Basic Gyoza Recipe

Yay! I finally had time to make the gyoza. This post is for gnoegnoe :D It is my basic gyoza recipe. I love to eat gyoza with sauces and to make sure that the flavors won't conflict I keep the gyoza fairly bland. I make lots of others with different ingredients and spicing. One of my husband's all time fav gyoza recipes is for the Thai potato gyoza that I make. I'll get around to putting up that one someday...

And after I made the gyoza I decided that I had to make a bento to enjoy some of them right away!

In the bento:

Left -3 home made gyoza seperated by orange slices, raspberries, snap peas, a container of blueberry cheese, black olives on a pick.

Back - Thai sweet potato soup with cucumber slices and baby tomato slices.

Right - Basil pearl couscous with carrot and purple potato flowers.

I mistakenly thought that very thin cucumber slices would float on top of the very thick soup. I was wrong! But I was determined, lol, and just kept piling them on until there were enough cucumber slices that the top ones didn't sink. It made for a very yummy cucumber center to the soup.

The purple potato is my newest obsession totally inspired by Hapa Bento who uses them to make the most elegant decorative touches. I've been seeing them in her bentos for a while and being morose because nobody sold them here. But low and behold I found them in the grocery store! A whole bag of them! Woot! Now I get to use my favorite color in my bentos, finally!!! I seriously can't tell you how excited I was when I found them. I am such a bento geek :)

Basic Gyoza Recipe (this is a half recipe and makes about 40 gyoza)

• 1/3 head Napa cabbage, sliced into thin ribbons
• 2 carrots, julienned
• ½ onion, minced
• 2 baby bella mushrooms, minced
• ¼ pkg extra firm tofu, smooshed by hand
• 3 tsp minced garlic
• 1 TB soy sauce
• 3 tsp mirin
• ¼ tsp dried cilantro
• 1/8 tsp Chinese 5 spice powder
• ½ tsp ginger powder

1. Heat 2 TB sesame oil in a sautee pan. When the oil is hot add the minced garlic and fry for 1 minute. Add the ginger and stir for another few seconds.
2. Put all veggies into pan together.
   Stir well and let sit for a few minutes.
3. Add the spices, soy sauce and mirin. Stir well and again let sit for a few minutes.
4. Keep stirring occasionally as you wait for the mixture to reduce. All the moisture needs to cook out of it.



I generally freeze the gyoza right after I make them and then I can pull them straight out of the freezer to cook when I am making a bento. My favorite way of cooking them is to brown the bottoms in a little bit of sesame oil and then pan steam with a little bit of vegetable broth.


I am planning on putting up more pics and instructions for pleating gyoza by hand tomorrow! (The pics are already taken I just don't have time to go into that today...)