One of the pitfalls I’ve commonly experienced when making dumplings is that the filling is too crumbly. The ideal dumpling filling should stick together, but not be too mushy and the fillings should still have texture. The filling shouldn’t be crumbly because:

• It makes wrapping the dumplings trickier as the filling will move around, potentially getting stuck when sealing
• If the dumpling wrappers break (especially when boiling wontons), the dumpling filling is more likely to spill out
• When taking a bite of the dumplings, the filling will spill out from the uneaten side

Non-vegan dumplings made with meat don’t experience this problem because the meat sticks together when cooked. If you use a mock meat replacement, like Omnipork or Impossible Ground in high enough ratio, then you also won’t have this issue because these products have ingredients in them to make them bind. However, to make these dumplings healthier I’ve experimented how to make a vegan dumpling with tofu as the primary protein.

Fillings

To compare the results, I prepared a dumpling filling made with firm tofu, cabbage, carrots, shiitake mushrooms, and seasoning. 

I then tried 4 different binding methods/ingredients and wrapped them into a wonton shape. Filling 1 was inspired by how soups are thickened, while Fillings 3 and 4 were options I regularly see suggested by other dumpling recipes.

1: Blend ¼ – ⅓ of the filling with my spice grinder and mix back in
2: Mix in Impossible Meat in approximately 1:3 ratio
3: Mix in grated russet potato
4: Mix in tapioca starch slurry

(Click on any photo to enlarge)

The mixtures, before wrapping and cooking:

The results after boiling the wontons for 7 minutes:

1. Great binding, and yet by only blending ¼ – ⅓ of the filling, it doesn’t make the filling too mushy. It also doesn’t affect the taste, and makes it easier to infuse the flavor into the tofu. The binding doesn’t change from when it’s uncooked, thus if you were to eat these wontons in soup, if soup got into a half-bitten wonton, the filling could still “crumble” into the soup.
2. Decent binding, however your dumplings will have the taste of the Impossible meat. Note that it also still doesn’t completely make the filling into 1 piece when cooked like non-vegan dumplings, but binds enough that when you bite into it the other side won’t crumble out.
3. Nothing special here. It may bind a bit better than with no binder at all, however I wasn’t impressed enough to repeat this method again. Maybe I’m just biased from having to painstakingly grate the potato.
4. Turned out way too gloop-y. Sure, the binding did stick together better than with no binder at all, but it had a funny taste and feeling as tapioca starch is too sticky.

The winner

Method 1 and 2 are solid options, but my overall personal preference is method 1 (blend ¼ – ⅓ of the filling and mix back in). This doesn’t require mock meat – so it’s healthier, and one less ingredient. Taste wise, I also prefer the taste of just tofu + vegetables over tofu + vegetables + mock meat.

You can find the recipe for the filling in my vegan wonton recipe and vegan dumpling recipe.