Vegan Lasagna Egg Rolls
As you may know, I don’t like to waste food. I try to use every bit of leftovers somehow. You may also know that I will put anything into an egg roll wrapper. It was only a matter of time before I did this and here it is! It is just as delicious as I thought it would be but the real star of the show was the marinara I whipped up for dipping them into.
I was planning on posting the lasagna recipe first but I did over cook it and although It still tasted good, the pictures told the truth of how dry it actually was. I made these egg rolls and they were so good I wanted to post them now before I even make a new lasagna.
You may notice that I have already made several lasagna recipes, but this one is as whole foods as I can make it. There is no vegan cheese, instead there is a bechamel sauce in place of vegan cheese shreds. Sometime in the future I will post my ultimate lasagna recipe that will have all of the most convincing vegan meat and cheese substitutes and I will share my marinara recipe in that blog post.
What I would really love for you to take away from this blog post is that you can experiment with egg roll wrappers. Any leftovers can be used. If you have leftover fried rice and general Tso’s tofu you could chop up the tofu pieces and broccoli pieces, mix them up in the fried rice and wrap that mixture in egg roll wrappers. What about lo mein or Thanksgiving dinner? How about apple pie filling or some other pie filling? Let you imagination go wild.
For this recipe you will need the following ingredients:
Vegan friendly egg roll wrappers [I find them in the produce section of grocery stores by the tofu]
leftover lasagna
cooking oil
garlic powder
nutritional yeast [optional]
2 teaspoons of cornstarch and enough water to add to the cornstarch to make a slurry
For the quick marinara you will need:
1 15oz can of san marzano tomatoes [you can use any tomatoes but if you do you will have to taste it for salt and sugar and add those things in to adjust the taste]
1 tablespoon of garlic powder [more or less depending on how you feel about garlic]
2 teaspoons of onion powder
1 tablespoon of dried basil
empty the can of tomatoes into a blender or food processor. bled them up until you get the consistency you like. Dump the tomato sauce you just made into a pot and add the seasonings. Bring the sauce up to a lively simmer on medium heat. Let it cook for about 3 minutes. Stir very often to prevent sticking and burning. Set this aside for use as a dipping sauce.
Assemble and fry the egg rolls
Chop up the leftover lasagna so it’s easier to roll it up in the egg roll wrapper. Put the cornstarch in a small bowl and add about a teaspoon of water to it. stir it up until the cornstarch melts. You don’t want a mixture that is the onsistancy of paste, you want it to be a little more runny like the consistency of heavy cream. That being said, Any consistency will work so don’t stress about that.
Place an egg roll wrapper on the table, counter, cutting board or plate. Position the wrapper so it looks like a sort of diamond shape not a square or rectangle. Place about 1/4 cup of lasagna on to the wrapper about in the middle where the wrapper is widest. Bring in the two points of each side, left and right so the points meet in the middle. If they don’t exactly meet that’s ok. Bring the point closest to you up and over the lasagna. You are trying to get it to cover both the lasagna and the two sides you brought together. Gently tuck it by pulling what you have wrapped so far a little more snug and toward you. Wet the remaining untucked corner with the cornstarch slurry and roll it the rest of the way up. Be gentle but give it a little squeeze and check for spots that are ripped or just didn’t get covered. You can use the cornstarch slurry to reseal bits. If it’s really bad you can wrap what you have there up in another wrapper positioned to cover up the broken part. It will still fry up just fine.
You could deep fry these egg rolls or cook them in an air fryer. I chose to shallow fry them. In a pot put enough cooking oil to be about 1 1/2 to 2 inches deep. I cooked these on a medium high heat. You want the oil to be about 350 to 365 degrees. An oil thermometer is best to be sure you are at the right temperature but if you don’t have one just be aware of how hot your oil is by dropping a bread crumb in. watch what happens. Does it sink to the bottom or barely sizzle? That means your oil is too cold. Does it spatter and go crazy and burn within a 5 seconds? Your oil is too hot. You want the bread crumb to sizzle in a lively manner but also take 5 seconds to turn a golden brown. The egg rolls will take much longer than 5 seconds.
Place the egg rolls in the heated oil and let them cook there until the side is golden brown. You will be able to see it from the side. This should take a couple of minutes. Use tongs to flip them over and cook the other side. Once they are done put them on a tray and sprinkle them with nutritional yeast and garlic powder if you wish.
Let them cool and serve them with the marinara sauce on the side.
Enjoy!
#Lasagne