Vegetarian baked egg rolls

Food photographer I am not, but this is the final product!

I cannot think of a better way to introduce you to my cooking style than this meal. I am all things vegetable all the time. My husband and I are not vegetarians, but we often eat vegetarian and vegan meals because I cannot seem to get enough of all the wonderful vegetables out there!

Last night, I made baked egg rolls with steamed sugar snaps peas. I went for convenience and bought pre-shredded vegetables. The end result was fantastic!

You'll need:
6 egg roll wrappers
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
cayenne pepper flakes
Half of a 12 ounce package of shredded broccoli, red cabbage, and carrots
2 green onions, chopped
1/2 cup kale, chopped
1 tablespoon soy sauce
water (for fingers)

How I did it:

Preheat the oven to 425 F.

In a nonstick skillet on low, medium heat, warm 1/2 tablespoon olive oil for about 2 minutes. Add your garlic and cayenne pepper, and stir until it becomes fragrant. Dump in the shredded vegetables and green onions. When these vegetables start to become soft after about 5-7 minutes, add the kale and soy sauce and continue cooking for 2-3 minutes more. Remove from the heat and let the vegetable mixture cool for about 5 minutes.

Get out a nonstick baking pan like a pizza pan or cookie sheet. Make sure your countertop is clean because this is where you do the rolling. Pour some water in a small cup and place it at your work station. Get out a spoon or if you want to be very precise a 1/4 cup measure. Now you are ready to begin.

Assembly line fashion is the easiest way to do this. Lay out the 6 egg roll wrappers individually so they make diamonds with the points toward yourself. Begin placing about 1/4 cup of the vegetable mixture in the center of each one. You might have to adjust this amount depending on how far you cooked your vegetables down.

Wet a couple of fingers and moisten the top 2 edges of the diamond. Take the bottom point and bring it up over the vegetables. Gently tuck it under them and roll up (away from yourself) about halfway up the wrapper. It should now look kind of like a triangle with a vegetable packet at the base of your triangle. Fold the two side points up on top of the vegetable packet. It the points don't want to stay there, moisten them with a little more water. Continue rolling the vegetable packet up to the top point and you did it! Place your egg roll on the nonstick baking pan, seam side down.

When all of your egg rolls are wrapped and on the tray. Brush a small amount of olive oil over each one. I was able to use 1 tablespoon of olive oil for all six. Place the pan in the oven. Bake for 6 minutes and then rotate the pan 180 degrees. Bake for another 6-8 minutes until they are golden brown.

Nutritional benefits: Each egg roll has about 106 calories and 3 grams protein. The egg roll wrapper provides B vitamins and the vegetable mixture inside provides vitamins A, C, and K. Olive oil also provides you with some vitamin E. Of course your nutritional breakdown will depend on what brand of wrappers and soy sauce you buy. I used regular soy sauce and wrappers that were 57 calories a piece.

Nutritional pitfalls: Each egg roll has 14% daily value sodium and 22 grams carbohydrates (so if you are carbohydrate counting these will add up quickly).

My favorite part about this meal was how easy it was to prepare because of the pre-shredded vegetables. I also like that I was able to get in 14 grams of protein (with the snap peas) and 8 grams of fiber at this meal. My whole meal was less than 400 calories. In the future, I will certainly try to find some ways to lower the overall sodium content (especially since I dipped my egg rolls in additional soy sauce). Things you could try would be using a low sodium soy sauce, extra cayenne pepper, fresh ginger, and a little lime juice.

I hope you enjoy!
--Kit