This was the second dish we learned how to make at the afghan cooking class. Again the best tip was to use gyoza wrappers. Such a win!
During class the meat was premade for us. We made our own meat and enjoyed the flavors as described in the Afghan Food & Cookery – Helen Saberi
This was a great option and it makes a ton. We froze them individually for use as we see fit in the future!
Mantu – Afghan dumplings
January 13, 2026
Persons
alot
Serving Size
2-4 dumplings
Prep Time
30 minutes
Cook Time
30 minutes
Total Time
1 hour
Ingredients
- package gyoza wrappers
- 1 lb ground turkey
- 1 diced onion
- 2 cloves garlic dice
- 1 inch ginger minced
- 1 jalapeno diced
- 1-2 tsp black pepper
- 1-2 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tbl tomato paste
- veg oil
Instructions
- Heat a pan over medium heat with the oil
- Cook the onion until translucent
- Add the garlic and ginger till fragrant
- Add the meat, cook until no longer pink
- Stir in the spices and tomato paste
- Once the meat is cooked, allow it to cool
- Prepare the dumplings.The normal way of creating the dumplings is to do the following:
- Wet the sides of the wrapper
- Place a tbl of the meat mixture in the middle of a square gyoza wrapper
- Pull 2 opposite corners to he center and squeeze them together
- Pull 2 final corners to the center and squeeze the rest to form a package.
- Easy:
- We made the simple half moon shaped gyoza with a circle gyoza wrapper.
- Cooking:
- steaming: i recently got a flower steamer and love how the dumplings come out
- boiling – boil the dumplings for 7 min until the wrapper is done
- After the choice of cooking the dumplings can we airfried to get them crispy
- There is more to the recipe to make it typical afghan food, we just wanted to enjoy dumplings and a nice spice mix.
Verdict:
I love the full recipe with the sauce and yogurt sauce, check out the book if you want more ethnic
Just having a lovely dumpling on your plate with chili crisp is also super yummy!
