Jiaozi (Boiled Pork and Napa Cabbage Dumplings)
Hand-rolled wheat wrappers pleated around a silky filling of ground pork, blanched napa cabbage, Shaoxing wine and sesame oil, boiled in a big pot and served with black vinegar and soy sauce for dipping.
Jiaozi are the dumplings of northern China, eaten all year in the northern provinces and, Wikipedia says, one of the major dishes of Chinese New Year there, often at midnight on New Year's Eve, because their shape recalls the gold and silver ingots once used as money. The traditional origin story credits Zhang Zhongjing, a physician of the Eastern Han dynasty (AD 25 to 220), who is said to have wrapped lamb and warming medicines in dough to treat poor people with frostbitten ears; the first name for the dumplings, "tender ears," comes from that story. It is a legend. The archaeology is older and harder: Chinese archaeologists found a bowl of jiaozi in Tang dynasty tombs in Turpan, and a writer of the Northern Qi (AD 550 to 577) already called the crescent-shaped jiaozi "a common food in the world."
Boiled jiaozi (shuijiao, "water dumplings") are the everyday northern version; pan-fried ones are the potstickers of the West. This recipe is the family dumpling of The Woks of Life, the Leung family's food site, which Sarah Leung learned to fold at seven in her grandmother's kitchen in Queens. It is the baseline for the whole hub. Everything America did to dumplings, from Boston's Peking ravioli to a bag of frozen potstickers, starts from a plate like this.
🇨🇳 The original
Hand-rolled wheat wrappers pleated around a silky filling of ground pork, blanched napa cabbage, Shaoxing wine and sesame oil, boiled in a big pot and served with black vinegar and soy sauce for dipping.
🇺🇸 The American version
In Boston, Joyce Chen pan-fried pork dumplings until the bottoms crisped, served them with a soy-vinegar dip and called them Peking ravioli. WGBH says she chose the name for her Italian-American customers. See the Peking Ravioli (Boston Pan-Fried Pork Dumplings) recipe.
Why it works the kitchen science
Mixing until it's a paste
6 to 8 minutes of hard stirring with the water and oil makes the pork bind and hold liquid, so the filling stays juicy and springy instead of crumbly.
Blanching the cabbage first
Two minutes in boiling water wilts the napa so it can be wrung dry, which keeps the filling from flooding the wrappers and tearing them in the pot.
Step by step
- Step 1
Make the wrapper dough: stir the tepid water gradually into the flour, then knead about 5 minutes into a stiff, smooth ball. Cover and rest at room temperature 1 hour.
- Step 2
Meanwhile, bring a pot of water to a boil, blanch the napa cabbage 2 minutes, then cool it under cold running water. Wring out all the water and chop it very finely.
- Step 3
Put the cabbage, pork, Shaoxing wine, oil, sesame oil, salt, soy sauce and white pepper in a bowl. Add the water last and mix vigorously 6 to 8 minutes, until the filling turns pasty and sticky.
- Step 4
Knead the rested dough until smooth and cut it into 12 to 15 g pieces (about 32). Keeping the rest covered, roll each piece into a 3 1/2-inch circle, slightly thinner at the edge.
- Step 5
Put a scant tablespoon of filling in the center, fold the wrapper in half, pinch the top and make two pleats on each side so the dumpling looks like a fan. Seal it completely and set it on a parchment-lined, floured sheet, not touching the others.
- Step 6
Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil over high heat. Boil 2 test dumplings, taste them and adjust the filling's salt if needed.
- Step 7
Add half the dumplings, stir gently so they don't stick, bring the water back to a boil, then simmer 6 to 8 minutes, until they float, the skins look slightly translucent and the center of one reads 160°F. Lift them out with a spider and repeat.
- Step 8
Mix the black vinegar and soy sauce (and chili oil, if you like) in small bowls and serve the dumplings hot.
