There's a lot rolled up into these little egg roll sheets, from a longstanding Carolina barbecue sauce tradition, to a blossoming vegan dietary staple (that's been incorporated for years in Indian and Asian cultures), to a fun fusion of cuisines. You may recall I've been really into putting Southern staples into egg rolls lately, with my pimento mac and cheese egg rolls, and the unblogged about mashed potato egg rolls with a brown gravy dipping sauce (shown below, and spoiler alert, they were a little too bland to share with ya'll). But these jackfruit barbecue egg rolls are something I've been sitting on for a while, and finally I had all the ingredients and the time to get them together to share.
I've done jackfruit barbecue before, but I've learned a lot since then. Jackfruit has also undergone a PR renaissance itself. I used to only find it in the Asian supermarkets but it's at Trader Joe's now, cementing itself as mainstream. Which is a good thing, because now more people can find it easily and see what it's all about. Whole jackfruits are also available at The Fresh Market but cutting a fresh jackfruit looks annoying because they are pretty big. Hooray for canned jackfruit!
Look for jackfruit in water or brine, NOT SYRUP. The spices used below work well for any type of barbecue sauce. I used it the other week for a pepper vinegar sauce, my other favorite kind. I haven't tried it yet but it should work fine for a tomato based sauce too if that's your persuasion. But today we're focusing on Carolina gold, the Midlands tradition, rooted in a very mustard-based German heritage.
South Carolina Jackfruit Barbecue Egg Rolls
Ingredients
- 1 20 oz. can jackfruit in water or brine
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tbsp brown sugar
- 1 tsp paprika
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- ½ tsp chili powder
- ½ tsp salt (smoked if you have it)
- ½ tsp black pepper
- ¾ cup mustard based barbecue sauce divided
- 1 cup broccoli slaw or other coleslaw mix of choice)
- 11 egg roll wrappers
- ¼ cup water
- 1 cup peanut oil for frying
Instructions
- Drain the brine off of the jackfruit. Use your hands to separate the rind from the fruit. Set the shredded parts in a bowl, and the rinds and oval seeds somewhere else to discard.
- Mix the brown sugar, paprika, garlic powder, salt, and pepper together. Dump these spices into the jackfruit and use a fork to mix well. Use the fork the separate the fruit strands more if needed.
- Heat up a large pan with the 1 tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat. Once the oil is shimmering, add the spiced jackfruit. Stir around in the pan, and let cook for 2-3 minutes, flipping a few times to ensure even cooking.
- Turn the heat to low, and stir in ½ cup of your mustard based barbecue sauce. Mix well and let cook for 20 minutes. Stir frequently to prevent sticking. Add water a teaspoonful at a time if needed to keep the fruit and sauce from drying out, but if this is happening your heat is too high. Keep it on low.
- Meanwhile, set up your egg rolling station. Put the slaw in an easily accessible bowl and put the ¼ cup water and the slaw out in front of you, the egg roll wrappers to your left, and a clean plate to your right. Put a clean cutting board in the middle of everything, closest to you.
- Once the barbecue is done, set it to the left of the egg roll wrappers. Put an egg roll wrapper on the cutting board, at an angle. The Nasoya egg roll wrappers come with great instructions, so I am skipping the detailed how to roll part here. Add a forkful of barbecue to the center of the wrapper, and then about a tablespoon and a half of slaw on top of that. Tuck and roll the wrapper starting with the bottom, then each side. Use a finger to swipe a bit of water across the top and roll up til its sealed. Set aside on the clean plate.
- Repeat until you run out of filling. I got 11 egg rolls out of this.
- Once the rolls are all assembled, get a smaller frying pan out and fill with the 1 cup of peanut oil. Depending on your pan size you may not need all of the oil, but the bottom of the pan should be generously covered.
- Heat over medium high heat, and when the oil is shimmering, use tongs to set an egg roll in the oil. Lightly swish the egg roll in the oil before releasing to keep the bottom from sticking. Repeat twice more, putting no more than 3 rolls in at a time. Each roll only needs 20-30 seconds per side so don't walk away.
- Use the tongs to turn the egg rolls once each side is a light golden brown. As the oil gets hotter, it takes less time, be vigilant. Burning occurs quickly.
- Set the fried rolls on a plate with a paper towel to sop up excess oil.
- Put the additional ¼ cup of barbecue sauce in a ramekin for dipping and eat the egg rolls while hot.
This is ridiculous, but I threw my back out while making these. I was putting the first two in the pan and a tightness just seized across my mid-back muscles. Since I was frying I had to keep going so I did with very limited movements but omg. I had never thrown my back out before and always wondered what it felt like. It was not fun. I have a small range of motion available to me now but am still working on loosening up. Getting older is no joke ya'll. At least I have my favorite Instagram husband who helped me carry on this photo shoot while I was grunting in pain taking the photos. Who knew cooking was so dangerous?!
ps: Follow me on Instagram for recipe stories, as I am going to do more of that since all of the other kids are. This was my first attempt at doing stories for recipes, and it even included video and music!