Let’s make fresh and tender Gyoza Wrappers from scratch! All you need is salt, water, and flour. That’s it! Watch the video tutorial and enjoy the fun and rewarding process.
Gyoza wrappers are not one of those things that I usually make from scratch. While everything homemade is best in the ideal world, who has the time when you can easily buy them from grocery stores?
It wasn’t until when I took upon the challenge of making homemade gyoza wrappers that I realized it wasn’t as daunting and difficult as I’d thought. You’ll need only salt, water, and flour! The experience is so rewarding that I know you’ll enjoy making your own gyoza wrappers too.
Table of Contents
What Are Gyoza Wrappers?
Gyoza wrappers are a thin and round flour pastry that wraps around the filling of gyoza or Japanese potstickers. The dough is made of wheat flour, water, and a pinch of salt. They get crispy when pan-fried or deep-fried and become a soft and tender, pasta-like texture when boiled.
How to Make Gyoza Wrappers
The Ingredients You’ll Need
- All-purpose flour – Weigh your flour or use the “fluff and sprinkle“ method and level it off.
- Kosher salt
- Water
- Potato starch (cornstarch)
The Steps
- Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl.
- Knead the dough for 10 minutes, shape it into logs, and rest for 30 minutes.
- Cut the dough into small pieces, flatten, and cut out into a circle shape using a cookie cutter.
Japanese Gyoza & Chinese Potstickers
Japanese gyoza is very similar to Chinese potstickers. The main differences are in the size and thickness of the dumpling wrappers. Chinese potstickers’ skin is typically thicker and the dumplings themselves are larger than gyoza.
If you are able to buy gyoza wrappers locally and want to save time, you can hop straight over to my gyoza recipes:
Homemade vs. Store-Bought Gyoza Wrappers
Homemade gyoza wrappers can be time-consuming, but I find the process extremely fulfilling and calming. Save it for the weekend or on an unhurried evening when you can enjoy the experience. Or make it a fun activity to do with family or friends. Gyoza party, anyone?
The beauty of the homemade wrappers is they are tender and fresh tasting, making them so much pliable to fold your filling. Also, there are no preservatives you have to worry about.
Seeing my family devouring the gyoza I made from scratch pleases me more than anything. It’s worth the time!
Ways to Use Gyoza Wrappers
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Gyoza (Japanese Potsticker) Wrappers
Video
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour (plain flour) (weigh your flour or use the “fluff and sprinkle“ method and level it off; you can substitute 1 cup, 120 g bread flour + 1 cup, 120 g cake flour)
- ½ tsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt
- ½ cup water (just-boiled hot water; plus more, as needed)
- potato starch or cornstarch (for rolling and dusting; or substitute flour if you‘re not freezing them)
Instructions
Before You Start
- I highly encourage you to weigh your flour using a kitchen scale for this recipe. Click on the “Metric“ button at the top of the recipe to convert the ingredient measurements to metric. If you‘re using a cup measurement, please follow the “fluff and sprinkle“ method: Fluff your flour with a spoon, sprinkle the flour into your measuring cup, and level it off. Otherwise, you may scoop more flour than you need. 1 US cup of flour weighs 4.25 oz (120 g).
- Gather all the ingredients.
To Make the Dough
- Sift the flour into a large bowl.
- Add the salt to the just-boiled hot water and stir until completely dissolved.
- Add the hot water to the flour, a little at a time, stirring with a rubber spatula. Mix until the flour and water are combined completely. If the flour is still not incorporated, add more hot water, ½ Tbsp at a time, until you can form the mixture into a ball. You will eventually need to use your hands to do this. Tip: different brands of flour absorb water differently, so use more hot water as needed; I used about 120–150 ml.
- Transfer the dough to a work surface and knead the dough for 10 minutes.
- After 10 minutes, the texture of the dough will be much smoother. Use a dough scraper to cut the ball of dough in half (doesn‘t have to be an equal size).
