Dolmas (Stuffed Grape Leaves)

Perhapes some might find this suggestion sacralicous, but I use brown rice and cook if fully. Then I cook the oinion and mix it with the seasonings and add it all to the rice. Then the grapeleaves are ready for stuffing. These alterations to the recipe save A LOT of time and make it a little healthier (Brown rice has a little more body anyway.)

First Dinner Party in new house, and SO's 30th birthday. A doubly special event. Had one vegetarian guest. She had tried to make Dolmas herself, but never turned out this good! They were a big hit. Another guest that will not eat ANYTHING green, was spotted picking the stuffing out of the leaves! Could not find any currants, so left them out. Was told later that I could have used white grape raisins (so try that if you too have trouble finding currants) Prepared stuffing and rolled dolmas the night before. I had never worked with grape leaves. First, I thought I could just pull them out one at a time (like a can of baby wipes) but finally figured out that you had to work the whole bundle out of the jar, then unroll it. Also, I thought I would have plenty of extra leaves because it was a jar of 50, but as it turns out there were many that had holes in them, or were badly torn and not useable (so buy plenty extra!). I served them hot out of the steamer. I used a electric steamer for 45 mins, separating the layers of the dolmas with a little parchment paper (in hindsight, not sure if that was necessary as they did not seem to stick to each other or the steamer at all) I did not do the lemon juice thing, because when I have them at Greek restaurants I always think they have just a bit too much 'tang'. It was awesome, easy, and quite the crowd pleaser (as noted by other reviewers). Highly recommend it, A+++++

I made this recipe this weekend for a very large potluck (~50 people). The reviews were tremendous, whether from the few people who had had dolmas before or the vast majority utterly unfamiliar with them. I am providing the recipe (actually, a link to it) to probably 10 people. (Another half dozen people took the left-overs home.) Although this is not a typical American party food, I highly recommend it for that very purpose. It was surprisingly easy to make, well-appreciated by both the meat-eaters and vegetarians in the crowd, and offered a novel diversion from the "typical" potluck food. Although the ingredients sound hard to find, all were available at my local grocery store (Thriftway)--I actually tried Trader Joes first, but they didn't have grape leaves or dried currants.

my grandpa was from the middle east and I remember these growing up I love them. Only we made them with ground lamb breast with rice and mint and lemon. yummy. I can't ever find grapeleaves with lamb in them, not even in a restaurant that sells them I will try this but will add lamb and leave the currants and pinenuts out, as that is not how I like them.

I was looking for a vegetarian addition to my Lebanese lamb-filled grape leaves for a dinner party. This recipe complemented the meat variety perfectly. The flavor is complex and rich, and the dish is satisfying and filling. I wrapped a few of the dolmas in home-made pita bread dipped in olive oil - fantastic. Highly recommended for vegetarians and non-vegetarians alike.

They were truly delicious, but don't think about freezing them. I did and they do not freeze well. The rice was not good after they were frozen.

Delicious! I added more pine nuts and currants and a little bit of fresh dill. They were perfect.

I love dolmas and I especially like this version. These are great for lunch because you can eat them cold, and the recipe does make a lot. I think I will double the currents and pine nuts next time, but overall, very good.

I was really disappointed with this recipe. The whopping tablespoon of cinnamon it called for made the filling taste like bland rice pudding. It kept getting sweeter and mushier as it stood. The spices and pine nuts were very skimpy for such a big recipe. If you try this recipe, triple all of the spices and tomato paste, leave out the cinnamon, and douse liberally with lemon juice when done.

Yummy - the only change that I made was to use raisins (which I chopped) in place of the currants.

Really delicious - don't know if I can go back to canned! I doubled the recipe & used brown rice.. and skipped the olive oil, sautee'd the onions in Pam instead. It made a *ton* - I still have lots of stuffing left over & I used 24 oz of grape leaves. Also, it was weird ... I didn't need to add any water when I steamed, in fact I was ladling water out! Don't know why that happened.

Thanks for this great recipe! I have grapes and really wanted a good dolma recipe. This is IT! I reduced the cinnamon the 2nd time around, but don't eliminate it, the cinnamon is such an important flavor in this recipe! Oh, I also eliminated currants because i just don't like them.

Great recipe, I also stuffed bell peppers, eggplants, and tomatoes with the same stuffing. OMG that turned out to be awsome. When adding bell peppers and eggplants make sure you line them on the bottom of your pot since the veggies are raw and will need more heat cooking them. Remove all the seeds from bell pepper keep the stem portion so that you cover the top and then place it in the pot. For the eggplants use the thin once not those bulky huge once. If the eggplant is too long cut it in half and shave off the inside of it leaving a thin layered skin about (3 mm.) I use a teaspoon doing that. Make sure you leave the bottom of the eggplant untouched so that the stuffing does not spill. The tomatoes go on all theway on top around the pot after you have rolled your dolmas. Again cut off the top of the tomato and shave off the inside with the spoon add filling and cover with the stem portion. It is YUMMY. Enjoy

i thought this recipe was a solid one. i loved the fact that it was vegetarian and really helathy. i used brown rice with the recipe, didnt add any oil to the filling, used fresh currants instead of dried, and used walnuts instead of pinenuts. so i guess you could say in this sense i only loosely followed the recipe, but the mix of spices was really stellar. i appreciate any recipe that can be made in an ultra healthy way, especially if they still taste spectacular!!!

