Dumpling-Cucumber-Celery-Snap Pea "Salad" with Sesame-Yuzu Dipping Sauce

Three of my favorite snacks all in one bowl

This weekend feels like summer! California is experiencing the first real heatwave of the year, and in the Bay Area—where warm weather is the exception rather than the rule—it’s a perfect start to the season.

In honor of this nice warm weather, I thought I’d share a recipe that requires very little time at the stove but packs a whole lot of flavor: dumplings mixed with fresh vegetables, all flavored with a light dressing and a rich sesame-yuzu dipping sauce.

If you’ve seen

Hetty Lui McKinnon

’s amazing dumpling salads—her genius fresh tomato version in NYT Cooking and the roasted version she did on her newsletter—you’ll know why I like to mix dumplings into salads. I love this general format, because, while we don’t keep much frozen pre-made food in the house—our freezer is filled with stocks, dashis, preserved tomatoes, lemon juice from our Meyer lemon tree, and a few kinds of ice cream—the one prepared food we always have on hand is frozen gyoza. I like to whip up a batch to put in the kid’s lunch in a pinch, add them to a meal of Chinese food to bulk things up, or pop them into soups.

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In this salady snack of a dish, I’ve mixed these frozen gyoza with the base ingredients for two other East Asian side dishes: a traditional Chinese cucumber salad (a favorite in my house), and the celery salad from Bar Goto in NYC, which I fell in love with years ago and now make all the time.

I’ve combined those two ideas here by dressing everything in a touch of sesame oil and soy sauce, plus some sesame seeds for crunch. I also added sweet snap peas because they add a wonderful late-spring flavor to the whole mix. Lastly, to pull it all together, I made a sesame-yuzu dipping sauce that is reminiscent of the gomadare that the chefs at SingleThread make to go with some of their hotpot offerings, which is possibly my favorite dipping sauce ever. This creamy concoction gets spread inside the serving bowl, and you swipe all of the ingredients through it as you fish out bites.

To help make the veg prep as simple as possible, I also did a little video of roll-cutting the cucumber, which is a great way to prep any traditional Chinese cucumber salad:

The combination of ingredients I’ve included in the recipe below can be adjusted to include/exclude anything you like (or don’t). You could skip the cucumber and just do celery and peas or make a whole dish of just the snap peas and gyoza. (If you want to turn the whole thing into a crudités plate you could even *gasp* skip the gyoza and just use the sesame-yuzu sauce as a dip in a separate bowl.) That said, I think the combo I’ve put together here offers a wonderful balance of savory and fresh, soft and crunchy, rich and zingy flavors and textures that are definitely worth trying as a whole.

Dumpling-Cucumber-Celery-Snap Pea "Salad" with Sesame-Yuzu Dipping Sauce

For the Sauce
2 tablespoons Japanese golden sesame paste (preferably Wadaman)
1 tablespoon Yuzu juice (or “extract,” from a brand made with 100% juice)
2 teaspoons white miso
2 teaspoons Japanese soy sauce (such as Kikkoman)

For the “Salad”
2–3 tender celery ribs from the inside of the stalk
1 med-small Persian cucumber
1 handful snap peas
8 frozen gyoza
Toasted sesame oil
Soy sauce
Sesame seeds

1. Make the Sauce: Mix the sesame paste, yuzu, miso, and soy sauce in a small bowl to fully incorporate (the sesame paste will seize up when the first liquids are added but will eventually smooth out as you add more). Drizzle in about 3 teaspoons of water, while mixing, to make the sauce soft and fluffy; the texture should be reminiscent of hummus.

2. Cut the celery both lengthwise and crosswise for small, bite-size pieces. (You can also use a vegetable peeler to remove the stringy parts if any larger ribs.) Roll-cut the cucumber into small bite-size pieces. Trim the stems off the snap peas and cut them at an angle into approximately ½” wide pieces.

3. Cook the gyoza according to the manufacturer’s instructions, ideally using the pan-fried method so you get browned, crispy bottoms.

4. Transfer the sesame-yuzu sauce to a bowl, spreading it around to coat the bottom and sides. Pile the cooked gyoza and the prepared vegetables on top of the sauce. Dress everything with a very small drizzle each of the sesame oil and the soy sauce and scatter sesame seeds on top. To eat, swipe each bite through some of the sauce.

   Other Snacks I’m Excited About

   It’s a snacky time of year, and I’m really enjoying all of the snack recipes and roundups I’ve been seeing lately! Just pulling from the Substacks I subscribe to offers some amazing options: Maggie Hoffman at The Dinner Plan has a list of “The snacks we’re eating this summer” that has so many great ideas and recipe links. Sarah Copeland at Edible Living has a list of “Perfect, easy meals” that will get you through the nights when you don’t want to cook. And, lastly, David Lebovitz has a recipe for oeuf mayo that is basically the simplest meal you can make with those eggs hanging out in the back of your fridge (maybe just add some bread and call it dinner?).
   

   Photos/Video: Georgia Freedman (4)