Crab Rangoon | Marion's Kitchen (2024)

FAQs

Do Chinese restaurants use real crab in Rangoon? ›

The filling is made with a combination of cream cheese, crab meat or imitation crab meat, scallions or onion, garlic, and other flavorings. A small amount of the filling is wrapped in each wonton wrapper.

I love Panda Express' Crab Rangoons and they're so easy to make! Oddly enough, they don't use crab or imitation crab in their original recipe. Feel free to add some though, it's delicious! My local Panda Express offers 3 for $2.35.

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).

Recipe FAQs

What are crab rangoons made of? Crab rangoon consists of wontons stuffed with a mixture of crab, cream cheese, garlic powder, green onions and Worcestershire sauce. The wontons are either baked or fried until golden brown and crispy and are often served with a dipping sauce.

Worst: Crab Rangoon

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.

Trader Vic's in San Francisco claimed the crab rangoon they served (first appearing on their menu in the 1950s) came from an old Burmese recipe, but food historian Herb Caen says that dish most likely was invented in the restaurant's own kitchen. In other words, crab rangoon is just as American as apple pie.

In fact, the majority of the most famous Chinese food dishes in the west don't exist in China, including the famous Chinese takeout box, mainly because of the kind of ingredients available, for example, the cream cheese, an ingredient so uncommon in China that makes the crab rangoon almost impossible to find.

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.

While actual crab is not the primary focus of crab rangoon, either imitation crab or the real stuff adds necessary flavor. The best shape for crab rangoon is a four-pointed star: It concentrates the filling and maximizes surface area for more crunch.

During the deep frying process, the water in the filling can turn into steam and cause the wonton to puff up and even burst, causing the filling to ooze out, leaving only an empty shell.

Can you eat crab rangoon cold? ›

How to serve this sweet crab rangoon. You can serve this crab dip cold or warm and bubbly straight from the oven!

Combine the warm cream cheese with the mayonnaise and sour cream in a large bowl. Add in your finely diced green onions(white parts and half of the green parts), garlic, soy sauce, crab meat, sriracha, Worcestershire sauce, and 3/4 cup of mozzarella cheese. Add crab rangoon dip to a 7.5”x6 baking dish.

Although the origin recipe of the crab Rangoon was probably a Burmese recipe, crab Rangoon was probably invented by a Hawaiian or a Pacific islander restaurant in San Francisco in 1950s. Cream cheese is nonexistent in Chinese food, therefore, it is unlikely that this dish was invented by the Chinese.

The name, too, is emblematic of tiki culture. Rangoon, now Yangon, is the largest city in Myanmar, formerly Burma. Myanmar has a substantial Chinese cultural and gastronomic influence, as the two countries share a border. But neither uses cream cheese in its food—that's a proud New York product.

But if you're pregnant, you've probably heard that you should avoid some types of sushi and seafood. The good news is that most types of seafood, including crab and lobster, are safe to eat while you're pregnant. Not only is it safe, eating seafood has a lot of benefits for you and your baby.

You're probably not eating real crab at all. 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.

It's virtually impossible to export products like seafood without preserving it. That's why even fine-dining restaurants use canned seafood.

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.

Hairy crabs, also known as mitten crabs, are palm-sized burrowing crustaceans named for their namesake furry claws, which look like fuzzy mittens. The crab is native to rivers, estuaries and other shores of East Asia from as far north as Korea south to Fujian province in China.