Jiaozi (Boiled Pork and Napa Cabbage Dumplings)
Serves 4 · about 32 dumplings · 1 hr 55 min total
Wrappers
- 2 cups plus 2 tbsp (about 265 g) all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling
- 2/3 cup tepid water
Filling
- 1 lb napa cabbage
- 1/2 lb ground pork (not too lean)
- 3 1/2 tbsp Shaoxing wine (or dry sherry)
- 2 2/3 tbsp neutral oil
- 1 tbsp toasted sesame oil
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- A pinch of white pepper
- 3 1/2 tbsp water
To serve
- 1/4 cup Chinese black vinegar
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- Chili oil, to taste (optional)
Method
- Make the wrapper dough: stir the tepid water gradually into the flour, then knead about 5 minutes into a stiff, smooth ball. Cover and rest at room temperature 1 hour.
- Meanwhile, bring a pot of water to a boil, blanch the napa cabbage 2 minutes, then cool it under cold running water. Wring out all the water and chop it very finely.
- Put the cabbage, pork, Shaoxing wine, oil, sesame oil, salt, soy sauce and white pepper in a bowl. Add the water last and mix vigorously 6 to 8 minutes, until the filling turns pasty and sticky.
- Knead the rested dough until smooth and cut it into 12 to 15 g pieces (about 32). Keeping the rest covered, roll each piece into a 3 1/2-inch circle, slightly thinner at the edge.
- Put a scant tablespoon of filling in the center, fold the wrapper in half, pinch the top and make two pleats on each side so the dumpling looks like a fan. Seal it completely and set it on a parchment-lined, floured sheet, not touching the others.
- Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil over high heat. Boil 2 test dumplings, taste them and adjust the filling's salt if needed.
- Add half the dumplings, stir gently so they don't stick, bring the water back to a boil, then simmer 6 to 8 minutes, until they float, the skins look slightly translucent and the center of one reads 160°F. Lift them out with a spider and repeat.
- Mix the black vinegar and soy sauce (and chili oil, if you like) in small bowls and serve the dumplings hot.
Adapted from The Woks of Life (Sarah Leung), "The ONLY Dumpling Recipe You'll Ever Need" (published October 13, 2013; updated January 13, 2025): with its wrappers from The Woks of Life, "Foolproof Dumpling Wrapper Recipe" (updated November 6, 2023). Both are written for 7 to 9 dozen dumplings; we use one third of each (3 lb greens, 1 1/2 lb pork and 6 1/3 cups flour become 1 lb, 1/2 lb and about 2 cups plus 2 tablespoons). We follow the 2-minute napa blanch, the 6 to 8 minutes of vigorous mixing, the 1-hour dough rest, 12 to 15 g wrappers rolled to 3 1/2 inches, the test-dumpling taste and the 6 to 8 minute simmer. The dipping sauce is ours (the recipe gives none), and the 160°F check is ours. The Woks of Life. Ingredient list follows the source; the method is in our own words.
All sources (3)
Tips
- The Woks of Life uses shepherd's purse or baby bok choy as well as napa; blanch delicate greens only 1 minute.
- Fresh dumplings cook faster than frozen ones; frozen ones need a few more minutes.
- To freeze, set them on a parchment-lined sheet uncovered and not touching overnight, then bag them; The Woks of Life says to use them within 3 months.
- To pan-fry instead (guotie style), see the method in Peking Ravioli.
The rules people argue about
What the sources agree on, what they don't, and what is just a good story.
- Jiaozi were invented by the physician Zhang Zhongjing. Folklore: Wikipedia calls it the traditional story; the dumplings themselves are older in the written record (a Western Han name, a Northern Qi description).
- Jiaozi are eaten at Chinese New Year because they look like money. Documented as Wikipedia's account (citing the BBC) for northern China.
- Boil jiaozi; potstickers are something else. Disputed: in northern China guotie is a separate, usually elongated dumpling with open ends; in southern China "guotie" often just means pan-fried jiaozi (Wikipedia).
- You must add cold water three times while boiling. Folklore: it is Joyce Chen's method (see Peking Ravioli), but The Woks of Life simply brings the pot back to a boil and simmers.
- Stir the filling in one direction only. Folklore: widely repeated; our sources only say to mix vigorously.
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