I was disappointed with this recipe. Mostly, I think that is WAY too much cinnamon. It really takes away from the other flavors. I will have to definitely alter it the next time I make it.

My husband is Syrian and I have tried many versions of grape leaves. Our grape leaves are delicious we make a vegetarian recipe that is wonderful as well as the traditional rice and lamb version. The vegetarian recipe has chickpeas, rice, tomato, spices, oil, parsley, green onion, fresh mint, and lemon. This recipe was the absolute worst that I have ever had. Now I understand why some people make a face when I talk about grape leaves...they probably had something similar to this recipe. I cant describe how bad they were... I went back and checked the recipe, believing I left out a pertinent ingredient. I followed the recipe exactly. Don't waste your time and effort on these. A one star rating is too high!

This was ok at best. The flavor was bizarre and it came out rather dry. It needs some kind of sauce. I would not make again.

This one only somewhat resembles the greek versions available in my neighbourhood, so I'm not sure about its authenticity. I read some of the reviews regarding the spices, so I slowly added each spice and tasted as I went along, so the spices tasted great in my opinion. This makes ALOT. I bought an extra jar of grape leaves, because a lot of them in the jar need to be sorted through as they are ripped/broken. I probably ended up with around 50 of them, which is way way too much for myself. Also from the time I began this recipe, until they were all sitting in the steamer, it took two hours, and I'm a rather experienced cook. They did taste quite good, but in my opinion they needed to be doused with lemon juice to really bring out the flavour. Doesn't really taste like my friend's moms' recipes, but it's probably because its my first time making dolmas. I would recommend this recipe for a large party of 20+ people, because that's the only way these are going to all get eaten. Myself, I wouldn't make these again because it's easy and relatively cheap for me to get them fresh from down the street, but thanks for the recipe though.

This recipe is awesome!!! Didn't have mint so I substituted parsley. Saw some other reviews, backed off of cinnamon a bit, but added a grate or two or three of nutmeg. Used a steamer basket, drizzled a little bit of oil and lemon juice on top. Whatever the method, the rice recipe is incredible, thank you.

I made these for a potluck party and couldn't bring them. I followed the directions exactly as said, both in this recipe and how to prepare the grape leaves by putting them in boiling water for a minute. But this didn't work out at all. The grape leaves were stringy and never softened up. The filling was good, but the rest of it - This was such a disappointment because based on the reviews, I thought this was a sure fire hit.

These taste exactly like the ones we are served on our holidays to Greece. Exactly! I did not have the dill and I used brown rice and sultanas, which I chopped a little instead of currants, the grape vine leaves were our own we preserved last summer. I followed the recipe apart from that! This made a lot of dolmades, but we ate the left overs cold for lunch the next day. Heaven!

I gave this recipe 4 stars becase I felt it needed to be modified... Didn't add cinnamon (?). Use about 1/4 cup each of fresh herbs, not dried... I added a little cayenne pepper in filling for zip, then tomato paste, garlic and some butter into the water when cooking. My sauce covered all layers of the dolma. Also roll them tight so they don't fall apart, placing seam down.

These were sooo good! In my case, I used brown rice chopped cashews (they happened to be on hand) instead of pine nuts. As far as I'm concerned, you can add whatever comes to mind and they will be AWESOME!!

I had to adjust the taste of the filing a bit to get it to a better place. It was ok, and edible. But I'll try a different recipe next time.

Maybe it's me....but mine turned out to be very tough. The grape leaved dried out.

I could not find currants, so i used dried cranberries. Also i could not find dried mint, so i ended up using orange peel for that splash of flavor! It added some zest. I made this recipe for 50 people and it went over very well! Also using a veggie steamer really helped. I cooked the rice separate from the onions and added a little more tomato paste so that the mixture could stick a little better! WONDERFUL RECIPE!

The dish is not Turkish. It's Armenian.

Since I was making this dish for a bunch of people with various allergies, I had to remove the onions (added a little extra rice) and I replaced the broth with water. I think it was a little bland for that reason, I'll just have to figure out how to give it a little extra flavor...

I hate to say it, but these were pretty dissapointing. To be fair though, the excellent reviews may have given me higher expectations than I should have started with. Maybe there is a better way to prepare them than to cook the rice and then steam them? Is it okay to prepare the filling fully cooked and then wrap the leaves?