Don't have time to fold eggrolls or deep fry? The next best thing is stuffing it into a bowl and call it a good day.

eggroll in a bowl — No deep fryer required for this classic cabbage filled filling. Since there are no actual eggs in eggrolls, the recipe is easily adaptable to a vegan diet.

Whether you have this as a main dish or side dish, you can serve this bowl alongside black bean bell peppers, Chinese fried eggplant, or crunchy cucumber kimchi.

eggroll in a bowl with a red towel in the back — Serve as a main dish or a side dish. The trick is to make sure those vegetables are seasoned well with salt and soy sauce.

Creation story

It's not clear to me how this dish was invented. Either someone:

Intended to make eggrolls, got hungry, and decided to abandon the project after making the filling.
Didn't have any eggrolls wappers on hand and cleverly renamed a mound of vegetables as an eggroll in a bowl.

Either way, the key to this dish is to make sure it has enough salt and seasoning, just like an eggroll filling.

Eggrolls don't have eggs

Eggrolls don't have any eggs in them. The wrappers are primarily flour and water based, while the filling has no egg in it at all.

Some theories suggest that eggs were originally used to make the wrapper or that a thin egg omelette was used as a wrapper.

What is even more interesting is that eggroll are not from China but rather a Chinese American invention from two New York city chefs in the 1930s.

What makes this recipe different

No meat - typically you might see strips of pork or maybe some shrimp inside Chinese eggrolls
Plate vegetables separately - Instead of mixing the vegetables all together, we keep the cabbage separately, so this can be mixed table side.
2 types of mushrooms - We used a combination of sliced woodear mushrooms and beech mushrooms, but you can used whichever mushrooms you can find.

Time needed: 30 minutes

The Process

Chop vegetables
This might be the longest part of the process, however it goes much quicker if you buy pre-shredded carrots. (The brown strips pictured below are sliced fresh woodear mushrooms).
Heat oil and add cabbage
Saute cabbage with soy sauce and salt until soft, about 2-4 minutes. Remove from pan and set aside.
Repeat process with carrots. Stir fry for 2-3 minutes until they start to soften.
Add onion, ginger, and garlic to the pan. Stir fry for 30 seconds to a minute.
Add bean sprouts to the pan. Stir fry for 1-2 minutes until bean sprouts start to wilt.
Add woodear mushrooms to the pan.
Season vegetables with salt, soy sauce, and sugar. Adjust seasoning if needed. Remove from pan.
Cook additional mushrooms if using.
Follow the same process of adding oil and stir fry additional mushrooms until cooked through, from 2-4 minutes. In the pictures, we used beech mushrooms.
Plate the cabbage and mixed vegetables into a bowl.
Top with additional mushrooms, and serve hot. We used beech mushrooms and garnished with sesame seeds and green onion.

✂ Shortcut - If you prefer to just stir fry everything together all at once, feel free to do so. Stir frying separately allows each vegetable to get their own caramelization. It also doesn't require such a large pan from the outset, since the vegetables cook down quite a bit and release water. ✂

Additional Toppings

This would be extra eggroll yummy if you topped the bowl with any of the following:

sweet chili sauce
sriracha sauce
toasted sesame seeds
chopped green onion
wonton crisps (though not gluten free)

Helpful Tips

Don't forget to season at each step! That will make your veggies taste much better, rather than adding salt at the end.
Serve as a main course or a side dish.
If you would rather just mix and cook everything in a pot all together, that works too. It just may end up steaming with all the vegetables crowded together. Use a pot that is large enough, and drain any excess liquid that collects before serving.
If chopping is an issue, you can use a bag of precut coleslaw mix and carrots already cut into matchsticks.