20-Minute Egg Roll In A Bowl Recipe

One of our favorite parts about going out to eat at Chinese restaurants is getting an order of egg rolls. They only taste good straight out of the fryer when they're as crispy as they'll ever be, so we don't get to eat them as often as we'd like. They're always a little disappointing when we get take-out, as their once-crispy exterior turns lackluster and soggy. It's not like they're easy to make at home, either. They can be quite the production, between heating up the fryer oil and trying to stuff the perfect amount of filling into each wrapper.

So we turned to this 20-minute egg roll in a bowl recipe. It captures everything we love about egg roll filling: savory pork, crunchy cabbage, and a sauce that brings it all together. This stir-fry recipe is ready to eat in only 20 minutes — including the prep time! It's super easy to modify if you don't have all the ingredients on hand, and the result is a high-protein, low-carb meal. Of course, if you're not counting the carbs, don't be afraid to serve this dish over rice, noodles, or quinoa to make it more filling.

Our 20-minute egg roll in a bowl recipe couldn't be easier to make. It starts with ground pork, which is seasoned by cooking grated ginger, garlic, celery, and green onions in a little sesame oil. Shredded cabbage and carrots give the dish color and a little bit of crunch. We used green and red cabbage to create a visually appealing masterpiece, but you can stick to one if you want to make things simpler. Simplify things even more by picking up a bag of coleslaw mix instead. Finally, we make a simple sauce with soy sauce, oyster sauce, and chili paste.

The best part about this recipe is how easy it is to modify. Feel free to use ground beef, ground turkey, or even ground chicken instead of the pork. To make the dish vegetarian-friendly, use tofu or mushrooms. We also love adding extra vegetables to the dish to amp up the nutrition content. Any veggies that work well in stir-fry work well here, like broccoli, zucchini, baby corn, sugar snap peas, or a thawed bag of frozen vegetable mix.

This 20-minute egg roll in a bowl dish comes together very quickly once you start cooking, so it's important to have everything prepped and ready before you heat the skillet. The first thing we'll do is to prepare the garlic, ginger, celery, and green onions. If you have a microplane, you'll want to use it here to grate the ginger and garlic. This very fine grater will turn the garlic into a paste, and it will transform the fibrous ginger into tiny pieces. You can also use a knife, but you'll want to mince the garlic and ginger very finely to make sure their flavors make the maximum impact. You can substitute one teaspoon of ground ginger or garlic powder here, too, if you prefer.

For the celery and green onions, it's easiest to grab a sharp knife. Thinly slice the entire celery rib, but you'll only want the white and light green parts on the green onions. The dark green parts become a little slimy as they cook, so you can save those to use as a garnish on the finished dish. If you don't have any green onions on hand, use a small shallot or a quarter of a white or red onion instead.

There are a few different ways to prepare the cabbage and carrots for this 20-minute egg roll in a bowl. If you don't own any cooking gadgets, your best bet is a knife. Remove the outer leaves from the cabbage and cut it into four pieces. Place the wedges on their sides and cut out the hard core at the base. Then, slice the cabbage as thinly as you can. Cutting it on the vertical side will create long pieces, whereas the horizontal edge creates shorter shreds.

If all that slicing sounds like too much work, quarter and core the cabbages with your knife and use a mandoline to create very the thin shreds. The shredding attachment on a food processor will work well here, too. In the absence of a mandoline, you can use the large hole side of a box grater. It will produce very small pieces of cabbage, but they'll still taste great in the finished dish.

For the carrots, we recommend using the large holes on a box grater or a mandoline with a julienne attachment. You can also use a vegetable peeler and cut the peels by hand into thin pieces.

The sauce for our 20-minute egg roll in a bowl is incredibly delicious, especially considering that it only uses three ingredients. It's also easy to scale up or down if you're doubling the recipe: The ratio is one part oyster sauce, one part chili paste, and three parts soy sauce. Whisk the ingredients together in a small bowl and set the sauce aside until the pork has finished cooking.

Oyster sauce might not be a typical pantry ingredient, but it's really what makes this sauce stand out. Oyster sauce is a syrupy sauce made by combining caramelized oyster juices, soy sauce, salt, sugar, and cornstarch. It looks like American barbecue sauce, but its flavor is sweet, savory, and a little funky. If you can't find any at the grocery store, you can mix equal parts soy sauce and hoisin, a sweet sauce made from fermented soybean paste.

The chili paste is another key ingredient in this sauce. Our 20-minute egg roll in a bowl isn't designed to be spicy, so don't be afraid to add the paste to the sauce. The chili paste brand Sambal Oelek has just the right amount of spice to bring the other flavors together. Other brands may be spicier, so give them a taste before adding the paste to the sauce. Some hot sauces would work well as a substitute as well.

Now that everything is prepped and ready, we can begin building our 20-minute egg roll in a bowl. Grab a large skillet or wok and heat the sesame oil over medium-high heat. Add the grated ginger, garlic, chopped celery, and sliced green onions to the pan. They'll cook very quickly — in about one minute — so you'll want to stir frequently to keep them from burning.

When the mixture is very fragrant, add the ground pork and cook it until it's no longer pink, about three minutes. Use a spoon or spatula to break up any large chunks as the pork cooks. From there, add the shredded cabbage, carrots, and the prepared sauce. After about five minutes, the cabbage should be softened, and the sauce will be mostly absorbed. Make sure to stir from time to time to help the sauce evenly coat the other ingredients.

And that's it! This incredibly easy egg roll in a bowl recipe is ready to serve. Portion it into four bowls, and top each serving with cilantro and sesame seeds.

This 20-minute egg roll in a bowl tastes great by itself, so don't feel like you have to serve it with anything if you don't want to. It contains about eight grams of carbohydrates per serving, so eat it solo if you're following a low-carb diet. You'll get four servings serving it by itself, or you can get six servings if you want to serve it with low-carb sides like cauliflower rice or roasted vegetables (broccoli or Brussels sprouts pair really well here).

If you're not concerned about the carbs, you'll get six servings by spooning this egg roll in a bowl recipe over rice, noodles, or quinoa. You can also slice wonton wrappers into thin strips and pan-fry them in hot oil until they're crispy. Toss the crispy strips on top of the pork mixture before serving to make this dish really taste like a deconstructed egg roll.

The leftovers also taste great the next day if you happen to have any. Store them in an airtight container for three to four days and reheat them in the microwave or on the stovetop with a little sesame oil.