Crab Rangoon Recipe

I’m assuming everyone has their favorite Chinese buffet diet-killer… mine is the crab rangoon. Those little fried cheesy pillows of excellence can make or break a buffet experience for me. If your rangoons suck, you already lost my business.

With this recipe in my pocket I am one step closer to writing off all Chinese food venues. I can make 40 of these bad boys for the same price as 10 at the restaurant… not to mention I actually know what’s inside of my food when I make it.

Unrelated: Listen to this damn song while you read the rest of this post… then blame Alicia for having it stuck in your head for the next three days. I’ve had this song on repeat while writing this post, you may as well share my pain/enjoyment.

Now that that’s out of the way… I mixed the cream cheese, finely chopped “crab”, onions, onion powder, and a little hot sauce together.

Everything I’ve made that involves mixing together a bunch of stuff always looks horrible in the bowl… fear not, it may look like cat food but it tastes amazing.

I’m not being fair to cat food, I’m just assuming it tastes awful based on the smell… disgusting smell… but maybe it tastes excellent. Who knows.

Place a teaspoon-ish dab of the “crab” mixture in the center and then fold it in half. Since I failed at taking a picture of step 3 you will have to decipher my horrid instructions below to get the same shape.

They look much better than our first attempt where we went with the boring standard triangle. Chinese people are creative in their folding, you can find more options on YouTube… I went for the second easiest.

Fry those bad boys and then devour in mass. I think I ate a dozen of these things before they made it to the plate.

I’m really going to have to start practicing some sort of self control at some point here. I’ve been using the excuse of needing to put on some winter weight to keep myself warm, but it was almost 50 today… New York… January?

Crab Rangoon

Prep Time: 15 min
Total Time: 25 min
Yield: 6 - 8 Servings
Cost: $7.00

Ingredients

1 (8 ounce) package of Cream Cheese
1 (6 ounce) package of Imitation Crab
1/4 Onion, minced
1 tsp Onion Powder
2 tsp Hot Sauce
1 package (40-50) Wonton Wrappers

Directions

1 Mix together cream cheese, crab, onion, onion powder, and hot sauce.

2 Place a teaspoon sized dab of the mixture in the center of the wonton wrapper. Wet the edges of the wrapper and fold in half. Place a dab of water in the upper left corner then begin to fold in half again and twist so the top of the upper left corner meets with the bottom of the upper right corner. Nearly impossible to explain without sounding like an idiot… watch this video for clarity.

3 Heat up some oil to ~350ºF and give them a quick fry. If you went for a shallow fry make sure to flip and cook evenly. Remove and let cool on paper towel.

4 Tell yourself they had enough time to cool and then dig in only to find out they are still volcano hot.

Recipe courtesy of every Chinese restaurant.

Marilynn

January 9, 2012 at 5:37 pm

These look delish! I think you will find folding them into a triangle will make them easier to fold.

Dino

January 9, 2012 at 7:19 pm

Nice post and photos, BUT….

Crab Rangoon was never a true Chinese “dish.” I have been preparing them for over 50 years and love them. But PLEASE do not credit the Chinese restaurants for originating the delicacy.

Oh yeah, by the way, I would never eat in a “chinese restaurant.” They are some of the filthiest places on the planet, and the “buffets” are the worst of the bad.
Dino recently posted My Chosen Gentile Children have posted their current Bulletin Board notes …

Chris

January 9, 2012 at 7:47 pm

Fear not, I am well aware that these (as well as most everything “Chinese” restaurants offer us Americans) are not true Chinese dishes… but who cares, it all tastes excellent.

Although, I did assume the American Chinese restaurants created this delicacy, but upon further investigation it appears their birthplace is uncertain.

When it comes to cleanliness, I’m sure Chinese restaurants are towards the bottom… but from what I hear, almost all restaurants are pretty dirty.

Ignorance is bliss… until you get food poisoning.

Dude

January 10, 2012 at 10:15 pm

That’s BS I’ve had food poisoning at least half a dozen times from Taco Bell and I keep going back…some food is just to cheap to stop going back

January 10, 2012 at 10:19 pm

True, but you will never order bacon from Taco Bell again.

January 10, 2012 at 10:34 pm

That is for sure, although that was poor judgement on my part…but eh, you live you learn.

Sheryl

January 11, 2012 at 1:04 am

What is the dipping sauce?

Mandy

January 12, 2012 at 2:59 am

What kind of “hot sauce” do you use? Tabasco?

January 12, 2012 at 5:27 am

Frank’s Red Hot usually, but I’ll use whatever is available.

car34

February 3, 2012 at 6:10 am

It can’t be too much more to add REAL crab to his recipe. Have you ever heard how they make “imitation crab”.

February 3, 2012 at 4:16 pm

At the time I was making these, lump crab meat was ridiculously expensive and buying a crab sounded like too much work for what I was going for.

I was under the impression that imitation crab was made from a fish (minced) then they add some extras to get it to taste like crab. None of the ingredients on the back of the bag made me throw it down in disgust… but I am no expert on food processing.

Teach me what you know!