3 Fillings for Eggrolls or Wontons

Sue and I had a few packages of egg roll wrapper and wonton wrappers to use up and decided to try out some not-so-traditional eggroll snacks and wonton snacks.

We made Chicken Cordon Bleu, Spicy Mexican, and Corned Beef and Cabbage. We both agreed (I know, weird!) that the Corned Beef and Cabbage filling was our favorite. What’s funny about that is Sue almost destroyed the filling while she was making it. We were at my house for the preparation of these and she isn’t used to how I have my spice containers. (I remove the little plastic lid with the holes in it that you can use for sprinkling spices because I find it annoying.) So she grabbed the black pepper to sprinkle into the filling and *boom* about ½ cup of pepper shot into the mixture. We managed to scoop out most of it…and then we doubled the other ingredients in the hopes of thinning the pepper even more….but we were still worried it would be waaaay too peppery to eat.

Nope.

Turns out the extra pepper made it extra tasty. (No, I am not recommending you try it this way. I’m just saying we managed to avert disaster.)

Anyway, if you are looking for some great after school snack ideas then these might be just what you are looking for. You can freeze them and reheat them in the microwave or, if you want them to stay a bit crunchier, in the toaster oven. Of course, you can deep fry these if you want to but we have found that spraying them with a bit of cooking spray and baking them at the high temperature yields just as crunchy and tasty results as deep frying without all that extra added fat. Plus, deep frying freaks me out. I don’t like the thought of that superheated oil catching on fire or spilling or…well… it just makes me nervous!

Chicken Cordon Bleu EGGROLLS

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups cooked chicken, diced very small

4 ounces black forest ham, sliced deli thin and then chopped into 1/4" pieces

1/2 cup Swiss cheese, shredded

egg roll wrappers

1 egg, beaten

Directions

Preheat oven to 400. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a medium size bowl, combine the chicken, ham and cheese pieces and stir to mix thoroughly.

Separate the spring roll wrappers and set aside. Beat the egg in a small bowl and set aside as well.

To assemble egg rolls, lay one egg roll wrapper with the corner pointed toward you. Brush a bit of beaten egg around the edges of the wrapper. Place about 1/3 cup of the chicken mixture on egg roll wrapper.

Fold corner up over the mixture. Fold left and right corners toward the center and continue to roll. Dip a finger in the beaten egg and seal the edge with egg. Set onto prepared baking sheet. Repeat until all of the eggrolls have been made. Lightly spray tops of eggrolls with cooking spray.

Bake at 400 until golden brown, about 10 - 15 minutes. (We like to wait until one side is brown and then gently flip them over to brown the other side as well.)

Spicy Mexican Wontons

Ingredients

2 tsp oil

½ lb ground beef (lean)
3/4 cup cheese, shredded (either Tex Mex or Jalepeno blend)

2 Tbsp chopped green chillies (We used canned)

1 tsp chili powder

1 tsp cumin

Wonton wrappers

Directions

Preheat oven to 400. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Heat oil in a small skillet over medium-high heat. Add beef and cook until meat is browned, breaking up meat as it cooks, about 5 minutes; drain meat. Add cheese, chilies, chili powder and cumin; cook until cheese melts, stirring frequently, about 1 minute.

Place wonton wrappers on a flat surface; drop meat mixture by teaspoonfuls onto center of each wrapper. Moisten edges of wrapper with wet fingers, fold over to cover filling, press down firmly to seal.

Transfer filled wrappers to prepared baking sheet and lightly spray with cooking spray.

ALTERNATIVELY – you can press 2 wonton wrappers together into a muffin tin (sprayed with cooking spray) and fill the wrapper with filling and then bake like this for a little “taco” cup.

Bake at 400 until golden brown, about 10 - 15 minutes. (We like to wait until one side is brown and then gently flip them over to brown the other side as well.)

Corned Beef and Cabbage Rolls

Ingredients

2 cups coleslaw

1 Tbsp water

1/2 cup thinly sliced onion

1 cup corned beef, finely diced

Salt & pepper to taste

1 cup diced cooked potato

1 cup Monterey Jack cheese, divided

egg roll wrappers

1 egg beaten

 Directions

In a medium skillet over medium heat, saute coleslaw, water and onions until tender. Add the chopped corned beef, salt & pepper, and saute 1-2 minutes.

Transfer to a large bowl and let cool about 10 minutes. Mix in cooked potatoes and cheese.

To assemble egg rolls, lay one egg roll wrapper with the corner pointed toward you. Brush a bit of beaten egg around the edges of the wrapper. Place about 1/3 cup of the cabbage mixture on egg roll wrapper. Fold corner up over the mixture. Fold left and right corners toward the center and continue to roll.

Dip a finger in the beaten egg and seal the edge with egg. Set onto prepared baking sheet. Repeat until all of the eggrolls have been made. Lightly spray tops of eggrolls with cooking spray.

Bake at 400 until golden brown, about 10 - 15 minutes. (We like to wait until one side is brown and then gently flip them over to brown the other side as well.)

 Now I have to print a disclaimer here – the measurements are estimated in the above recipes. Sue and I just kind of threw things in there (especially trying to save the Corned Beef and Cabbage mix). You can pretty much put whatever filling that you want into a wrapper, just remember that you do NOT want to over fill it. If it is too full your wrapper will split and the filling will come out.

And, as for how many egg rolls/wontons we ended up with....hmmmmm…….we had a lot to use up and we made all three recipes at once so I really couldn’t tell you how many we got out of each recipe. I would say about 2 packs of egg roll wrappers and 1 pack of wonton wrappers were used.