Homemade Take-Out: Wonton Soup!

We love take out Chinese, but when you only spend $50-90 a week on groceries, it just doesn't fit into the ole budget. Slowly but surely, I've instead been mastering the art of frugally preparing our favorite take out dishes at home, and we are discovering we like them BETTER than take out. At our co-op, I'm going to do a demo for the teens called "Top 5 Better than Takeout" (the theme of the sampler class is "Life's Top Ten", and so different areas are explored, from career prep, to cooking!).

Wonton soup is easy and wonton noodles are very versatile to use in not just oriental cooking, but also italian cooking (ravioli!) and polish cooking (pierogis!). But, where on earth do you buy wonton noodles? Actually they are usually in the produce section of your grocery store, near the tofu and weird vegetables. I find ours at Walmart for about 50 noodles for $1.29. Fifty is enough for about 2 pots of soup. They are highly perisable, though, and so you do need to plan on using them up quickly, or freezing the prepared wontons (you can't just freeze the noodles alone because they would be come difficult to work with after thawing--I've tried). If you are making both wontons and raviolis in the same week, that works best.


I guess you could also make your own noodles too--just flour and eggs is what goes into pastas (in this case, rice flour). However, unless you have a cool little pasta roller, the chances of you getting it to the thickness and right size needed are not really good (too bulky doesn't work well with wontons), and it is time consuming, not to mention messy. They're so cheap, especially when on sale for $0.89 as they were this week, why bother? I've done it though. I'd rather make thick fettucini noodles for some AMAZING homemade chicken noodle soup, but that's another post.

Anyway, to start: get about 1lb. ground meat. This can be any sort of ground meat, but it must be thawed. I think that ground turkey works best, because it is somewhat "paste-y" and so easier to work with. Mix into your thawed ground meat:

• 1tsp. of sesame oil (this is found in your oriental foods section of the grocery store, and a little goes a long way.).


• 1T. of rice vinegar (ditto)


• pinch of salt and pepper


• pinch-to-generous pinch (I like ours spicy) of: onion powder, ground ginger, Chinese five spices (a spice blend found in most grocery stores--alt, you could use a touch of cinnamon, anise, cardomom, and cloves), and ground red pepper (which is optional but as I said, I like it spicy).


• 1T of corn starch


• 1T of water

mix well and set aside.

You can also get your soup ready, since we will drop our wontons into the soup:
saulte 1 finely minced onion, 1 c. finely minced cabbage (any kind works though I'd avoid red), 1 finely minced carrot, and 1 finely minced rib of celery in 1T of oil seasoned with a few drops of sesame oil. Pour in 2-3 quarts of either stock (I used my home canned chicken stock), or water with chicken or vegetable boullion. Bring to a boil, then turn it down to a simmer. Season with ginger, Chinese Five Spices, cilantro, and lemon grass (optional--if you find it).

In the mean while, you can start to prepare your wontons.

Get an area ready: have water in a small cup, a flat work surface, and somewhere to put your wontons when you have formed them. You will also need a small spoon or small melon baller.


Lay one wonton noodle down flat, so it looks like a diamond not a square. In the center, place about 1 t of the meat mixture. Using your finger or a brush (finger works better for me), spread water along the edges of the noodle, about a finger's width (1 cm or so), and then fold in half, corner to corner, forming a triangle. Seal those edges well by pressing them together. If you don't--you will have floating meat and floating loose wonton noodles.

Set them aside on a dry spot while you make the rest (you'll probably get about 30-35). When you are done, carefully drop each wonton into the soup, and let it simmer for about 10 minutes. Test one of the wontons to make sure they cooked throughly--meat should be done. If you want to freeze uncooked wontons, place them on a cookie sheet, not touching, and freeze, then store them in a freezer baggie. Drop then into the soup frozen, and let cook about 20 minutes.

Garnish the soup with green onions (Scallions). Enjoy!

If you are making raviolis, here is how you do it:

the meat mixture changes a little bit: 1/2-1 lb of ground meat, seasoned with basil (I use fresh but dried works too), oregano, rosemary, 1T of tomato paste (optional), garlic, onion powder, and parmesan cheese. You can then cook it in salted water, and serve with your choice of sauce. You can eitehr fold them in half as we did here, or you can put two wontons together to keep them square. I use 1/2 lb of meat when I have only about 15-20 left over after making wonton soup :-)

I've also made raviolis with different fillings, such as ham and ricotta cheese, or just ricotta cheese, and sometimes just mozzerella cheese (I cubed the cheese, and put cubes of mozzerella and some fresh spices into the wraps). I've also made them stuffed with spinach and feta cheese, or fresh basil and feta cheese, for a greek flavor.

Hey, you could even stuff them with leftover mashed potatoes, cheese, and onions to make pierogis! Those were always our evening snack food on Christmas eve growing up.

You can also pan fry the wontons/raviolis but I think they taste better cooked in water.