How to Make Potstickers Extra Crispy

The secret on how to make your potstickers extra crispy! This is a trick that you’ll want to file away and put to good use over and over again! ;)

This is one secret that I’ve learned from my mom that I absolutely love. When we were growing up, we would always have potstickers on Sunday’s for lunch. It was like a tradition. We knew it was a thing every Sunday.

Let me tell you, my mom ALWAYS made the BEST potstickers. They always had the crispiest and crunchiest bottoms and yet they weren’t ever burnt and the insides were fully cooked. I finally started to question her ways – well, more like wonder how the heck she was so magical. I decided to just ask her one day and she told me! And ever since then (I think I was about 19 or 20 when I asked her, I know took me a while!) I have cooked my potstickers this very same way and EVERY SINGLE TIME, my potstickers have come out extra crispy and perfect.

Guess what? Now I’m going to let you in on the secret and show you how Mama Chiou has always done it! I love that woman.

I created a quick video on it but I’m also going to write it out for you below in case you aren’t into the whole video watching thing!

Okay so my potstickers that I cook are always frozen because we will buy the frozen ones at the grocery store or we make our own and freeze them. But the same method applies for fresh/non-frozen potstickers too.

1. In a nonstick skillet (very important that it’s nonstick), add about 1-2 tablespoons of vegetable oil to the bottom of the pan.
2. Place potstickers onto the bottom of the skillet. You’ll want to place the potsticker’s bottom (flat side) into the bottom of the pan.
3. Turn on the heat to medium-high.
4. Add a 1/2 cup of water into the skillet. Like, just pour it in.
5. COVER the skillet with a lid and let the water basically steam the potstickers. This step ensures that the potstickers are cooked inside and out. Also, it is VERY IMPORTANT that you do NOT open the lid at any point in the cooking process. If you do, you basically let all the heat escape and you’re gonna end up starting from scratch.
6. Once you see the water is all cooked off (yes, this happens eventually, I would say about 7-10 minutes), the bottoms of the potstickers are going to start frying. You can turn the heat to medium once you see all the water has essentially cooked off/evaporated.
7. Let the potstickers fry for 5-7 minutes, the longer, the crispier. But not too long because you don’t want to burn them. Also, again, do not open the lid or move the potstickers (which would mean you have opened the lid, tsk tsk).
8. Once 5-7 minutes have passed and you can start smelling and hearing the ‘fry’ of the bottoms of the potstickers, you can now open the lid and using a spatula, start flipping all the potstickers.
9. You should have extra crispy bottoms at this point!
10. If you want, you can continue to brown all sides but by this point, I usually just cut the heat and let it cool in the skillet for about 5 minutes and then put it on a big plate and serve (with soy sauce and garlic hot sauce, of course!).

And here is my mom teaching me how to make homemade potstickers :)