Just Start with Dim Sum
Dim sum is one of the great communal food traditions. Originating in the teahouses of Canton, it evolved over centuries into an elaborate spread of steamed, fried, and baked small dishes meant for sharing over pots of tea. Making dim sum at home might seem intimidating, but the techniques are more forgiving than you think. A good cookbook breaks down the doughs, fillings, and folding methods into learnable steps, and once you master a few basics like har gow wrappers or char siu bao dough, you can branch out in dozens of directions.
Start here
The Nom Wah Cookbook
Wilson Tang · 272 pages · 2020 · Easy
Themes: dim sum, Cantonese cuisine, dumplings, bao
The cookbook from Nom Wah Tea Parlor, the oldest dim sum restaurant in New York’s Chinatown. Wilson Tang took over the family business and turned a century of tradition into 75 recipes that home cooks can actually pull off, from classic siu mai and har gow to turnip cakes and egg tarts.
Why Start Here
Most dim sum cookbooks either assume you already know your way around a bamboo steamer or treat the cuisine as a novelty project. Wilson Tang does neither. He grew up in this food, left for a finance career, then came back to save the restaurant his uncle had run for decades. That personal investment shows in how the recipes are written: clearly, practically, and with an understanding that you are probably making these in a regular home kitchen.
The book covers the full spread of a dim sum table. You get dumplings, bao, noodle dishes, rice rolls, and desserts. The recipes are organized the way a dim sum menu works, which helps you think about putting together a complete meal rather than just mastering one dish in isolation. Tang includes the stories behind the food, connecting each recipe to the restaurant’s history and the broader culture of Chinatown.
What makes this the right starting point is the balance between authenticity and accessibility. The recipes come from a real dim sum kitchen with a hundred years of practice behind them, but they are adapted for people cooking at home. Ingredient lists rely on items you can find in most Asian grocery stores, and the techniques are explained step by step with photographs.
What to Expect
A 272-page hardcover with photography by Alex Lau and An Rong Xu. The 75 recipes span bao, dumplings, vegetables, noodles, rice rolls, cakes, and desserts. Expect to invest in a bamboo steamer and make a trip to an Asian grocery for wrappers, dried shrimp, and a few specialty sauces. The difficulty is approachable for a motivated beginner, and many dishes freeze well for making ahead.
Alternatives
Andrea Nguyen · 240 pages · 2009 · Moderate
Andrea Nguyen’s IACP Award-finalist cookbook covers more than 75 dumpling recipes from across Asia, including China, Japan, Vietnam, Korea, India, and the Philippines. While broader than a pure dim sum book, its Chinese dumpling chapters are among the best technical references available for home cooks.
Why This One
If your interest in dim sum is really about mastering the craft of dumplings and wrappers, this is the book to reach for. Nguyen is a celebrated food writer with a gift for translating traditional Asian techniques into clear, step-by-step instructions that work in a Western kitchen. She covers dough-making in detail, explaining how different flours, hydration levels, and kneading methods produce different textures.
The book goes beyond dim sum classics to include gyoza, spring rolls, samosas, and soup dumplings, which gives you a broader foundation. Once you understand how a basic hot water dough works, you can move between cuisines with confidence. The photography by Penny De Los Santos is practical and beautiful.
What to Expect
A 240-page hardcover organized by type: crescents, sticks and balls, sheets and rounds, and others. The opening chapters on ingredients, tools, and fundamental dough techniques are essential reading. This is a moderately challenging cookbook that rewards careful attention to technique. Plan to make a mess the first few times, and plan to get very good at it after that.
Ellen Leong Blonder · 144 pages · 2002 · Easy
A compact, beautifully illustrated guide to dim sum that has remained a favorite since its publication in 2002. Ellen Leong Blonder combines over 60 authentic recipes with her own watercolor paintings, creating a book that feels as much like an art object as a practical cooking reference.
Why This One
Where The Nom Wah Cookbook gives you the full restaurant experience, Blonder’s book offers something more focused and intimate. It opens with the culture and etiquette of tea lunch, explains the different types of tea, and walks you through setting up your steamer and preparing doughs from scratch. The watercolor illustrations showing folding and shaping techniques are surprisingly useful, often clearer than photographs for understanding hand positions.
The recipe selection covers the essentials: pork and shrimp siu mai, turnip cake, har gow, sticky rice dishes, steamed buns, and an assortment of pastries and sweets. The instruction style is concise and confident. Blonder does not pad her explanations but she does not skip necessary detail either.
What to Expect
A 144-page illustrated cookbook that works well as both a learning tool and a gift book. The shorter page count means the recipe selection is tighter, focusing on the most important dim sum dishes rather than trying to cover everything. The watercolors give the book a distinctive character. Good for someone who wants a gentle, inviting introduction without a massive commitment.