Cheesy Sausage Wonton Bites — The Snack That Outlasted the Falcons

Super Bowl week. I don't care who's playing — Super Bowl Sunday is a cooking holiday and I treat it with the seriousness it deserves. This year the Falcons are playing the Patriots. I'm rooting for the Falcons because they're not the Patriots and that's reason enough. But mainly I'm rooting for an excuse to smoke a brisket and make too many wings. The brisket went on at midnight Saturday. Fourteen hours, post oak, 225 degrees. My fish sauce marinade — the signature. By noon Sunday the house smelled like a Vietnamese BBQ joint that doesn't exist but should. The kids are at Christine's (her week), so it's just me and the guys from the neighborhood. Ray came over with a case of Coors Light — for himself and the others, not for me. Hector brought tamales. Tam Nguyen brought shrimp chips, which are the greatest snack food ever created and I will fight anyone who disagrees. I made the wings — same two-way method as before, Texas and Vietnamese. Also made a pot of queso because you can't watch football in Texas without queso and anyone who says otherwise should be deported from the state. My queso is simple: Velveeta (don't judge me), Rotel, ground beef seasoned with cumin and chili powder. It's not gourmet. It's not trying to be. It's game-day food and it's perfect. We sat in the backyard with the game on speakers. The first half was all Falcons — they were up 28-3 in the third quarter and we were celebrating. Then the Patriots came back. And came back. And came back. And won in overtime. I have never seen a group of grown men go from so happy to so angry in so short a time. Ray threw a shrimp chip at the speaker. Hector said words in Spanish that I understood from context. Tam just shook his head and left. The Falcons blew a 25-point lead. Twenty-five points. I cleaned up the backyard, put away the leftover brisket, and sat in my lawn chair and thought about comebacks. Not football comebacks — real ones. I was down more than 25 points at age thirty-four. Divorced. Drinking myself to death. Waking up on kitchen floors. And I came back. Not in one game, not dramatically — slowly, over years, one day at a time, one meeting at a time, one sober morning at a time. The Falcons didn't come back. But Bobby Tran did. That's enough football philosophy for one night.

The queso got demolished before halftime, the wings were gone by the third quarter, and the brisket carried us through the comeback — but the one thing I keep coming back to from that night is having something easy and crowd-ready that didn’t require babysitting. These Cheesy Sausage Wonton Bites are exactly that: you make a tray, you set them out, and they’re gone before you can blink — which, considering how that game ended, is probably for the best. Next time Ray wants something to throw at the speaker, at least it won’t be my shrimp chips.

Cheesy Sausage Wonton Bites

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 15 min | Total Time: 35 min | Servings: 8 (3 bites each)

Ingredients

• 24 wonton wrappers
• 1/2 lb ground pork breakfast sausage
• 4 oz cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
• 1/4 cup shredded pepper jack cheese
• 3 green onions, thinly sliced
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
• Cooking spray

Instructions

1. Preheat oven. Heat oven to 375°F. Lightly spray a 24-cup mini muffin tin with cooking spray.
2. Cook sausage. In a skillet over medium heat, brown the ground sausage, breaking it up into fine crumbles. Drain excess fat and let cool for 5 minutes.
3. Make the filling. In a large bowl, combine the cooked sausage, cream cheese, cheddar, pepper jack, green onions, garlic powder, onion powder, and red pepper flakes if using. Stir until fully combined.
4. Form the cups. Gently press one wonton wrapper into each cup of the prepared mini muffin tin, easing the edges up the sides to form a small bowl shape.
5. Fill and bake. Spoon about 1 tablespoon of the sausage-cheese filling into each wonton cup. Bake for 12–15 minutes, until the edges of the wontons are golden and crisp and the cheese is bubbling.
6. Cool slightly and serve. Let the bites rest in the tin for 3–4 minutes before removing — they firm up as they cool. Garnish with extra sliced green onions and serve warm.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 185 | Protein: 8g | Fat: 12g | Carbs: 12g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 390mg