How to Make Momo at Home: a Nepali Chef's Recipe

Momo are Nepal's most-loved comfort food: little steamed dumplings, pleated by hand, filled with spiced meat or vegetables and dipped in a fiery tomato achar. They look intricate, but the recipe is simple once you understand the four parts — dough, filling, folding and steaming. Here's how a Kathmandu chef makes them, written so it actually works in your kitchen at home.

What exactly is a momo?

A momo is a steamed (sometimes fried) dumpling eaten across Nepal, Tibet and the Himalayan region. If you've had Chinese jiaozi or Japanese gyoza, momo are a close cousin — but the spicing is distinctly Nepali, built on ginger, garlic, cumin and coriander, and almost always served with achar, a punchy tomato-and-chilli dip that makes the whole thing sing.

Most Nepali home cooks make momo for gatherings, because folding them is a social activity — everyone sits around the table and pleats together. That's exactly the spirit of the dish — and the reason so many visitors end up booking one of the cooking classes in Kathmandu rather than only eating momo in restaurants.

Nepali Momo Recipe

This is the chef's actual recipe, taught in our Kathmandu cooking class — choose the chicken or the vegetable & vegan filling below; the dough and method are the same for both. The Chef's batch column makes around 100–120 momo (the quantities he works to); the Home column scales it down for about 25 momo in a home kitchen.

~60 minTotal time 10–15 minSteam ~25 / ~120Momo (home / batch) SteamedMethod

Dough

Ingredient	Chef's batch	Home
Flour (plain / all-purpose)	1 kg	250 g
Water	380 g	95 g
Cooking oil	30 g	8 g (~2 tsp)

Filling

Chicken Vegetable & vegan

Chicken filling

Ingredient	Chef's batch	Home
Minced chicken	1 kg	250 g
Onion, chopped	200 g	50 g
Fresh coriander, chopped	25 g	~6 g
Spring onion, chopped	20 g	5 g
Ginger-garlic paste	50 g	~12 g
Homemade momo / meat masala	15 g	~4 g
Cumin powder	10 g	~2½ g
White pepper	10 g	~2½ g
Soy sauce	10 ml	~½ tsp
Sunflower or corn oil	50 g	~12 g
Butter	50 g	~12 g
Salt	20 g	5 g

Vegetable & vegan filling

Use vegan butter or vegetable oil and it's fully plant-based. Squeeze excess water out of the boiled vegetables and spinach so the filling isn't wet.

Ingredient	Chef's batch	Home
Boiled vegetables	400 g	100 g
Tofu	100 g	25 g
Spinach	40 g	10 g
Chopped onion	80 g	20 g
Fresh coriander	10 g	~3 g
Spring onion	8 g	2 g
Cumin powder	10 g	~½ tsp
Homemade curry powder	8 g	2 g
Soy sauce	6 ml	~¼ tsp
Vegan butter or vegetable oil	50 ml	12 ml

Method

1. Make the dough. Mix the flour, water and oil, then knead until smooth. Cover and let it rest.
2. Mix the filling. In a bowl, combine the minced chicken (or the vegetables, tofu and spinach) with the chopped onion, coriander and spring onion, add the spices, oil and butter, and mix together for a few minutes. Let it rest for 10 minutes so the flavours come together.
3. Roll the wrappers. Roll the dough into small, thin circles — slightly thinner at the edges than the centre.
4. Fill and fold. Place a spoonful of filling in the centre of each wrapper and fold into the desired momo shape. Don't overfill — a clean seal is everything.
5. Steam. Steam the momo for 10–15 minutes, or until cooked through and the wrappers look glossy.
6. Serve. Serve hot with traditional momo achar (the tomato-and-chilli dipping sauce).

Momo achar (the dipping sauce)

Momo are always served with achar — the tomato-based dipping sauce that's half the pleasure of the dish. This is the chef's own achar: garlic, onion and ginger fried golden, tomatoes cooked down on top, then sesame, peanut and a little Sichuan pepper for a warm, nutty, gently numbing finish. The Chef's batch column is his recipe as written; the Home column halves it to serve with about 25 momo.

Watch: folding momo

Folding is the part that takes a little practice — and it's the one thing people say they wished they'd had a chef standing beside them for, which is where a hands-on class in Kathmandu earns its keep. Here's what the pleat-and-seal looks like in the chef's hands:

The three mistakes that ruin homemade momo

• Dough too soft. Soft dough tears and the juices leak out while steaming. Keep it firm.
• Overfilling. A tempting amount of filling is usually too much — you can't seal it, and it bursts.
• Skipping the rest. Resting the dough relaxes the gluten so you can roll it thin without it springing back.

The part a recipe can't teach

You can follow every step above and still wonder if your pleats, your dough thickness, or your spice balance are "right." That's the bit that clicks in about ten minutes when someone who's made thousands of momo is standing next to you, adjusting your hands — exactly what happens in a hands-on momo cooking class in Kathmandu. It's the difference between momo that are good and momo that taste like the ones in Kathmandu.