Today on The Stay At Home Chef
I'm showing you how to make Cream Cheese Wontons with Quick Sweet and Sour Sauce.
This is a classic bite-sized snack that everybody loves,
and it is super easy to make at home.
We're gonna start with our sweet and sour sauce,
which is super easy to make.
It takes just 6 simple ingredients.
You'll need 1 cup of pineapple juice,
which just so happens to be how much is in one of these little cans,
as well as ketchup,
rice wine vinegar,
soy sauce,
corn starch for thickening,
and a little bit of brown sugar.
Start by placing 3/4 cup of brown sugar into a saucepan.
Then add in 2 tablespoons of cornstarch,
and give this a quick whisk to combine.
Then we're gonna pour in 1/4 cup of rice wine vinegar,
and 2 tablespoons of soy sauce,
2 tablespoons of ketchup,
and 1 cup of pineapple juice.
Get this heating over medium-high heat,
and we'll whisk altogether and bring it to a simmer.
It's important to note that homemade sweet and sour sauce often isn't red like they sell it at the store.
If you want it to be that bright red,
well you're gonna have to use an artificial food dye.
Now just as it starts to bubble and come to a simmer,
you'll see that the cornstarch has caused things to thicken up,
so we'll remove this from the heat and set this aside to cool while we make our cream cheese wontons.
Wontons are fried,
so you'll start by getting some oil heating up in a saucepan.
Or you can use a large pot.
You'll need to cover the bottom with about 2 inches of oil.
Heat the oil to 350 degrees Fahrenheit,
and when it comes to frying I always recommend using a thermometer for safety.
For the wontons you'll need 8 ounces of cream cheese.
You want to beat this in a large mixing bowl.
You want to whip some air into this and fluff it up,
so that the inside of our wonton is light and fluffy.
Now you can always buy pre-whipped cream cheese from the store,
but the markup on that is pretty hefty,
so I prefer whipping my own.
You can also experiment with the flavors inside,
and add different spices,
or even something like avocado in to mix things up.
Go ahead and set the whipped cream cheese aside for a second,
and crack an egg into a little mixing bowl.
Add 1 tablespoon of water in with the egg,
and whisk it really well until that egg is broken up and starts to get a little froth.
Then grab a pastry brush and some wonton wrappers and I'm gonna show you how to fold some wontons.
You can work on a small plate or on a clean countertop.
You'll lay out one of your wonton wrappers,
then you're gonna take your pastry brush,
dip it into the egg wash,
and paint both sides of the wonton wrapper with just a light coating of the egg wash.
Place about 1 teaspoon of that whipped cream cheese right in the center,
then you're gonna grab opposite corners,
gently fold them up into the center,
grab the other corners,
and fold them up into the center as well,
and then pinch the edges shut.
You want to make sure that any pockets of air are squeezed out so it's just that cream cheese inside.
Some people find that all those pointy edges makes for quite the mouthful,
so I'm going to show you an alternate way that you can fold your wontons.
Just like before you'll paint both sides of your wonton wrapper,
plop your cream cheese right in the center,
and then we can fold the wonton together kind of like a little envelope.
Once again you want to seal things up so that there are no pockets of air.
No matter how you choose to fold them,
you can get a little assembly line going and keep on assembling until you've used up either all of your cream cheese or all of your wonton wrappers.
This should make somewhere around 24 wontons.
Be sure to keep a close eye on the temperature of the oil,
and adjust the heat source so you keep your oil between 325 and 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Working in batches we're going to carefully add in our wontons and let them fry.
They really only take a minute or two to cook.
Then carefully remove them from the oil and transfer them to a paper towel lined plate to drain.
You'll know real quick if you left any air pockets in,
they'll start to really bubble up and some of the cream cheese might escape.
It'll start to hiss and bubble.
Just step back.
It'll be OK.
You can see this one's all puffed up,
but don't worry.
The cream cheese is still in there.
These are still going to be good.
If you're new to frying you can check out more safety tips on my website with this recipe.
Other than that, we are ready to eat.
You'll want to serve these up hot with that sweet and sour sauce.
Thanks for watching.
You can find the full written recipe in the video description.
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