Earth Grown Vegan Vegetable Potstickers

Aldi’s popular new vegan product line includes one of my family’s favorite foods: potstickers. The Fusia Special Buy chicken and pork potstickers are staples on Chinese food night. Now, we can add Earth Grown Vegan Vegetable Potstickers to the lineup as well.

The Earth Grown potstickers come frozen and are certified vegan through the American Vegetarian Association. They’re also gluten free. A six-piece serving nets 210 calories, 3 grams of protein, .5 grams saturated fat, 620 mg sodium, and 6 grams of sugar. They also come with dipping sauce. Each box contains about two servings.

The filling ingredients are: cabbage, onion, carrots, vermicelli (potato starch, mung bean starch, water), green onion, corn starch, sesame oil, shitake mushrooms, evaporated cane syrup, salt, ginger, yeast extract, and black pepper. The wrapper ingredients are: water, rice flour, tapioca starch, canola oil, knojac flour, salt, and xanthan gum. The dipping sauce ingredients are: water, tamari soy sauce (water, soybeans, salt, alcohol), sugar, white vinegar, ginger, garlic (garlic, water, citric acid), and black pepper.

I’m not crazy about the fact that the wrappers contain the filler xanthan gum. Otherwise, these are not too bad in terms of ingredients. My family liked how they tasted and gobbled them up as quickly as they do Aldi’s more traditional Fusia chicken and pork potstickers.

The potstickers can be pan fried or microwaved, but I highly recommend pan frying them so they are crisp and golden on the bottom.

To pan fry, heat a nonstick pan over medium heat with ½ cup of water and 1 tablespoon of canola oil. Place dumplings flat-side down and cover the pan with a lid. Cook until the water evaporates completely and the flat side is golden brown, about 8 to 12 minutes.

To microwave, place dumplings and 1 tablespoon of water in a microwave-safe container. Cover with a damp paper towel and microwave for 2 minutes. Carefully remove from the microwave, drain, and let sit for one minute.

The dipping sauce packet can be placed under warm water until thawed.

I found that it took longer than the instructed 8 to 12 minutes for these to pan fry. Mine took about 20 minutes, and I took the lid off after about 10 minutes because the water would have taken much longer to evaporate otherwise. (The directions for the Fusia brand potstickers call for removing the lid after a few minutes.) The potstickers stuck to each other more than is my usual experience with potstickers, so I sometimes had to nudge them apart with a spoon or spatula. These also didn’t turn golden brown as much as other potstickers I’ve cooked. They were still very light-colored on the bottom when they were done, but they were definitely plenty crispy.

A view of the bottoms of some of my veggie potstickers after cooking. They didn’t turn deep golden brown like other potstickers I’ve cooked have done.

The Verdict:

Aldi’s Special Buy Earth Grown Vegan Vegetable Potstickers taste great and seem to be pretty healthy and full of a variety of veggies. They take a little longer to pan fry than the directions on the box indicate, and they don’t turn as deep a golden brown as other potstickers I’ve cooked before, but they still crisp up nicely. My family ate these eagerly. Recommended.