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These crispy air fryer egg rolls are a delicious appetizer or snack! Baked, not fried, this easy egg roll recipe is simple to make and cooks in only 9 minutes.
Everybody loves egg rolls! Making your own at home in the air fryer is simple, fast, and so freaking easy.
If you’re looking for other tasty appetizers, check out our air fryer potstickers and jalapeño poppers wontons.
How Do You Wrap an Egg Roll?
I’m so glad you asked! I came up with this handy little step-by-step photo guide for you.
- Set up a “wrapping” station with your cooked filling, a plate, a small dish of water, and a pastry brush.
- Place the wrapper on a plate or cutting board. You’ll want it shaped like a diamond, with the bottom pointing at you. Place 2 tbsp of filling in the bottom third of the wrapper.
- Roll up the bottom point of the diamond so that it goes up and over the filling, but only goes to the center of the wrapper.
- Fold in the left side of the wrapper to cover the center.
- Fold in the right side of the wrapper to cover the left fold. It will look like you’re making a delicious envelope at this point! But don’t mail it. 🙂
- Starting from the bottom, roll the egg roll up until just the top point of the wrapper is still exposed.
- Brush some water on the top point of the egg roll, and fold down. You may need to brush a bit more water over the edges to “seal” the egg roll closed.
- Repeat until you have 4-5 egg rolls made.
Protein Options For Egg Rolls in the Air Fryer
If you’d like to add any meat to this recipe, it must be cooked before being placed in the egg roll wrapper.
Some protein ideas: crumbled or crispy air fryer tofu, air fryer frozen shrimp, cooked ground pork, chicken, or beef.
Pro Tips/Recipe Notes
- As written, the recipe will make six egg rolls (two egg rolls per serving). If you need to make more or less, the recipe card has the option to adjust the number of servings.
- You can pre-roll the egg rolls and store them in the fridge for up to 12 hours. Place a lightly damp rag over them and then place them in an air-tight container in the fridge.
- In most grocery stores, you’ll find egg roll wrappers in the produce section near bottled salad dressings and sauces.
Crispy Homemade Air Fryer Egg Rolls
Air fryer egg rolls are an absolutely delicious appetizer or snack! Baked, not fried, this easy egg roll recipe is simple to make and cooks in only 9 minutes.
Equipment
Ingredients
- 6 egg roll wrappers
- 3 cups cabbage shredded
- 1/4 cup shredded carrot {if not using coleslaw mix}
- 1.5 tsp toasted sesame oil
- 2 tsp ginger, grated {or ~1/2 tsp dried}
- 1 clove garlic {minced}
- 1 tsp reduced sodium soy sauce
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
- 2 green onions sliced
- 1 tsp olive oil
Instructions
Air Fryer Instructions
- Preheat a frying pan for a few minutes over medium heat.
- Add the sesame oil, ginger, garlic, cabbage, and shredded carrot. Cook down for 2-3 minutes or until the cabbage has wilted.3 cups cabbage, 1.5 tsp toasted sesame oil, 2 tsp ginger, grated, 1 clove garlic, 1/4 cup shredded carrot
- Add the green onions, soy sauce, and black pepper. Stir and remove from heat.1 tsp reduced sodium soy sauce, 2 green onions, 1/4 tsp black pepper
- Assemble your egg rolls (see the detailed instructions in the post).6 egg roll wrappers
- Brush olive oil over the top of the egg rolls. Alternatively, you could use a Misto to spray olive oil, but I found that caused the egg roll wrappers to bubble up more when they were cooking.1 tsp olive oil
- Brush olive oil on the basket of your air fryer. Place the egg rolls in the basket, seam side down, without letting them touch each other.
- Bake at 360˚F for 7 minutes. Flip and bake for an additional 2 minutes.
Notes
- To freeze: place uncooked egg rolls on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, and freeze. Then transfer to a freezer-proof bag or container. Do not thaw before cooking. You will need to add 1-3 minutes to the cooking time. Cook at the same temperature as thawed egg rolls.
- If you want to add meat to the egg rolls, you’ll need to cook it before placing it in the wrapper.
Stovetop Instructions
- Heat a cast iron skillet over medium heat for about 5 minutes. Then add enough avocado oil to cover the bottom of the skillet. Place the egg roll “seam side” down in the oil.
- Cook it until that side is crispy and brown, and then flip. When finished cooking, place them on a plate lined with newspaper or paper towels to absorb the extra oil.
- Place a baking rack on a foil-lined baking sheet. Liberally spray the rack with olive oil.
- Put the egg rolls seam-side down on the baking rack and brush olive oil over the top.
- Bake at 325˚F for 12 minutes, and flip. Bake for an additional 8-12 minutes or until the egg rolls are nice and crispy without being burned.
Nutrition
Serving: 1egg rollCalories: 78kcalCarbohydrates: 7gProtein: 1gFat: 6gSaturated Fat: 1gSodium: 62mgPotassium: 182mgFiber: 3gSugar: 3gVitamin A: 205IUVitamin C: 34.3mgCalcium: 44mgIron: 0.6mg
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Tried this recipe?Mention @sustainablecooks or tag #sustainablecooks!
So good and so easy to make!!
Glad they were a hit Audrey! 🙂
How would you reheat the egg rolls after they have been cooked ??
I have reheated them in the air fryer for a few minutes, and in the microwave. Microwave they’re not super crispy but still delicious.
