ground meat mixture and it doesn’t mix with the water and so the water doesn’t escape!

Ingredients

First you need ground meat: I’m using ground pork and ground turkey (any ground meat works well). Ideally regular ground pork should be used. With ground turkey, it’s quite lean so you need some more to help keep the filling moist.
I’m using 1lb of each.

To increase moisture, I’m steeping some aromatic water. The ratio is 1lbs of ground meat to 1/4- 1/3 cup of water.

Aromatic Water

• 2 slices of ginger
• 1 scallion cut into 2 inch pieces
• 1/2 tsp Sichuan peppercorn.
• 1/4-1/3 cup of water

Dumpling and wonton filling

• 1 lb ground pork/turkey/chicken
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp oyster sauce
• 1/4-1/3 cup of chopped scallion
• 3 tbsp of hot oil
• optional: chopped napa cabbage with water squeezed out.

How to make dumpling and wonton filling

Steeping the aromatic water

1. Combine ginger, scallion, Sichuan peppercorn in a bowl or measuring cup. Add in hot water (70^oC or 158^oF) and let it sit for at least 10 -15 minutes.

Making the filling-follow the instruction exactly!

1. In a bowl, add in the ground pork or chicken.
2. Strain out the aromatics.
3. Pour a bit of the water into the ground meat and use a fork or chopsticks to start mixing by moving your fork/chopsticks in clockwise or counterclockwise. DON’T CHANGE DIRECTION!
   • it’s important to add the water first before adding any other ingredients because you want to incorporate the water into the ground meat.
   • By mixing in one direction will help the water to be absorbed into the ground meat.
4. Add more water when you don’t any more water pooling at the bottom of the bowl. Do this until all the water is incorporated.
5. Then add in soy sauce, oyster sauce and salt. Mix in the same direction as before.
6. Add in scallions.
   • If you are making dumpling filling ahead of time, don’t add the scallion or oil, wait until you are ready to make the dumplings to add it. Or else it will have strong stinky onion smell.
   • Mix the ground meat again in one direction to allow the water to be reabsorbed into the meat before adding the scallion and hot oil.
7. Heat up some oil and pour onto the meat mixture. Mix in the same direction.
   • again, if making the meat mixture ahead of time, don’t add scallion or oil until you are ready to make the dumplings.
8. Then add in napa cabbage or any veggies of you choice if you like.
   • make sure to squeeze out the water in the veggies
9. Make your dumpling or wontons as per usually.

Substitution

I like adding Napa cabbage in my dumpling fillings and only scallion with my wonton fillings. However you can add any vegetable you like. Here are some ideas on what you can add.

• Corn- great with chicken and pork
• Carrots- great with beef or lamb or chicken.
• Chives- I like this with pork but the flavour can be quite overpowering
• Bok choy- rinse and dry bok choy thoroughly and roughly chop it up.

In terms of flavouring, I usually like to keep it simple with salt, soy sauce and oyster sauce for some umami and most of the flavour just comes from the scallion and the aromatic water. However, you can use ginger or garlic as well. I found that it kind of overpowered the meat flavour which is not something I personally like. However, you can use them.

When using scallions, ginger and garlic, you can add them and pour the hot oil on top, not only the oil will seal in the mixture, the hot oil will extract flavour out of the aromatics.

Pro-tips:

• Don’t add all the ingredients before mixing the water with the meat. The other ingredients will interfere with the meat absorbing the water.
• Add the aromatics (ginger, scallions, garlic) and hot oil when you are ready to make the dumplings, When you let the ground meat and aromatic sit in the fridge, the aromatic and ground meat can have an unpleasant odour (like the meat has gone bad). This is mainly due to the exposure to air causing some oxidation.
• If you add the aromatic later, just mix the ground meat again before adding scallions, ginger or garlic and hot oil.
• When adding any other vegetable choose vegetable that has low water content or squeeze out any excess water content before adding. You don’t want to introduce too much water or else you will have trouble filling your dumplings and wontons.

Best juicy dumpling and wonton fillings

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time:15 minutes mins

Mixing time:10 minutes mins

Total Time:25 minutes mins

Ingredients

Aromatic Water

• 1 slices ginger
• ½ scallion cut into 2 inch pieces
• ¼ tsp Sichuan peppercorn.
• ¼-⅓ cup water

Dumpling or wonton filling

• 1 lb ground pork/turkey/chicken
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1½ tsp oyster sauce
• 1/3 cup chopped scallion
• ½ tsp salt
• ¼ tsp ground white pepper
• ½ cup chopped napa cabbage (water squeezed out) OPTIONAL
• 3 tbsp hot oil

Instructions

Making the filling

• Combine ginger, scallion, Sichuan peppercorn in a bowl or measuring cup. Add in hot water (70^oC or 158^oF) and let it sit for at least 10 -15 minutes.

Making the aromatic water

• In a bowl, add in the ground pork or chicken.
• Strain out the aromatics.
• Pour a bit of the water into the ground meat and use a fork or chopsticks to start mixing by moving your fork/chopsticks in clockwise or counterclockwise. DON’T CHANGE DIRECTION!
• Add more water when you don’t any more water pooling in the bowl. Do this until all the water is incorporated.
• Then add in soy sauce, oyster sauce, salt and white pepper. Mix in the same direction as before.
• Add in scallions.
• Heat up some oil and pour onto the meat mixture. Mix in the same direction.
• Then add in napa cabbage if you like.
• make sure to squeeze out the water in the napa cabbage
• Make your dumpling or wontons as per usually.