Make Crab Dip Taste Like A Classic Takeout Appetizer With A Few Easy Additions

Crab has a sweet and briny flavor and a delicate yet chewy meat that needs little more than a melted butter dipping sauce. However, you can make crab meat more plentiful for the price by incorporating its meat into a creamy, cheesy crab dip. Most crab dip recipes have a cream cheese and mayo base and a blend of spicy and aromatic seasonings like cayenne, paprika, and Old Bay seasoning. However, cream cheese and crab are a famous duo for Asian-inspired dishes as well. One of the most iconic crab and cream cheese dishes you've probably seen in the appetizer section of your favorite Chinese American restaurant is crab rangoon.

In her recipe for cheesy crab rangoon dip, Tasting Table recipe developer Michelle McGlinn artfully transforms crab dip into a deconstructed crab rangoon with the help of wonton wrappers, sesame oil, and soy sauce. Cream cheese, cheddar, and sour cream bring a trifecta of tangy, creamy, and sharp dairy flavors, but the nuttiness of the sesame oil and funky saltiness of the soy sauce are two Asian staples that cut through the dairy richness. They also complement the oceanic and briney flavors in the lump crab.

Wonton wrappers like these are just as easy to bake into crunchy chips for dipping as they are to fold around a crab rangoon filling. You could even take a shortcut by using store-bought fried wonton strips like these from Whole Foods 365 brand or these wonton chips by Kravy Foods.

McGinn uses a Bumble Bee can of lump crab meat which she chooses for its soft, tender meat that still holds its chunky shape when blended into a dip or crab cakes. However, she isn't opposed to using white crab or even imitation crab. Sourced from the legs and claws of the crab, white crab meat is flakier and has a sweeter, more delicate flavor when compared to the more oceanic taste of lump crab. A can of Bumble Bee white crab meat is also half the price of lump crab meat, so it's a good choice for budget-conscious canned crab meat.

An even cheaper option is imitation crab, which isn't crab at all. Instead, imitation crab is a kind of hot dog of processed seafood products, consisting of various types of minced fish with binders like eggs and cornstarch. It's easy enough to dice or slice into strips for the crab dip, but it's noticeably more chewy than lump or white crab meat. As a Japanese invention, imitation crab is a popular addition to California rolls with cream cheese and jalapeno. Consequently, you can take your crab rangoon dip into a more California roll direction by adding diced and seeded jalapeños and furikake seasoning to the mix. You could also serve the dip with crunchy nori chips.