If we had to choose one food dish that’s the most common around the world, we’d had to choose the dumpling. You can find dumplings in pretty much every form in almost every country in the world. In fact, this article from CNN’s travel section counted a full 30 different types of dumplings from as far as China to the southern U.S.. It seems like there’s one thing we can all agree on – and that’s that dumplings are delicious.
Backing up a little, if for some reason you’re not familiar with dumplings, they’re basically little pockets of dough filled with either savory or sweet fillings and then cooked.
Dumplings are one of the easiest types of dishes to make since basically all you need is dough (flour and water) and a filling – if you even want to fill them at all. Many people, especially in the Southern U.S., eat basic flour dumplings with no filling served in the broth that they were cooked in. It doesn’t get much more simple than that, and that’s what we’re going to teach you how to do today.
Once you’ve mastered the dough and the dumplings, you can move up to experimenting with stuffing ideas, such as minced pork or finely chopped veggies or even sweet berries and sugar for a dessert dumpling.
Now, on to the dumplings!
How to Make Dumplings
To start, you’ll need your ingredients for the dough: 1 cup of flour and 1/2 cup of water. If you are making dumplings for a large group of people, just remember the 1:1/2 ratio of flour to water. You’ll also need salt to taste. Sift the flour into a mixing bowl and add the water slowly as your mix together. You want the dough to be a little stiff, so you may need to adjust the amount of water as you go along.
Heat up or create your own broth and bring to a boil on the stovetop. If you prefer not to use a broth, you can bring salted water to a boil instead. Once the dough is thoroughly mixed through, pull off small pieces of dough and roll in your hand until they’re circular in shape. You can make the dumplings as large or as small as you’d like, but most of the time, people aim 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Drop the dough into the boiling broth and let it cook for 15-20 minutes or until the dumplings are completely cooked through.
If you use a broth, scoop some of the broth into serving bowls with the dumplings and serve as a dumpling soup. Or you can drain the broth and just toss those bad boys on a plate. Either way will suffice.
How do you make your dumplings? Have any secret recipes you want to share with us? Let us know in the comments!
is it possible that my mother just used flour and egg? I was just talking how I wish I remembered her recipe for dumplings because I wanted to make them. For some reason I can picture her putting flour down in a donut shape and adding an egg or two in the center and gently , slowly combing them together.Am I crazy?
Hi Lynn,
I think this is possible, but the egg dumpling recipes I am familiar with have water in them, too. Not that that makes a huge difference. Probably a dash of salt too. This is also a very simple way to make dumplings with a bit of added richness from the eggs. 2-1/2 cups flour, 2 eggs, and enough water to form a dough – 1/2-2/3 cup. Mix the flour, eggs and salt in a mixing bowl. Stir in the water. Form a dough. Cook in boiling, lightly salted water. Enjoy! Let us know if the your mom’s recipe pos into your head. Would love to hear about it! Best Regards, Matthew
My mother fixed the flour, egg,and a bit of cold water, it was a so called gooey dough, she would dip small spoonfuls of the mixture into the broth, yummy!
It reminds me of a spatzel (don’t think I spelled that right) 🙂
It is a little like spätzle. The difference is that the dough is run through a ricer to make it into smaller drops before hitting the boiling water or broth. YUM!
Thank you all for replying to my question. My mother did add salt,pepper, onion powder and garlic powder to make the dumplings flavorful.Doing that added a bit of extra seasoning to the broth as well.
It has to be chicken and dumplings, remove the cooked chicken from the pot and cook the dumplings then add the boned chicken back to the pot, who didn’t know that?
Our pleasure, Lynn! Sounds like your mom made mighty tasty dumplings!
Hi Richard,
A fellow Chicken and Dumpling fan! I Love it, too. Stay tuned tomorrow for a slow cooker chicken and dumplings. Of course if you can’t wait, here is another version…http://www.theculinaryexchange.com/blog/chicken-and-dumplings-recipe/#.VxNx2auhZkI
This is great! I’ll book mark this blog for future references. I’m glad I bump in to this blog.
Hi Callum!
Glad you are enjoying the blog! Thanks for stopping by and commenting!
Lynn. The dumplings you are talking about are the ones that are very popular in Indiana. They call them dumplings but is more of a homemade noodle. 1 cup flour to 1 egg. Equal ratio. Add a bit of salt. You can roll these out thick and slice into strips and cook with your chicken soup. Just a cross between a dumpling and a noodle. Alot of ladies made them and sold them at garage sales ehen I would visit. My ex Mother in law and her sister made and sold them. It was a necessity after Thanksgiving to use turkey bones and leftover turkey to make a soup or stew. Like chicken soup and pour over the noodle or dumplings as they called them.