Crab Rangoon Dip Recipe with Crispy Wonton Crackers

Recipe: Crab Rangoon Dip Recipe »

This Crab Rangoon Dip is a wonderful party dip that is creamy, cheesy and packed with that classic crab rangoon flavour. Made with cream cheese, crab (or surimi), green onions, spices and topped with melty cheese, it is baked until golden and bubbly. Served with crispy oven-baked wonton crackers, this easy appetiser skips the deep frying but keeps all the flavour. Perfect for entertaining, game days or potlucks.

About This Crab Rangoon Dip

Crab Rangoon or crab puffs are a delicious Chinese American restaurant dish with deep fried crab wontons. They're filled with a mixture of cream cheese, crab or imitation crab, green onions or scallions and Worcestershire sauce. But did you know that there is also a Crab Rangoon Dip where you make wonton crackers and use them to dip into this incredibly tasty crab dip?

This Crab Rangoon Dip is utterly delicious and one of the tastiest warm dips you could ever serve. I find it hard to stop eating this so that's just a warning: if you want to bring something delicious to a party, make it this dip! Plus making it as a dip is easier as you don't need to wrap up any wontons nor do you need how to deep fry anything.

BONUS: I'll even show you how to make the wonton crackers in the oven so there really is no deep frying at all!

Video How To Make Crab Rangoon Dip

Video: How to Make Easy Crab Rangoon Dip

Ingredients For Crab Rangoon Dip

Square wonton wrappers - I like the yellow ones as that's what they use with crab rangoon dumplings but white ones also work and are a little bit thicker so they may need an extra minute or so cooking.

Crab - Surimi or kanikama or kani, often found frozen or thawed in the fish section. Made out of fish and shaped to look like crab. You can also use actual crab meat (avoid tinned crab meat though, the texture is too wet).

Cream cheese - Make sure to soften this before mixing in.

Mozzarella - Pre grated or freshly grated mozz works.

Mayonnaise - I love spice so I used a smoky habanero spicy mayo but use regular if you don't want it too spicy.

Sour cream - Full cream, if you please.

Cheese - Cheddar or tasty cheese, pre grated or freshly grated.

Parmesan - Grated or flaked parmesan (or pecorino).

Green onions - aka scallions or green shallots (I wish we could decide on a universal name for these!).

Worcestershire sauce - Yup good old Wooster sauce!

Chilli - I like extra heat so I used a whole, chopped jalapeno but feel free to use 1-2 tablespoons Sriracha for a milder chilli hit

Garlic powder - Dehydrated garlic powder found in the spice aisle. Store in the freezer to avoid clumping!

Old Bay seasoning - The secret ingredient to making this really pop! Available at the supermarket nowadays so we don't need to mule it from back America.

White pepper - Chinese recipes often use ground white pepper.

Sweet Chilli sauce - Thai sweet chilli sauce! Everyone has a bottle of this in their fridge right? ;)

Tips For Making Crab Rangoon Dip

1 - Some people don't like the idea of imitation crab but honestly I tried crab rangoon with real crab and imitation and the imitation worked better because it was less "wet". But you go with what your budget allows :) Obviously 360g or 12oz of real crab meat is going to be expensive whereas it's quite inexpensive if you use kani or surimi ($10 a kilo vs $80).

2 - Don't chop the kani or surimi. To get that shredded crab texture, press down on each piece of kani or surimi and it will separate into shreds.

3 - Avoid adding too much cheese to the topping because the wonton crackers will be too delicate to break through a thick layer of cheese.

4 - Likewise, don't add too much sweet chilli sauce on top as it can overpower the crab dip.

Other hot dips to try next are: hot crab and artichoke dip, Spinach artichoke Dip, 8 Layer Dip, Hot & Cheesy Chorizo Dip and Hot Tuna Dip. Can you tell I LOVE hot dips? ;)

Crab Rangoon Dip Recipe

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Recipe Overview

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 25 minutes

Serves: 6 people

Ingredients Needed

For Crackers

• 30 square wonton wrappers
• Olive oil spray

For Dip

• 360g/12.7oz surimi or kani, shredded (can also use crab)
• 200g/7oz cream cheese, softened
• 100g/3.5oz grated mozzarella
• 150g/5oz mayonnaise (I used spicy mayo)
• 100g/3.5oz sour cream
• 75g/2.6oz grated cheddar/tasty cheese
• 40g/1.4oz grated parmesan
• 4 sticks/20g/0.7oz green onions, sliced
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1 jalapeno, chopped or 2 tablespoons Sriracha sauce
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning
• 1/4 teaspoon white pepper

To Top

• 50g/1.7oz grated mozzarella
• 20g/0.7oz grated parmesan cheese
• 2 tablespoons sweet chilli sauce
• 2 tablespoons green onions, sliced

Step-By-Step Instructions

Step 1 WONTON CRACKERS - First preheat oven to 180C/350F conventional or 160C/320F fan forced and line 2 large baking trays with parchment. Lay out won ton wrappers on parchment and spray the tops with olive oil spray well (no need to spray both sides, just top side). Bake for 6-7 minutes or until golden crisp.

Step 2 MIX - Heat the cream cheese in the microwave to soften (at 30% heat in 30 second increments) until soft. Add to a mixing bowl along with the surimi, kani or crab, mozzarella, mayonnaise, sour cream, tasty or cheddar cheese, parmesan cheese, green onion, Worcestershire sauce, jalapeno or Sriracha, garlic powder, Old Bay seasoning and white pepper. Taste and if it needs a bit of salt, add it now.

Step 3 BAKE - Scoop into a large baking dish and smooth over the top. Sprinkle the extra mozzarella and parmesan cheese on top and bake for 25 minutes or until golden and bubbly on top. Brush sweet chilli sauce on top and add extra greens onion on top. Serve while warm with the won ton crackers.

Personal Note

The day before I made this crab rangoon dip I had some friends over including my friend Carla. She's Italian and originally from New Jersey although she now lives half her time here in Sydney (which she calls home) but spend a bit of time in California working on her lemon business where she makes fantastic preserved lemon paste.

She was telling us that her boyfriend Jay was back in New Jersey. Jay is Jewish and has an uncle called Morty who was turning 90 years old. I was picturing someone like Morty Seinfeld but when we called him to wish him a happy birthday a very young looking Morty was looking back at us! I would have guessed he was 60 and not 90. But he did however sound like we had hoped with that strong New Jersey accent which we love so much!

So tell me Dear Reader, do you like hot dips? Have you ever tried crab rangoon?