Lasagna Cupcakes / Taco Cupcakes

I came across lasagna cupcakes and taco cupcakes while perusing Tablespoon. I also saw something to the same effect on Tattooed Martha, so I guess this particular employ of wonton wrappers either is or was in some capacity of “trending”. Taco cupcakes and lasagna cupcakes use wonton wrappers as a layering device, e.g. with lasagna cupcakes, you put a wonton wrapper into one of the cups of the muffin tin and then put pasta sauce, ricotta and mozzarella before putting in another wonton wrapper and adding the same ingredients in again. I forgot to buy ricotta at the store, so my lasagna cupcakes were texturally compromised in that way.

lasagna cupcakes in the oven

After first tasting them, I thought my biggest problem with the lasagna cupcakes had nothing to do with the lasagna cupcakes: like it hadn’t been long enough since the pizza cupcakes for any endeavor of the tomato sauce persuasion to not pale in comparison. With time I realized that wasn’t the case. Wonton wrappers are thinner than lasagna or ravioli dough. I don’t think wonton wrappers are made to be compatible with a pasta-like situation.

lasagna cupcakes

assembling the taco cupcakes

The taco palate was a little more compatible. I was in the unique situation of having savory black bean cupcakes to use up, so I used that and enchilada sauce and jack cheese. In a less unique situation, I’d suggest regular beans (not refried).

taco cupcakes out of the oven

But what I’d suggest even more is Madras Lentils, cheese, enchilada sauce, and sweet potatoes. They were a total afterthought. I combined them together two days later just to get rid of the remaining wonton wrappers and they were great! The starch of the potatoes helped balance out the texture, I think. Keep in mind that the sweet potatoes were already baked when the cupcakes were assembled (chopped up, 425 degrees, 45 minutes)

Madras Lentil/sweet potato

If you clicked on the Tablespoon link or the Tattooed Martha link in the first paragraph of this post, you probably noticed that their cupcakes look like they’ve been in the oven longer. If you’re hoping for the wonton wrappers to come out looking more like theirs than mine, I’d say you should definitely put them in for closer to like, eighteen or nineteen minutes (maybe even longer for the lasagna cupcakes), because mine were in for closer to the minimum time (sixteen minutes).