Uploaded November 2023 | Updated September 2026, 8 hours ago
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Crab Rangoon is another lovely asian-esque recipe which was invented in a large American city; in this case, San Francisco, I believe. It is a pretty obviously North American recipe relying heavily on Philadelphia cream cheese as it does. For all of that, it is truly delicious and not that complicated to make, though it is nice if you have a comfy table to sit out to work on sealing up all the little crab and cream cheese pouches.
Allow the cream cheese to come to room temperature overnight or by getting it out first thing in the morning. As for the crab, it is certainly excellent to steam your own fresh crab and extract it from the shell; you need about 250g (or half a pound) of crab meat. We chose to use prepackaged cooked, frozen crab. If you want to use surimi (imitation crab) that also works just fine.
It is surprising how little filling goes into each pouch. This will of course depend on their exact dimensions. In retrospect, I believe I may have bought the wrong skins at the store and that if I had bought the correct, larger ones then my quarter-size sheets would also have been larger and worked better. That said, the “wrong” skins did also produce nice crab rangoon; making the best of what’s on hand is a major part of cooking.
Makes enough for 64-96 crab rangoon pouches.
Equipment:
large mixing bowl
optionally a rasp or grater for the ginger
lined tray for finished pouches
Ingredients:
1/2 lb cream cheese a regular 8oz package of Philly, for instance
1/2 lb cooked crab meat
1 ea scallion or 1/4 bunch of chives
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp soy sauce
1 clove garlic
same amt ginger a lump about the size of the garlic clove, or more if you like ginger
20+ pcs wonton wrappers square; can cut eggroll wrappers in quarters
Procedure:
1. Grate or finely mince the ginger.
2. Smash and mince the garlic, optionally smashing it together with the ginger.
3. Combine all elements (apart from the skins) in the mixing bowl.
4. Mix well to ensure all ingredients are well combined, making sure there are no large lumps of pure cheese or crab left lurking in the mixture.
5. Taking one wrapper at a time, moisten its edges with beaten egg and place a small amount (1-2 tsp) into the center of the wrapper, and then press opposite corners together to seal, forming a sort of plus shape at the top of the pouch.
6. Allow the sealed pouches to dry a little so that the seam won’t come open in the fryer – 5 or 10 minutes is adequate. Extra pouches you don’t wish to fry may be frozen, but should be used in a few weeks (or stored in a deep freeze for up to a year perhaps).
7. Fry at 350F for about 3-4 minutes, until they are golden brown and delicious.
8. Remove onto a rack and allow to cool briefly before enjoying with (seasoned) soy sauce or possibly a piquant gastrique made from honey (or other syrup) and a sour pepper relish or hot sauce. We used a home-fermented hot pepper relish and some date syrup and that worked very well.
Music: bensound.com/royalty-free-music
Check our our Patreon! patreon.com/loveyourfood
Need a kitchen thermometer? Check out ChefsTemp! Use code LoveYourFood for 15% off a meat thermometer! shareasale.com/u.cfm?d=1003201&m=111859&u=3322095&afftrack=
Crab Rangoon is another lovely asian-esque recipe which was invented in a large American city; in this case, San Francisco, I believe. It is a pretty obviously North American recipe relying heavily on Philadelphia cream cheese as it does. For all of that, it is truly delicious and not that complicated to make, though it is nice if you have a comfy table to sit out to work on sealing up all the little crab and cream cheese pouches.
Allow the cream cheese to come to room temperature overnight or by getting it out first thing in the morning. As for the crab, it is certainly excellent to steam your own fresh crab and extract it from the shell; you need about 250g (or half a pound) of crab meat. We chose to use prepackaged cooked, frozen crab. If you want to use surimi (imitation crab) that also works just fine.
It is surprising how little filling goes into each pouch. This will of course depend on their exact dimensions. In retrospect, I believe I may have bought the wrong skins at the store and that if I had bought the correct, larger ones then my quarter-size sheets would also have been larger and worked better. That said, the “wrong” skins did also produce nice crab rangoon; making the best of what’s on hand is a major part of cooking.
Makes enough for 64-96 crab rangoon pouches.
Equipment:
large mixing bowl
optionally a rasp or grater for the ginger
lined tray for finished pouches
Ingredients:
1/2 lb cream cheese a regular 8oz package of Philly, for instance
1/2 lb cooked crab meat
1 ea scallion or 1/4 bunch of chives
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp soy sauce
1 clove garlic
same amt ginger a lump about the size of the garlic clove, or more if you like ginger
20+ pcs wonton wrappers square; can cut eggroll wrappers in quarters
Procedure:
1. Grate or finely mince the ginger.
2. Smash and mince the garlic, optionally smashing it together with the ginger.
3. Combine all elements (apart from the skins) in the mixing bowl.
4. Mix well to ensure all ingredients are well combined, making sure there are no large lumps of pure cheese or crab left lurking in the mixture.
5. Taking one wrapper at a time, moisten its edges with beaten egg and place a small amount (1-2 tsp) into the center of the wrapper, and then press opposite corners together to seal, forming a sort of plus shape at the top of the pouch.
6. Allow the sealed pouches to dry a little so that the seam won’t come open in the fryer – 5 or 10 minutes is adequate. Extra pouches you don’t wish to fry may be frozen, but should be used in a few weeks (or stored in a deep freeze for up to a year perhaps).
7. Fry at 350F for about 3-4 minutes, until they are golden brown and delicious.
8. Remove onto a rack and allow to cool briefly before enjoying with (seasoned) soy sauce or possibly a piquant gastrique made from honey (or other syrup) and a sour pepper relish or hot sauce. We used a home-fermented hot pepper relish and some date syrup and that worked very well.
Music: bensound.com/royalty-free-music
