recipe: quick and easy chinese wonton soup

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Wontons are a classic Chinese dumpling variation: instead of like their semi-circle cousins, wontons are made from a square wrapper and usually have less filling (but of course, this just means you can eat more of them in one sitting). They’re literally a soul-warming meal, especially if you eat them alongside the hot soup, with a generous dollop of spicy chili crisps and green onions.

As with classic dumplings, wontons are great for meal prepping: go ahead, make 150 of these, so whenever you run out of time for a proper meal, pop these on the stove for a comfort meal. Since they’re smaller, they take less time to make. Once you master the art of wonton folding, you can probably crank them all out in less than 20 minutes.

Now of course, as with all Chinese dishes, there are probably about a thousand and 52 different ways you can make wontons. The ones in this recipe consist of a filling made of pork, dried shrimp and shepherd’s purse herb, but feel free to substitute in any other type of filling! As usual, shout out to my mom for her ever-useful input for HMHS’ Chinese recipes (re: “How many tablespoons of soy sauce? Who asks that?? Just pour it in until it feels right!” — in all seriousness, she’s great and this recipe wouldn’t exist without her.)

Dry Ingredients

☐ Ground pork (1 lb)
☐ 1 pack of wonton wrappers (usually about 45 wrappers)
☐ Ginger, finely diced (about 1 tsp)
☐ Green onions (1/3 cup, diced)
☐ Dry shrimp (1/3 cup)
☐ Shepherd’s purse herb OR kale (1 lb)

recipe

1. Take the shepherd’s purse herbs, and wring out all the liquid.
2. Finely chop up the herbs, and set aside. Pour 2 tbsp of hot oil onto the herbs and mix.
3. Add vegetables, dry shrimp to ground meat in a large bowl.
4. Add 1/2 tbs salt, 1 tbs of soy sauce, 1 tbs granulated sugar, 1 tbs of sesame oil, 1 tbs of oyster sauce, 1 tbs cooking wine to the bowl.
5. Mix well.
6. Take a wrapper, and add about 1/2 tbs of the filling onto the filling (place into a corner).
7. Fold the corner of the wrapper over filling, and fold over once again.
8. At this point, it should look like a triangle, with the filling at the bottom. Take the two ends protruding out (the two bottom angles of the triangle) and add a drop or two of water to one of those ends.
9. Then, “glue” the two edges together (they’ll stick together when you push them together) over the center of the triangle.
   Here’s a video showing six ways to fold a dumpling if you prefer a visual demonstration.
10. Bring about half a pot of water to boil.
11. Add slowly about 1/2 of the wontons into the pot (if you add too much, they’ll stick together).
12. Place a cover over the pot, and wait until it boils again. Then, add 1 cup of cold water.
13. Repeat step 12.
14. After the third time it boils, it’s done!
15. Remove from heat, and scoop a bowl (including the soup). You can top with cilantro and green onions. Chili crisps and black vinegar are optional, but recommended! 🙂