A Wonton By Any Other Name

Here's a fun little appetizer I made recently. It looks really nice when it's done, so people think it takes a lot of work (it doesn't). It's pretty easy, doesn't involve many ingredients, and tastes great. This is our 16th recipe of the year and can be found here on Allrecipes.

The Recipe

Sausage Flowers

1 Pound Ground Italian Sausage

1/2 Cup Shredded Monterey Jack Cheese

1/2 Cup Shredded Colby Jack Cheese

1 Cup Salsa

24 Wonton Wrappers (3-1/2") 

Sour Cream

Green Onion

Grease a mini muffin pan and press wonton wrappers into it to make cups (see picture below). Brown the sausage, then drain and remove from heat when cooked through. Combine the cheese and salsa with the sausage and place a tablespoon of the mixture into the wonton cups (or "flowers"). Bake in a 350 degree oven for 10 mins or until the wonton edges begin to brown. Remove from the oven, place the cups on a serving dish, and top with sour cream and green onion.

End Results and Final Thoughts

This is a very easy dish to make and was a big hit. What's nice is that it's very flexible. You can use whatever you want for this dish. Don't like sausage? Fine, use seasoned beef, shredded chicken, canned tuna (although you may want to rethink the salsa and cheese in this case), whatever! Don't like sour cream? Then just top it with extra cheese (that's what I did with half of the batch I made), more salsa, coleslaw, you name it! Want something completely different? Fill the wontons with ham and cheese, peanut butter and jelly, or roasted veggies! Whatever you want! This is my favorite part of looking at new recipes - not to see what they want you to do, but to see what I might want to try. Yes, there are recipes I wouldn't alter in any way... but nine times out of ten I'd rather have a general concept that I can apply to whatever sounds good (or is in the fridge) at the time than have a very rigid recipe. Maybe it's because I'm not very good at following directions, or maybe it's because I'm the second most ridiculous man in the world, but that's how I operate. And if any of you can think of other good fillings (besides crab meat and cream cheese...), let me know. I'm curious to see what other ideas are out there.

Thanks for reading and have a good weekend!