Baked Vegetable Egg Roll

Ahh this is perfection- incredibly flavorful, tastes super sinful but is actually a relatively healthy appetizer! Nothing but lots of veggies here so feel free to chow down and enjoy yourself.


As a side note, this was one of the most time consuming recipes I've ever made. However, the time commitment had nothing to do with how long it took to actually prepare and cook the egg rolls, but had everything to do with the fact that I somehow had to visit 5 different grocery stores in order to actually find egg roll wrappers. After the third stop I knew I had to keep going until I found the darned wrappers, and unfortunately that meant spending $7 on a pack of frozen wrappers. But the bright side is I discovered a couple new (to me) great grocery stores in my hood that I hadn't visited yet!


Vegetable Egg Roll

• Egg roll wrappers
• 1 Head of nappa cabbage
• 3-4 Cremini mushrooms 
• 1 Very large carrot (if your grocery store doesn't sell these separately you'll probably need at least 2 medium sized carrots from a bunch)
• 3 Spring onions
• 1.5 Heaping tablespoon ginger (this is a lot, you'll definitely taste the ginger in the egg rolls which I love)
• 3 Cloves of garlic
• Water chestnuts or sun choke or jicama (optional, but a small handful adds nice crunch)
• 1 Tablespoon soy sauce
• 1/4 Teaspoon salt

Sweet and Spicy Dipping Sauce

• 1 Tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 Tablespoon honey
• 1/2 Teaspoon champagne vinegar (or rice vinegar)
• 1/2 Teaspoon hoisin sauce
• 1 Clove minced garlic 
• 1/4 Teaspoon red pepper flakes

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. 

Start by prepping your veggies. Discard the outside layers of the nappa cabbage and then slice and chop the rest of the head. 

Use a dry dish towel to gently rub/clean the mushrooms. Pull off the mushroom stem and then slice the mushroom cap length-wise and then thinly slice the two layers.

Peel and then shred the carrot. Slice the spring onions, both white and green parts. This not only gives good flavor but adds nice color. Mince the garlic.

Slice the tough skin off the ginger and thinly mince it. I used about a one inch cube of ginger.

Now, to be honest, initially I accidentally bought a sun choke instead of ginger. Luckily, since I went to 4 grocery stores afterwards I was able to easily pick up ginger root once I identified my mistake. A quick google taught me that sun chokes can be eaten raw and are very crunchy and relatively flavorless. Reminded me of water chestnuts which I wanted to add to the egg rolls anyways, so I just peeled and sliced the sun choke into matchstick strips and I think it was a great addition! If you have sliced and canned water chestnuts then just use a small handful and slice thinly. 

Time to get cooking! Sauté the spring onions and ginger for just about a minute. 

Then add the garlic and sauté for another 30 seconds. Add the mushrooms and stir. Add the carrots and stir in well. Then add the cabbage and cook until wilted. Add one Tablespoon of soy sauce and a pinch of salt and, if you choose to include, the sun choke or water chestnuts. 

If there is one part I didn't excel at it would probably be the wrapping part of this procedure. Put a wrapper on a flat surface and put a heaping pile of the veggie mix in the center of the wrapper (it seemed like these were extra large wrappers but to be honest I don't have a point of reference). You'll put the filling in a line at an angle, basically going from one corner to the opposite corner. Dab your fingers in a bowl of water and wet the outside edges of the wrapper. 

Fold the top and bottom corner in onto the filling and then take the larger left corner and fold over the mix and roll it up tightly.

Line a pan with tin foil and spray with non stick cooking spray. Place the egg rolls on top and then lightly brush the egg rolls with olive oil (I might just use cooking spray next time instead). Pop into the oven for about 15 minutes.

Before

After

While the rolls are baking, start mixing up a dipping sauce. In a small bowl combine the soy sauce, honey, vinegar, hoisin sauce and red pepper flakes. Mince a clove of garlic and add to the sauce. Sweet and spicy and tangy, a perfect compliment to the egg rolls. 

The egg rolls will come out golden, crunchy on the outside and really PACKED with flavor.