Making Homemade Egg Rolls

I love egg rolls. Awhile back I started making them myself and found out how easy they are to make. They are a bit time consuming but then again any food made one piece at a time is a consumer of time :).

The one prepackaged product I do buy for these egg rolls is the wrappers. I am sure if I worked on it I could figure out how to make them, but that seems way more time consuming than I am willing to go!

I can’t say these egg rolls rank up there with extremely healthy food, but I like to think they are healthier than what I could get in a restaurant (and way less expensive!).

First I make the filling for the egg rolls. Now this is the part that some may not like.. I don’t really have measurements…….

I usually start with one head of cabbage. But even that is a little tricky.. is it a big head or small or medium, etc.. I just buy what the grocer is selling. This time the head seemed medium but pretty dense. I also had about half a head of purple cabbage in the fridge that I added to this. Slice all the cabbage up in very small slices. I use my food processor for this job.

One large onion - I grate the onion up with my food processor

Several carrots, grated

Meat – this is optional. I have done it without meat before. In the photos here I am using some chicken and a little shrimp. I cut the chicken up into small pieces and then put it in my food processor for a few seconds to really get the pieces small. With the shrimp I just cut them up as small as I could.

Spices: I use soy sauce and oyster sauce (or fish sauce would work too, I’ve used either). You can buy the oyster (or fish) sauce in the Asian department of most grocery stores or at an Asian grocery store.

Egg Roll Wrappers – you will find these in the produce department of many grocery stores. If you don’t then try an Asian grocery store.

You begin by preparing all the veggies and mixing them together in one big bowl. I admit that I was making a LOT of egg rolls so.. yea, it is a lot of filling….


Then I put it all the veggies in a big pan with a bit of olive oil and cook it all up. When it has finished cooking I put it back in my big mixing bowl.

Then I cook up the meat with a little olive oil...



And add this to the veggies. I mix all of this together well and add my sauces.


I tend to go for less seasoned rather than overly seasoned. I usually put in twice as much soy sauce as oyster sauce. So I would start with 2T soy sauce and 1T oyster sauce and then taste and go from there. Add the sauces to the mixture:


Once I have my filling ready to go it is time to start making the egg rolls. I get out my package of wraps (I used two for this batch)

I lay them on a plate like a diamond. I also get a small glass of water for sealing them.


I put about 2T, kind of heaping in the center of each wrap.




I dip my fingers into the water and spread some on the edges of the wrap




 

Then I take the bottom of the diamond and fold it up.. adding more water if I need to so it seals



Then fold in the sides





Now I roll the bottom upward and fold the top down and seal with a little more water..





I lay these out on a large jelly roll pan, but any plate or cookie sheet would work. You don’t want them touching each other because they will stick together. After I have one layer on the pan then I put a layer of plastic wrap over them and stack the second layer on top.. I repeat for however many rows I need..


Now it is time to cook them up! I get out my large cast iron frying pan and heat up some coconut oil. I wait till the oil is quite hot. Then I add as many egg rolls to the pan as I can. I let them cook up for a couple of minutes or less. If your oil is hot enough it does not take long for them to get browned and cooked..


Then I carefully flip them over to cook on the other side.


I stack them on a large platter in the oven to keep warm. I work my way through all of them until I am done!!


My family loves these and I usually serve them with orange chicken and chow mien (a recipe for another day :)