Make Way for Dumplings

Inventive dumpling recipes inspired by global cuisines—and endless possibilities for transforming them into a meal.

Sisters Margaret and Irene Li know dumplings. It all started with a Boston food truck with their brother Andy that turned into a restaurant that is now a dumpling factory/café/cooking classroom called Mei Mei Dumplings. The factory produces a wide variety of globally inspired dumplings for your favorite chefs, farmers’ markets, and grocers, and this playful cookbook shows you how to bring dumplings into your own kitchen.

With encouraging step-by-step instructions, supported by a video linked to a QR code, Margaret (known as Mei) and Irene will teach you how to make dough from scratch (and in fun colors), prepare fillings, and master different folds. They include recipes for beloved classics and imaginative incarnations, complete with dipping-sauce pairings?then offer up ways of including dumplings in salads, soups, curries, and so much more. Toss deep-fried ginger chicken dumplings into a mango-avocado salad, add chili wontons to a flexible hot-and-sour soup, or nestle spiced chickpea and potato dumplings into a butter paneer sauce. Don’t want to make dumplings from scratch? They have you covered here, too: take a bag of your favorite dumplings out of the freezer and follow their dumpling menus with accompanying side dishes for all sorts of occasions and seasonal events. Dumplings are fun for the whole family, and included in these pages is a bonus “Kid Chef” section with irresistible, child-approved fillings like pizza and Nutella-banana.

With vibrant photography and smart strategies, Make Way for Dumplings will empower cooks of all levels to start a dumpling stash, ready to whip up into a meal at any time of day.