- Shape each half into a long log about 1½ inches (3.8 cm) in diameter, although it doesn‘t have to be perfect, especially if you use a cookie cutter later. Wrap each log with plastic wrap. Let it sit for 30 minutes.
To Roll the Wrappers
- Unwrap the dough. Sprinkle a little potato starch on the work surface and cut each log crosswise into ¾ inch (2 cm) wide pieces. Since we’ll be using a cookie cutter, don’t worry if each piece of dough is a slightly different size. Tip: If you plan to freeze the wrappers, please use potato starch or cornstarch for dusting and rolling, as the wrappers tend to stick to each other if you use flour.
- It‘s super important to cover the dough with a damp kitchen towel at all times to prevent it from drying.
- Roll each piece of dough into a ball shape.
- Press the ball onto the work surface.
- Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough, but DO NOT flatten the TOP and BOTTOM edges. This is the trick to making a nice round shape.
- Rotate the dough 90 degrees and repeat rolling the dough. Try to roll out the dough into a thin circle. If the dough is hard to roll out or shrinks back, let it rest a bit to relax the gluten and try again.
- Cooker cutter (optional): If you want a perfectly round shape for your wrappers, cut your rolled dough circle with a 3-inch (8 cm) cookie cutter. If the dough rolls back, leave it for a few seconds, then try again to cut the dough. Remove the excess dough scraps and cover them with a damp towel. Later, combine all the scraps if they still squish together and haven’t dried out. Re-roll the scraps and repeat the process.
- Sprinkle each wrapper with potato starch and stack the wrappers. Make sure to cover them with a damp kitchen towel as you continue rolling the remaining dough. Once you‘ve rolled out all the wrappers, they are ready to use. You can also freeze or refrigerate the wrappers to use later.
To Store the Wrappers for Later
- Wrap the stacked gyoza wrappers with plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator for about 3–4 days and in the freezer for up to a month. Prior to use, defrost in the refrigerator overnight or on the counter for 60 minutes (depending on the amount and room temperature). Do not defrost in the microwave.
To Make Gyoza
- You can use these Homemade Gyoza Wrappers to make Gyoza, vegetarian/vegan Vegetable Gyoza, Chicken Shiso Gyoza, Gyoza with Wings (Hanetsuki Gyoza) and Korean-style Kimchi Gyoza. If you‘re new to making Japanese potstickers, see my tutorial on How to Fold Gyoza.
Nutrition
Editor’s Note: The post was originally published on February 19, 2014. It’s been updated and republished in July 2020.
Best wrapper recipe thank you. Simple, clear and easy to follow. Im from Africa so i thought il never know where to start with trying out Japanese food. Thanks for making it so simple, yet authentic and delicious
Hi Melissa! Thank you so much for trying this recipe and for your kind feedback. I’m really glad this recipe worked out for you and you enjoyed it! 🙂
Can I use gluten free flour instead of regular flour?
Hi Katsuyo! I’ve never tried it myself before but other readers told me they have made this recipe with gluten-free flour and ut worked. 🙂
This recipe worked perfectly. Thank you!!
Hi Katy! Wonderful! I’m so happy to hear that you liked the recipe. Thank you for your kind feedback! 🙂
If I make the dough from scratch. If my hand is too sore to dough, can I put it in the dough mixer for 10 mins instead?
Hi El! You won’t need 10 minutes if you use a stand mixer.
I’d never made dumpling wrappers before and this was really fun! It does take a while and I actually used a pasta roller and circular cookie cutter, but this worked wonderfully. I will definitely make this again. They are much easier to work with over the premade ones. You don’t need to wet the edges and they are more flexible. Thank you, Nami!
Hi Ryan! Yay!! So happy to hear you gave this recipe a try and they came out well! How nice to have a pasta roller (it’s on my wishlist!). Thanks so much for your kind feedback. xo
I’ve made this yesterday for the first time and it was a huge success with my family! We absolutely loved it! Thank you for this easy and amazing recipe. 🙂
Hi Lucie! I’m so happy to hear you enjoyed making this recipe. Thank you for your kind feedback!
