Are Potstickers Healthy?

Are you in love after potstickers? How healthy are they for you? Can you eat them daily? Can you enjoy them if you’re on a diet? Let’s find out!

Potstickers, lately, are one of the most popular and well-loved Chinese food dishes in America. They have a nice crispy bottom, and you can fill them with almost anything which is one of the reasons why everyone loves them. Everybody can find their favorite stuffing mixture.

But as they are mostly fried, are they healthy? How often can you eat them? Let’s find out!

Are Potstickers Healthy?

Potstickers can be part of a healthy diet if consumed in moderation. While they’re typically high in carbs and fats, you can opt for lean protein and vegetable fillings. Additionally, steaming or baking instead of frying can make them a healthier option.

As the potstickers are made from pork meat, a few vegetables, and everything is covered in the dough this is not the healthiest dish on the planet. Also, on top of that, the potstickers are fried on a skillet or wok which will also add a few extra calories and fats.

But I have some good news for you. There are a few things that you should take into consideration if you want to enjoy the potstickers more often.

How to Minimize the Harm?

If you’re a big fan of potstickers but you worry about how healthy they are, I want to share with you a few things on what you should pay attention to make sure to minimize the side effects of eating potstickers often.

Read Labels on the Packages

If you will buy some frozen or uncooked potstickers, read carefully the labels on their package. You may get surprised by how many calories, those little things may have.

Pay attention to the protein, fat, and carbs content.

Quick Note: Also, if you will fry them, take into consideration that there will be also a few more calories added to your plate. For example, in one tablespoon of olive oil, you will find around 120 calories.

Make Them at Home

Usually, the food that you are making at home is healthier as you will not use any preservatives, and you will use ingredients of better quality.

Also, by making your own potstickers, you can control the fat level of the meat that will be used for making them.

Pick lean ground beef or chicken, and vegetables.

Dough Thickness

Another thing you should pay attention to is how thick is the dough that is used for the potstickers. The thinner it is, the fewer calories it will have.

Experiment With Stuffings

Another way to make your potstickers healthier is by using a variety of vegetables, such as carrots and cabbage. This will provide you with more fiber and vitamins.

If you do decide to use meat, opt for lean ground beef or chicken instead of fatty cuts like pork belly.

Use Less Oil

Try to minimize the quantity of the oil that will be used to prepare the potstickers. A good recommendation will be to consider boiling or steaming the potstickers instead of frying them.

However, if you are going crazy after that crispy crust of them, a great alternative will be to make them in the air fryer where you will use almost no oil to make them.

Different Cooking Methods

Try different methods of cooking. One day, you can fry them, and on another day, you can boil or steam the potstickers. On the third day, you can bake them in the oven or air fryer.

Which Is Better Potstickers or Dumplings?

To respond to this question, we should take into consideration a few things.

If we will take into account the cooking method, then the dumplings will come healthier because they usually are boiled, while the potstickers are fried in a pan or wok.

If we will take into account the ingredients, then the situation changes. We will ignore the filling mixture of those as you can make the same filling for both categories of food, however, one thing that those two types of food have differently is the dough. And I’m referring there to the thickness of it.

Yes, you can find the different thicknesses of dough on both ingredients, but if we will take the average, then always the dough on the potstickers will be thinner.

As the dumplings usually are boiled, there is a need for a thicker dough, otherwise, during the boiling, there is a high chance that the dumplings will decompose and the filling will fall out of them.

On another side, when we are referring to potstickers, as we are frying them in a skillet only on one side, we need only a thin dough that will keep together our stuffing mixture.

Also, it is worth mentioning that potstickers usually have a crescent or half-moon shape while the dumplings are rounded.

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