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The best and authentic Crab Rangoon recipe with cream cheese, crab and wonton wrapper. These Crab Rangoon are fail proof and much better than Chinese takeouts!
Table of Contents
Crab Rangoon Recipe
What is Crab Rangoon?
It’s an appetizer found in many Chinese restaurants in the United States.
Many people wonder if crab Rangoon is authentic and the answer is no. It is a classic American creation even though they are mostly served in Chinese restaurants.
These dainty appetizers are basically fried wontons filled with cream cheese, with real crab meat in the filling.
They are deep-fried to golden brown and usually served with a pink-color sweet and sour dipping sauce.
I first encountered them at a Chinese buffet restaurant in the Midwest. They have since become one of my favorite appetizers!
Other Recipes You Might Like
Fried Wonton Recipe
Chicken Wontons
Shrimp Gyoza
How to Make Crab Rangoon?
There are three few key ingredients in the recipe: cream cheese, wonton wrapper and crab meat.
First, you make the filling by mixing cream cheese and crab meat together.
Next, wrap the filling in the middle of a wonton wrapper. Make sure you seal it tight and there is no leakage.
Finally, deep fry until golden brown. It’s that easy!
Tips for the Best Homemade Crab Rangoon
For the best results, please follow the cooking techniques below:
Use square wonton wrappers to wrap the cream cheese and crab filling. You can get wonton wrappers at Asian supermarkets or food stores. You can also find wonton wrappers in many regular supermarkets now, for example: Whole Foods.
Use real crab meat for the cream cheese filling. You can use fresh crab meat, frozen crab meat or canned crab meat. If crab is not an option, you can use imitation crab meat sticks. Just cut and shred up the imitation crab meat before using.
Wrap the cream cheese and crab mixture using wonton wrappers. Do not overfill with too much filling.
Seal each wonton wrapper tight so there is no leakage. Pinch it up like a little purse and deep fry to golden brown.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Is There Crab in Crab Rangoon?
Yes! You can use either fresh crab, canned crab or artificial crab.
What’s the Difference between Fried Wontons and Crab Rangoon?
Fried wonton is a Chinese appetizer wrapped with wonton wrapper and filled with meat such as ground pork, chicken and/or shrimp.
The latter is a type of wontons with cream cheese and crab as the filling.
Can You Freeze Crab Rangoon?
Yes, once they are assembled and wrapped, you can freeze them in the refrigerator. Thaw to room temperature before deep-frying.
Best and authentic Crab Rangoon recipe with cream cheese, crab and wonton wrapper. These Crab Rangoon are fail proof and much better than Chinese takeouts!
4.52 from 260 votes
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By Bee Yinn Low
Yield 20pieces
Prep 15 minutesmins
Cook 5 minutesmins
Total 20 minutesmins
Ingredients
1cubeKraft Philadelphia Regular Cream Cheese(room temperature)
Mix all the cream cheese, crab meat, sugar, and salt in a bowl. Stir to blend well. Place about 1 tablespoon of the cream cheese filling in the middle of a wonton wrapper.
Dab some water on the outer edges of the wonton wrapper and fold the two ends of the wrapper together. Fold the other two ends to make a tiny parcel pictured below. Pinch to seal tight and make sure that there is no leakage.
Heat up a pot of oil for deep-frying and fry the crab rangoon until golden brown. Dish out with a strainer or slotted spoon, draining the excess oil by laying the crab rangoon on a dish lined with paper towels.
Let the crab rangoon cools down a bit before serving them with sweet and sour sauce.
Notes
Use real crab meat if possible. Don't serve the crab Rangoon immediately after deep-frying as the filling will be too hot! To make the sweet and sour Crab Rangoon dipping sauce, please refer to mysweet and sour pork recipe.
Course: Chinese Recipes
Cuisine: Appetizer
Keywords: Crab Rangoon
Nutrition
Nutrition Facts
Crab Rangoon
Amount Per Serving (20 pieces)
Calories 26Calories from Fat 9
% Daily Value*
Fat 1g2%
Saturated Fat 1g6%
Cholesterol 2mg1%
Sodium 69mg3%
Carbohydrates 5g2%
Fiber 1g4%
Sugar 1g1%
Protein 1g2%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
Notice: Nutrition is auto-calculated, using Spoonacular, for your convenience. Where relevant, we recommend using your own nutrition calculations.
