The Absolute Best Way To Reheat Crab Rangoon

If you've never had crab rangoon, you're missing out on a surprisingly simple and delicious appetizer recipe. At its most basic, this tasty dish is made from cream cheese and imitation crab meat that's been wrapped in a wonton wrapper and then fried or baked to perfection. When paired with a little duck sauce or Thai chili sauce, it's hard to resist eating an entire order. But, if you do find yourself with either leftover crab rangoon or a frozen package that you're not sure how to reheat, there is one easy solution: the air fryer.

Crab rangoon should be crispy on the outside and warm and gooey on the inside. To achieve that perfectly crunchy exterior, you'll want to pop these in the air fryer. The oven or microwave will work to reheat the wontons, too, but at the expense of that perfect crunch. Plus, the air fryer will cook this snack up quickly, saving you far more time than oven-baking. Try to avoid frying the crab rangoon in oil; since each one has already been pre-fried, frying the dish once more could leave you with a greasy snack.

If you don't own an air fryer, this is the time to buy one. Not all air fryers are created equally, so you might have to play around with the temperature a bit to find the best heat for perfect cooking — but air fryers will essentially fry up that rangoon without any of the oil. They work by dispersing hot air all around the air fryer basket. Since the basket has holes, the food's entire exterior gets the same level of crispy (the same can't always be said for oven baking). In this case, the crab rangoon ends up with all the crispiness of a deep fryer without the grease.

Add the crab rangoon to the air fryer basket, and make sure to leave room in between each rangoon for the air to properly circulate. The air fryer doesn't need to be too hot — around 350 degrees Fahrenheit is fine — because the wonton wrapper is thin, and you don't want the rangoon to heat so much that the cream cheese melts out. They should take less than five minutes to get crispy and hot.

Technically, yes, you can use another method for reheating. If you don't own an air fryer, the oven is likely your best bet. There are two ways to reheat this snack in the oven: on a baking sheet or on an elevated cooling rack. A baking sheet is the standard way of cooking most foods in the oven, but expect the bottom to be crispier than the rest of the rangoon. If you have a cooling rack, place it on top of a baking sheet, which will help get all sides exposed to heat.

If you're more concerned about saving time and less concerned about crispness, then you can microwave the crab rangoon. But, don't expect it to be crispy at all. The microwave will certainly leave a soggier exterior, but these wontons cook up in no time. Finally, if you do choose to deep fry the crab rangoon, use an oil with a high smoke point, such as canola oil. The best oil temperature for frying is around 350 degrees Fahrenheit, so an oil with a high smoke point won't burn in this case. Crab rangoon should reheat in less than two minutes when placed in hot oil.