This post may contain affiliate links, which won’t change your price but will share some commission.
Roasted garlic-infused mac & cheese is stuffed into dumpling wrappers, deep-fried till golden and topped with freshly grated Parmesan cheese for the ultimate comfort food snack.
When me and Joanne (Eats Well With Others) get together to cook in my tiny kitchen, things get insanely delicious.
We go all out - Korean lunch and food shopping at HMart complete with oodles of bubble tea and more desserts than we'll admit to.
Followed by forgetting to pick up half of our ingredients and walking to yet another grocery store leisurely walks around town to preemptively burn off the calories from what can only be known as Dumplingpalooza.
AKA deep-fry all.of.the.things.
We have an (almost) annual tradition of getting together in my tiny kitchen on Superbowl Sunday and making a boatload of food. For just 3 adults and my toddler.
Football pretty much isn't even talked about. It's all of the great food of a Superbowl party without any of the sports.
AKA pure bliss.
The last time we cooked together, we made some killer Chocolate Macarons with Espresso Salted Caramel Buttercream.
This time around we tackled 4 brand new original recipe collaborations. Did I just unintentionally make a football pun? I totally did!
We didn't put any limits on what we could cram into dumpling wrappers, and the results were absolutely delicious!
This roasted garlic mac & cheese is great on its own, but wrapping it in a golden brown, Parmesan-crusted exterior takes it to the next level.
We even threw some Asian greens in there, you know, to keep it nice and healthy. Ahem.
We lost count of exactly how many dumplings this recipe makes. Let's just say it's a LOT. So fill and fry as many as you want and enjoy any leftover mac & cheese in a bowl for lunch.
Or breakfast.
This is a judgement free zone.
📖 Recipe
Deep Fried Roasted Garlic Mac & Cheese Dumplings
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 1 hour
- Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
- Yield: 12 dumplings 1x
- Category: Appetizer
- Method: Stovetop/Oven
- Cuisine: American
Description
Roasted garlic-infused mac & cheese is stuffed into dumpling wrappers, deep-fried till golden and topped with freshly grated Parmesan cheese for the ultimate comfort food snack.
Ingredients
- 1 head garlic
- Olive oil
- Kosher salt & freshly cracked black pepper
- ½ pound small shell-shaped pasta or ditalini (we used #23 shells)
- 2 tablespoons butter
- ¼ cup all purpose flour
- 2 ½ cups low-fat milk
- ½ pound Muenster cheese, grated
- ½ pound American cheese, grated
- 1 cup choy sum or baby bok choy leaves, thinly sliced
- Peanut oil, for deep-frying
- Dumpling wrappers
- Freshly grated Parmesan cheese, for garnish
Instructions
- Roast garlic: Preheat oven to 400°F. Peel off most of the papery exterior of the garlic head, and slice the top ¼ inch or so off. Set the garlic on a piece of aluminum foil, drizzle with a little olive oil and sprinkle with a bit of kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper. Bake until caramelized, about 40 minutes.
- Cook pasta: Meanwhile, bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the pasta to just shy of al dente, drain and set aside (you can toss the pasta with a bit of olive oil to help keep it from sticking while you prepare the cheese sauce).
- Make béchamel: Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add in the flour and cook, stirring constantly, until it turns golden brown, about 2-3 minutes. Stir in the milk a quarter cup at a time, whisking constantly. Once all the milk has been added, let it simmer for 3-4 minutes until it starts to thicken slightly. Remove from the heat and stir in the cheese until melted. Stir in the roasted garlic cloves.
- Prepare oil & assemble dumplings: Heat several inches of peanut oil in a large, deep pot (preferably cast iron) to 325°F. While the oil is coming up to temperature, get a small bowl of water ready. Scoop a heaping teaspoon of the mac and cheese mixture into a dumpling wrapper. Dip a finger in the water and run it around the perimeter of the dumpling wrapper, fold it in half and press the edges firmly to seal around the filling. Set on a tray and repeat with remaining dumpling wrappers until you run out of wrappers or filling.
- Deep-fry dumplings: once the dumplings are ready and the oil has reached 325°F, carefully place 6 dumplings into the oil and fry until golden brown on both sides, flipping occasionally with a spider or metal tongs. Remove dumplings to a paper towel-lined tray that has been topped with a metal cooling rack. Immediately grate some Parmesan cheese over the top of each dumpling before adding the next batch to the oil. Repeat with remaining dumplings.
Nutrition
- Serving Size:
- Calories: 208
- Sugar: 4 g
- Sodium: 194.3 mg
- Fat: 7.4 g
- Saturated Fat: 3.8 g
- Carbohydrates: 25 g
- Fiber: 1 g
- Protein: 10.3 g
- Cholesterol: 20.5 mg
Want to see more deep-fried dumpling action? Check out what Joanne has to say about the Deep Fried Nutella S’mores Dumplings that we made for dessert that day! And stay tuned next week for 2 more recipes from Dumplingpalooza!
Alice Choi
Hi!! I'm coming over today from Joanne's blog! Just had to tell you that these deep-fried-roasted-garlic-mac-cheese-dumplings look AMAZING! and I already loved Joanne before but b/c you mentioned the "Korean lunches and food shopping at HMart complete with oodles of bubble tea", I love her (and you!) even more! TGIF! so happy to discover a new blog today!
BigFlavorsFromATinyKitchen
Thanks so much for stopping by, Alice! Glad these dumplings (and our shenanigans) get your stamp of approval 🙂 Thanks for the awesome comment - totally made my day!
Lori H
WHAT??? Those look pretty awesome!
BigFlavorsFromATinyKitchen
Thanks! They WERE pretty awesome 🙂
Heather // girlichef.com
This is sheer genius - pass me that whole tray!
BigFlavorsFromATinyKitchen
Thanks so much, Heather! <3
Carmella @ Bacon My Broccoli
Oh my goodness! This looks amazing!! So much potential here, wow
BigFlavorsFromATinyKitchen
Thanks, Carmella! LOVE the name of your blog btw! 🙂
Joanne (eats well with others)
OMG I totally forgot that we had forgotten so many of the ingredients! Sigh. Typical. But it was SO MUCH FUN. I don't know how we're going to top these...
BigFlavorsFromATinyKitchen
Seriously. I mean... we palooza'd the heck out of those dumplings, girl!
Dino
How do I request these again? Cuz I'd like to request these again. Thank you!
Shukapesh Andre
The instruction don’t say what to do with the bok choy ?
Ashley
If you look at step 2 of the instructions it has you sauté the choy sum leaves (you can also use bok choy) after the ginger, garlic, and shallots have softened. Hope that helps!
shukapesh André
euhh, I don't see Ginger and Oignon in Ingredients. I copy paste the step 2 of the instructions of the Dumpling mac and cheese :
Cook pasta: Meanwhile, bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the pasta to just shy of al dente, drain and set aside (you can toss the pasta with a bit of olive oil to help keep it from sticking while you prepare the cheese sauce)
There must be a misunderstanding ...
Thank you
Ashley
Oh I’m sorry - I was looking at the other dumpling recipe that we made that same day when responding earlier. It looks like we did forget to add this to our instructions! It was a few years ago when we made this and I don’t specifically remember what we did with the greens. My inclination would be to sauté them in some oil in the skillet before making the bechamel. Take the greens out of the pan and set aside while you make the bechamel in that same pan.
Alternatively you could let them boil for a few minutes in the pasta water. You just want to get them softened a bit before adding them to the dumplings since they don’t cook much more when they’re being deep-fried.
Apologies for the misunderstanding and I hope this works for you! Let me know how it goes!