It consists of cream cheese, sometimes sweetened, plus, usually, very small bits of imitation crab, stuffed into a wonton wrapper and deep-fried, served with a syrupy, neon sweet-and-sour dipping sauce. It is, essentially, deep-fried cheesecake with fake crab in it—as sweet as any dessert, but served as an appetizer.
Rangoon is actually a Burmese city. Wontons filled with cream cheese and imitation crab are named after the city – crab rangoons, whereas wontons just filled with cream cheese are often referred to as wontons – but they are used interchangeably.
Crab rangoons, if you've never had them, originated at Trader Vic's restaurant in San Francisco in the 1950s and are crispy, fried wontons filled with cream cheese, imitation crab, and seasonings.
According to Chowhound, crab rangoon usually isn't made with real crab meat. Imitation crab, a.k.a. surimi or "krab," is commonly the main ingredient. Fooducate describes surimi as a highly processed product composed of lean white fish pulverized into a thick paste.
Although crab Rangoon can be found in almost all the Chinese restaurant in the United States, again, this dish has nothing to do with Chinese food. The word “Rangoon” in the name “crab Rangoon” is really an old name of Yangon, the largest in Myanmar.
steps. In a mixing bowl, stir cream cheese, crab meat, sugar, MSG, soy paste, chinese five-spice, and scallions together until well-combined. Let cool down all the way. Cut spring roll wrappers to be about 5×5-inches.
One of the biggest clues in the makeup of crab rangoon that this dish is American over Asian in origin is the cream cheese. Cream cheese was a staple in 1940s and 50s America but this is not an ingredient you'll have found in China or Burma or Polynesia.
Cursory online research will tell you that a dish resembling present-day crab rangoon first appeared on the menu of legendary tiki bar and restaurant Trader Vic's, though some sources hypothesize these stuffed crab puffs emerged around the turn of the century in British-controlled Burma.
The cream cheese will be easier to mix if it is room temperature. Lump Crab Meat: You can use lump crab meat that is found in the refrigerated meat section of the grocery store, or you can also find canned lump crab meat! I recommend using real crab meat over imitation crab meat.
It's mostly cream cheese, wrapped in dough and deep-fried to create bite-sized calorie bombs. Because they're small, it's easy to eat more than one. Finish an order of 4, and you're likely to get more than half the calories and fat you should have in an entire meal.
When it's time to seal the homemade crab rangoons, a little goes a long way. One of the reasons they might not remain sealed is because they're too wet. To avoid this, dip your fingers or a small brush in the egg wash or cornstarch slurry and shake off any excess liquid.
Crab rangoon is a type of fried wonton, so they are really very similar. The difference is all in the filling. Traditional wontons are not ever filled with cream cheese (which is one of the main components in crab rangoon recipes).
For a sweet crab Rangoon, I added about 3 teaspoons of powdered, or confectioners, sugar. I say 'about' because one of them was a little overly full. Drop in your mix and stir together. Sugar to taste, so taste the mix between teaspoons.
To freeze: Lay your uncooked crab rangoons in a single layer on a baking sheet. Freeze for a couple of hours or until individually frozen, then transfer to a freezer bag. Keep up to six months. No need to thaw before frying, but oil needs to be at 350 degrees.
The key to that flavor is surimi, a seafood paste made from white fish, artificial and natural flavors, starch, sugar, and sodium. And the preferred white fish in this amalgam is Alaskan Pollock—the same variety most commonly utilized in frozen fish sticks and fast-food seafood sandwiches.
To make imitation crab, white fish is formed into the paste known as surimi. Binding ingredients such as egg whites, wheat, and starch, along with salt, vegetable oil, sugar, crab flavoring, and occasionally MSG are then added to the surimi. The paste is heated and pressed into rods resembling crab leg meat.
Just like the name implies, imitation crab contains no crabmeat. Fish is, however, one of the main ingredients. It is made using surimi, which is a paste made of fish and a few other ingredients. Surimi is often made with pollock, which is also used to make fish sticks and breaded fish products.
Introduction: My name is Jeremiah Abshire, I am a outstanding, kind, clever, hilarious, curious, hilarious, outstanding person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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