Hello! I tried making dumplings with your gyoza filling recipe using the store-bought wrappers, and they came out great. Thank you! My husband and our 7-year old had fun making them with me. Now that I have that under my belt, I want to try making the wrappers as well! One question- can I use flour instead of potato or corn starch for dusting? How are they different for dusting?
Hi Soyo! So glad to hear you enjoyed making my gyoza recipe. Thank you for your kind feedback! To answer your question, if you’re going to freeze udon noodles, you may want to use potato starch/cornstarch as flour tends to be absorbed by udon noodles and stick to each other. If not, you can use flour. 🙂
Kore wa recipe number ichi nee
Domo arigato, Dorris-san! 🙂
Hi… Thanks for the recipes. I want to make gyoza, dumplings, and wonton myself but I’m still searching for the gluten free one. So, may I request for the gluten free gyoza wrapper recipes here? Thanks in advance.
Hi Fai! A reader (I forgot if there were more than one person) tried making the GF version with GF flour and told me it worked. I can’t confirm as I’ve never tested it myself, but if you try, let us know!
Thank for your reply. I’ll search it.
Thanks a lot.I like Japanese cooking.keep it on!
Thank you so much Progensia! 🙂
Hi Nami, i tried doing your gyoza wrapper. question is, when i roll the dough it tends to shrink a bit. what causes that. Many thanks!
Hi Rona! Make sure don’t over work your dough and when the dough is hard to roll out or shrinks back, let the dough rest a bit to relax the gluten. 🙂
Thank you Nami-san, another great recipe and clear instructions! After many years of eating gyoza but never making them, I made the gyoza wrappers yesterday and made them again today because more filling left. I made a vegetarian filling with mushrooms. They were so delicious, my family loved them. It will take much more practice to make them as beautifully as you do! I agree was very satisfying to make everything from scratch.
Hi Midori-san! I’m so happy to hear you enjoyed this recipe! Thank you for your precious time to give me feedback. I really appreciate it!! I photoshoot Vegetarian/Vegan Gyoza a while ago, but didn’t get around to write a post about it. Hope you take a look. We really love this recipe and look forward to sharing it some time soon! 🙂
Hello Nami,
I have been wanting to make my own gyoza wrappers ever since I traveled to Japan two years ago. I made your recipe yesterday in fact and was very pleased with the results, though my folding technique needs a lot of practice;) I have a question. When I cooked the gyoza, some of the dumplings either filled with air and puffed up or they deflated and did not maintain their original shape. What could be the reason for this?
Hi Alejandro! Thank you so much for trying this recipe! While many people in Japan like the convenience of gyoza wrappers from the stores, I love seeing so many people who live outside of Japan are properly making gyoza wrappers and gyoza from scratch. It’s fascinating! 🙂
When you fold the gyoza, you need to remove the air out. If you see the gyoza wrapper became puffed up, I think the air got trapped. Try to fill up the space with the filling or fold in a way that doesn’t create air, which also helps!
Never buying the premade wrappers again! This recipe was spot on! Unlike the store bought ones that feel like film after cooked, the homemade wraps even rolled out very thin still retained a great texture. These are just like the chinese restaurant version except you can roll them thinner to alleviate that doughy texture and not skimp on the filling as they sometimes do. Will be making my second batch to freeze or who am I kidding. My family and I will devour those as well lol
Hi Ariel! Hahahaha! It’s hard to save for later, isn’t it? I can relate! Thank you so much for your kind feedback and I’m so glad yours came out well! Thank you for trying this recipe. Your kind words made me happy! xo
I made Gyoza today with pork filling. First time EVER at 64. Your recipe was easy to follow and most importantly was delicious. I watched your video after making the first 12 and fine tuned the next lot. Hubby was really impressed. Loved all the flavours.
We had vietnamese rice oaoer rolls to accompany them.
Thank you from our taste buds.
Hi Marcy! I’m so happy to hear you and your husband enjoyed this dish! You have no idea how much your kind words mean to me! 🙂 Thank you for trying my recipe!