Hello everyone! I love that spring is here! I feel like last year we completely skipped the season and went from winter straight to summer. Here in Illinois spring is a bit chilly and rainy with warmer, sunny days mixed in. This time of the year is difficult to decide what to make for meals because you never know if it'll be too hot for soup or too cold to be fufilled by a refreshing salad. I've also started to play around with ingredients that my husband loves so it was fun to pick up these wonton wrappers from Mariano's. Esteban LOVES crab rangoons from our favorite Chinese restaurant around the corner, so I figured I would try and create them at home. Most of the recipes I found only require half of the amount of wrappers in the package I bought, so that got me thinking... what else can I make with these little things?
Wonton wrappers can be pretty versatile and are a great addition to your spring grocery shopping list because you can use them in warm dishes, but they have a light simple shell that doesn't make your food too heavy. I know we love the Chinese rangoons, but I don't want to put imitation crab in them so we will start off with these simple cream cheese rangoons.
You can find many recipes for cream cheese rangoons online or add any type of seasoning inside the filling you like. For my first time I added only three ingredients to the softened cream cheese! Garlic powder, freshly chopped green onions, and a splash of soy sauce (until the white cream cheese is just tinted brown).
I noticed that some recipes I found mentioned that you should only wet the tips of the wonton wrappers with water and the others said to wet the entire thing. I found it best to dip my finger in water and apply the water to the entire wrapper. That way the wrapper is all the same consistency and you have less of a chance of ripping it.
I have never tried frying anything in a pan of oil before, so I was so excited when these guys turned a crisp golden brown. Tip*** You really only need about a tablespoon full of filling in each wrapper. I over filled some (even though I could close them just fine) and the cream cheese mixture started spurting out of the wonton into the hot oil. I quickly grabbed a potato masher and started to filter out the filling so it wouldn't burn my wontons.
Next up, we will use these wonton wrappers to make little cups! If you have any self control and don't eat them all in the same night (not that it happened here...) these would make super cute lunches for work. I had some leftover frozen shrimp from a great deal Jewel had and have been craving seafood this week, so here we are, Cajun Shrimp Guacamole Cups!!
I originally saw this recipe on Pinterest and figured it was time to try it out.
This recipe is so simple, the only thing you have to pay attention to is how long you cook the cups for! My recipe called for mini muffin pans, which would have worked a bit better, but here I stuffed the wrappers into a regular sized, greased, muffin pan.
I kept the first batch in for about 8 minutes, they weren't ready so I left them in for 2 more minutes. As you can see, that extra two minutes was way too long. I would recommend keeping an eye out for your wrappers in the oven after the 8 minute mark until you get the right golden color.
I think these cups are so fun, you can really put whatever you want in them. I think next time I will try to make fiesta taco cups with carne asada and melted cheese!
If you tried both of these recipes out (with minimal errors) you will have about 8-10 wrappers left in your package (mine came with 52). I figured this would be the perfect amount to make wonton chips for a salad topping or dipping. One of my favorite salad flavors is an Asian chicken salad. My local restaurant always adds wonton strips on top with almonds and cilantro. My mouth is watering now just thinking about it. You can also use the wonton strips to dip in your favorite sauce. I personally would like to try them out with a cinnamon sugar cream cheese dip.
All you have to do for these crispy and textured chips is cut them into strips of you preferred size and drop them into hot oil. Don't worry if they stick to each other because once in the oil, they separate. Plus, they only took 30 seconds to fry. Super easy, even for a beginner like me!
I was surprised that each of these recipes came out fabulously. I haven't tried to fry food before and really wanted to step out of my comfort zone. I love these wonton wrappers because you can season them with any flavors you like and cater them to each event you have. They also look pretty impressive with minimal time spent on creating them. I hope you try to incorporate these wonton wrappers in your next meal.