Baby Wontons + wonton Soup for the rest of the family

by Jessica Nguyen

I started making these for Jamie when he was around 10 months old and he still loves them. They’re the perfect size for solids training and toddlers as they can just grab them easily and eat them. They’re also great for hiding veggies in the filling.

I always make a big batch, to have wonton soup for dinner as family and then I freeze a whole bunch so I have them ready for emergencies meals, that can be cooked at a moment's notice. If cooking from frozen, you ideally want to defrost them and then boil, but I’ve tested boiling them from frozen and it does also work. It will just take 2-3 minutes to boil and float to the top instead of around 30 seconds for fresh or defrosted.

Ingredients

Chicken Stock

  • 1 whole chicken

  • 2 carrots, peeled

  • 1-2 brown onions, peeled

  • 1-2 stalks of celery, optional

  • 10cm piece of ginger, roughly sliced, optional

Wontons

  • 500g (1 tray) pork mince. 

  • 1 large carrot, peeled and microplaned or grated

  • 1 red or brown onion, finely chopped

  • 4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

  • 5cm knob of ginger, peeled and microplaned

  • 2-3 stalks of spring onion or garlic chives, finely chopped

  • 1 tablespoon of sesame oil

  • 1 tablespoon of fish sauce, you could substitute with soy sauce

  • 1 egg

  • 1 packet of wonton wrappers

Soup

  • 1 litre of chicken stock, homemade (you can make my recipe) or store bought

  • 1 tablespoon fish sauce and sesame oil to season if you homemade the stock 

  • 1 carrot, sliced

  • Your choice of greens (broccolini, bok choy etc)

  • 2-3 spring onion stalks, the white parts cut into 8cm batons for the soup, the green stems finely sliced.


Method

Making the chicken stock

  1. If you’re buying the stock, skip this process and head to the wonton making section.

  2. Place the chicken into a pot of boiling water, rapidly boiling for about 10-15 minutes on high, ensuring the chicken is fully submerged. Flip the chicken over halfway through the boil to ensure all parts have cooked. You will see all of the scum and impurities boil to the top which is what you want.

  3. Remove the chicken from the pot, drain all of the water from the pot and give the pot a quick clean. Fill with fresh water, place the chicken back in as well as any aromatics you wish. I normally add in carrot, onions, celery, slices of ginger, bay leaves, but use whatever you have around.

  4. Bring to a boil and then turn down to low to simmer for about 1 hour. You want to cook this on the lowest heat possible, which gives you the clearest broth. Whilst the stock is simmering, prep the wontons.


Making the wontons

  1. Place pork, onion, carrot, ginger, garlic, spring onion, fish sauce, sesame oil and egg into a bowl and mix to combine.

  2. For full sized wontons, gently peel your wonton wrappers from the pack and get ready to roll. I peel about 10-15 at a time and leave the rest in the pack or covered with a tea towel so the dough doesn't dry out.

  3. For baby wontons, grab a stack of 4-5 wrappers unpeeled and use a knife to cut the wrapper into 4 equal squares.

  4. Place a small spoonful of the dumpling mixture into the centre of the wrapper. Aim for the size of a pea for the baby wontons and a heaped teaspoon for full size.

  5. Fold the wrapper in half into a triangle, making two pleats on each side and pinch together to the pleats stick. For the baby wontons, you won’t have space to pleat, but you can simply just pinch both ends into the centre to seal and you’ll get the same result.

 

Making the soup

  1. Clean and cut your vegetables ready to go into the soup. I like to cut my carrots into thin strips, the spring onions and broccolini are cut into 5-10cm batons, and the dark green part of the spring onion is finely chopped.
  2. Bring your chicken stock to a boil. Add in the vegetables and spring onion and cook until just tender and ready to eat - approximately 5 minutes.
  3. In a separate pot, boil your wontons for 2 minutes until cooked, the baby wontons will take 30 seconds to a minute. You need to boil your wontons separately because the starch in the wontons will change the texture of the broth.
  4. Scoop out your wontons using a slotted spoon into a serving bowl. Then ladle the soup on top.
  5. Add in the vegetables from the soup and top with finely chopped spring onions, coriander, some chilli oil or fresh chilli and cracked pepper.

 

Freezing the wontons

  1. To freeze the wontons, place them onto a baking trap lined with baking paper, making sure they're not touching each other otherwise they’ll stick.

  2. Place into the freezer until fully frozen. Then transfer them into a container or snap lock bag, name and date label and keep in the freezer for up to 3 months.

 

Cooking frozen wontons

  1. Defrosting- Ideally defrost them first by placing them onto a plate not touching each other to thaw for about 30 minutes. Otherwise you could place them into the microwave to quickly defrost. Once defrosted, boil in boiling water for about 30 seconds - 1 minute or until they float to the top.

  2. Straight from frozen- I’ve tested if you can boil frozen wontons as is and the good news is you can, but it just takes a bit longer to boil, around 2-3 minutes or until they float to the top and the wonton skin is translucent. This is a good option for those times when you’re desperate to get something on the table in under 5 minutes.

 

Watch the Process

 

 

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