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Momos & Dumplings

Nepali Momo Recipe: Juicy Steamed Dumplings From Scratch

The Himalayan Pantry · Updated 2026-07-19 · 5 min read
Nepali Momo Recipe: Juicy Steamed Dumplings From Scratch
In shortNepali momos are steamed dumplings made from a stiff flour-and-water dough wrapped around a spiced filling, most commonly chicken. Knead 250 g flour with 125–140 ml water, rest 30 minutes, then divide into 30 pieces of 12–13 g and roll each into a 10 cm circle. Fill each with about 15 g of a mix built from 300 g ground chicken, minced onion, ginger, garlic, cumin, and a spoon of oil — about 460 g of filling in all. Pleat, seal completely, and steam 10–12 minutes until the center reaches 165°F (74°C). Serve with a charred tomato achar.
Contents

How to Make Nepali Momos From Scratch

A Nepali momo is a steamed dumpling with a thin wheat-flour wrapper and a juicy, spiced filling — most often chicken or buff (water buffalo) in Nepal, with chicken being the easiest choice for home kitchens elsewhere. The full process has four stages: mix a simple flour-and-water dough, make a well-seasoned filling, pleat, and steam. None of it requires special skill, but momos punish guesswork, so this recipe writes the ratios down precisely.

The batch below makes 30 momos: about 380 g of dough at 12–13 g per wrapper, and about 460 g of filling at roughly 15 g per momo, so the two run out together. Expect roughly 90 minutes the first time, and closer to an hour once your hands learn the pleat.

Momo Dough Recipe: One Ratio, Three Ingredients

Momo dough is all-purpose flour, water, and a pinch of salt. No yeast, no egg, no oil required. The ratio is the whole recipe: roughly two parts flour to one part water by weight, or 50–56% hydration.

About 380 g of dough: 30 wrappers at 12–13 g.

Add the water gradually — flours absorb differently — and stop when the dough comes together into a firm, slightly stiff ball. It should feel noticeably firmer than pizza dough. Knead 8–10 minutes until smooth, then cover and rest at least 30 minutes at room temperature. The rest relaxes the gluten so you can roll the wrappers thin without them snapping back.

A stiff dough matters: soft dough tears during pleating and turns gummy in the steamer.

Chicken Momo Filling

The secret to a juicy filling is fat and raw onion. Nepali cooks use fatty meat and a generous amount of finely chopped onion, which releases moisture as the momo steams, basting the filling from inside.

Mix together thoroughly. The finished filling weighs about 460 g — 30 momos at roughly 15 g each:

Mix with your hand for a full minute until the filling looks slightly sticky and cohesive. Refrigerate it while you roll wrappers; a cold filling is easier to pleat around.

Substitutions that work: 300 g ground pork (skip the added oil — pork brings its own), or finely chopped cabbage plus crumbled paneer to the same 460 g total for a vegetarian version — salt the cabbage first and squeeze it dry so the momos don't go soggy.

Rolling, Filling, and Pleating

  1. Divide the rested dough into 30 pieces of 12–13 g — a scale beats eyeballing here. Keep the pieces covered; this dough dries out fast.
  2. Roll each piece into a circle about 10 cm (4 in) across. At that width, 12–13 g of dough lands near a millimeter thick: thin at the edges, slightly thicker in the center, so the base doesn't burst. Circles much smaller than that are too thick to steam through cleanly.
  3. Place a rounded tablespoon of filling — about 15 g — in the center. Weigh the first two or three until your eye calibrates. Resist overfilling: it's the number-one beginner mistake, it splits seams, and it runs you out of filling before the wrappers are gone.
  4. Pleat: hold the wrapper in your non-dominant palm, then pinch small folds around the edge with the other hand, gathering them into a twist at the top. A dozen or so small pleats is where practised hands tend to land; four fat pinches that seal completely is a perfectly good first batch.

A sealed momo matters more than a pretty one. Any gap leaks the juices you worked to build.

How Long to Steam Momos

Steam chicken momos for 10–12 minutes over water at a rolling boil, in a single layer with space between each dumpling. Grease the steamer tray or line it with cabbage leaves or parchment, or the momos will glue themselves down.

Filling Steam time Doneness check
Ground chicken 10–12 min Wrapper translucent; center 165°F / 74°C
Ground pork, buff, or lamb 12–14 min Center 160°F / 71°C
Vegetable or paneer 8–10 min Wrapper translucent and glossy
Frozen, any filling Add 3–4 min Steam straight from frozen; never thaw first
Above about 2,000 m altitude Add 2–3 min Same temperature targets

Ground meat needs a thermometer, not a guess: bacteria are mixed all through it rather than sitting on the surface, so appearance tells you nothing reliable. Probe down through the pleat twist at an angle so the tip lands in the middle of the meat, and test a momo from the center of the tray — the outer edges run hotter and read done first. Once you know your own steamer, the clock is enough.

Don't lift the lid mid-steam more than once; the temperature drop adds minutes.

The Tomato Achar (Dipping Sauce)

Momos are incomplete without a bright, spicy tomato achar. Char 3 tomatoes and 2–3 dried red chilies in a dry pan until blistered, then blend with 1 garlic clove, a small piece of ginger, a spoonful of toasted sesame seeds, salt, and a squeeze of lemon. It should be pourable, hot, and a little tangy — a sauce, not a paste.

Troubleshooting Your First Batch

Once momos are in your rotation, the natural next step into the everyday Nepali table is a proper dal bhat — the lentil-and-rice meal most of Nepal eats daily. And when you're ready to branch into other fillings, folds, and pan-fried kothey variations, the full momos and dumplings collection is where those live.

FAQ

How long do you steam momos?

Ground chicken takes 10 to 12 minutes over a rolling boil; ground pork, buff, or lamb takes 12 to 14; vegetable or paneer takes 8 to 10. Add 3 to 4 minutes for momos going in straight from the freezer, and 2 to 3 more if you cook at high altitude, where water boils cooler. Times assume a single uncrowded layer — dumplings touching each other steam unevenly, and a stacked tier of two or three trays needs a couple of extra minutes with the trays rotated halfway through.

What is momo dough made of?

Flour, water, and salt — nothing else. Plain all-purpose flour is the right choice; bread flour makes a wrapper that fights back when you roll it, and there is no yeast because a momo wrapper is meant to stay dense rather than rise. The working ratio is 250 g flour to 125–140 ml water, or roughly 50 to 56 percent hydration, which is stiff by bread standards and deliberately so. That 250 g makes about 380 g of dough, enough for 30 wrappers of 12 to 13 g.

How do you keep chicken momo filling juicy?

Choose thigh over breast, keep about a tablespoon of oil or melted butter per 300 g of meat, and do not skimp on the raw minced onion — about 100 g of onion to 300 g of meat, a third of the meat's weight, which gives up its water into the meat during steaming. Fry a teaspoon of the raw mix to taste for salt before you pleat thirty of them. Then protect what you built: seal every pleat, keep the filling refrigerated until it goes into the wrapper, and pull the momos as soon as they hit temperature rather than letting them ride.

Can I make momos without a bamboo steamer?

Yes. Any setup that holds dumplings in a single layer above boiling water works: a metal tiered steamer, a steamer insert in a lidded pot, or even a heatproof plate on a trivet. Grease the surface or line it with parchment or cabbage leaves so the momos don't stick. Bamboo lids absorb condensation, but a flat metal lid drips it straight back onto the wrappers — tie a clean cloth under a metal lid to catch the drops, keeping the ends well away from the burner.