Wonton (Cantonese IPA: wɐn4tɐn1) (also written wantan, wanton and numerous other variations) are a type of dumpling common in Chinese cuisine.

Names

The English name wonton can written in Chinese either as húntún (餛飩), the usual northern Chinese name meaning roughly "irregularly shaped pasta", or the more poetic yūntún (trad. 雲吞 simpl. 云吞), a popular Cantonese homonym that literally means "swallowing clouds".

Curiously, the characters 餛飩 can be used in Japanese for udon, a type of thick wheat noodles with very little resemblance to wonton.

Types

Each wonton is made with a thin 10cm square lye-water pastry wrapper (made of flour, water, salt, and lye) and filled with savory minced meat. The filling is typically made of minced pork, coarsely diced shrimp, finely minced ginger, finely minced onions, sesame seed oil and soya sauce. Wontons can be served in soup or deep fried with rice or noodles. Although commonly referred as "dumplings", wontons should really be classified of a kind of filled pasta more similar to the Italian tortellini or ravioli. The thinness of the wonton wrapper makes the texture of boiled wontons rather similar to small meatballs.

Other variation of wonton are shrimp wonton or seafood wonton.