I love the recipe, but had a problem with them sticking to the air fryer basket even after brushing with olive oil. Any suggestions?
Hi Michelle, I have not experienced that before. By any chance, did you use a lot of water to seal the seam when rolling them? I wonder if some excess water is “steaming” that section to the fryer basket instead of allowing it to be non-stick.
great recipe! A winner at my house this morning.
1) so glad you like them
2) thanks for leaving a review and rating
3) I love anyone that eats egg rolls for breakfast! People laugh at me for eating soup at breakfast. Pfft, they just don’t get it!
Added a lil ground pork. Deeeeelish!
That sounds great Marti! Glad you enjoyed it!
Made this with ground chicken and just kind of “winged it” on the rest of the ingredients suggested. BOMB DOT COM!!!! Thanks for your funny commentary and simple, but DELICIOUS, recipe!
That sounds so good Nikki! Did you season the chicken at all?
So glad you liked it and enjoyed the recipe. 🙂
No seasoning on the ground chicken. It took on flavors from the sesame oil, soy sauce, ginger, salt, & pepper. Thanks again for sharing this recipe! It was a great foundation for us to get creative.
Awesome, thanks so much for letting me know! 🙂
I made these w 93% fat free ground turkey. I browned the turkey first with 1 tbs each: water, sage and thyme. It tasted just like pork! Thank you for the idea and recipe. So good!
I love the tweaks you gave to the recipe! So glad you enjoyed them. 🙂
No propane for oven can veggies b cooked in microwave?
I think that would be fine Margaret!
Hi Sarah!
I came across your blog. Great work! Interesting content and nice pictures. I was actually looking for an egg roll recipe. I bought the dough a while ago and never made any rolls. Thanks for the idea!
I am a food blogger from Canada, and I invite you to visit/follow my blog at: https://zest4foodblog.wordpress.com
Cheers, Angelika
Happy cooking Angelika!
We finally had a chance to try this today and we weren’t disappointed! We used a bag of coleslaw mix (shredded carrot +cabbage = shortcut. ????) We made 9 rolls and had to oven them. Shortly after they came out of the oven there were 4 left. We will be trying them again and my husband wants to try adding chicken or pork!
Girl, the coleslaw bag is a lifesaver! I use it all the time and never apologize for it.
So glad you liked them and I think adding meat next will be delicious!
Yum! Thanks so much for this recipe. It has been ages since I have had a good egg roll. I served these for dinner last night with a side of broccoli and baked tofu. My family loved them. I plan to get some more cabbage today and prep a batch for the freezer with the leftover wrappers.
So glad you liked them Emily!
When you bake your tofu do you marinate it beforehand or season it after?
I usually marinate the tofu pull out the chunks to bake or air fry them and then once they are baked toss them back in the marinade (often thickened a bit) before serving.
I LOVE air frying tofu!! Have you ever tried dusting them in cornstarch before frying?
Ok so I’m probably the only dumb one, but maybe you could add “egg roll wrappers” to the ingredient list because I put what I didn’t have on my grocery list…and then totally forgot to buy the wrappers since they weren’t on the ingredient list!
(face palm)
Oh crap Jenny, that is totally on me! I’m so sorry and have updated the recipe card accordingly.
No problem! We made them tonight and they were delish!
So glad they worked out and you liked them!
Hey girlie 🙂
Thank you, thank you and thank you for having “Jump to Recipe” as an option! A friend recently posted about her frustration with blogs that have such loooong narratives with their recipes. As you know, I tell EVERYONE about your blog and this is just one more reason to follow you!
Ps. I think we are overdue for a Skype visit!
You bet! I use those jump to recipe buttons all the time myself, so I want to have them for my readers.
Fun fact for your friend: most bloggers don’t want to write a long narrative. Do you know how easy it is to just write the recipe, hit publish, and walk away? That’s the dream! But, Google won’t rank your recipe or blog if you write under 300 words on a post.
So, some bloggers use that space as filler to tell stories (which is what I used to do). Many bloggers, including myself now, use that space to make the posts more educational (“how to”, “tips and tricks”, etc.) and helpful to readers. My old way of posting took about 45 minutes. The new way? 8-12 hours per post because it involves research, taking process photos, and reaching out to companies for more info.
This egg roll post is an update to one I published 7 years ago. At the time it was 269 words. Now? 1243 because it answers all the questions readers might have. The mantra of “give the readers enough info to make it perfectly the first time and every time” has been drilled into my head.
We would all LOVE to go back to the old way because it’s so much easier. But you can’t be successful by using the old way. So…we offer a jump to recipe. 🙂
So easy. I made them a little less lazy by doing a quick sauté on my coleslaw mix with some soy sauce and ginger.
Look at you being all fancy. 🙂
Wow! I so wish I would have thought about using the coleslaw mix. My daughter is a Filipina and we frequently make lumpia. We absolutely love Mae Ploy sweet chilli sauce! It can be used on so many things. We use it in the morning with our garlic fried rice and eggs! Thanks for saving me so much time!
I totally made a whole, big bunch of these last weekend, and froze them up. I got super un-lazy (strange for me…) and cooked the cabbage mix (for like five minutes) in sesame oil with some ground ginger and soy sauce. OMG. NOM.
My husband and I are totally rocking out on the sweet chili sauce from Trader Joe’s. Pretty tasty.
So good right? We love TJ’s sauce too! TJ’s is a bit of a haul for us, so if we need to buy locally, we get the one purchased above. Both are so tasty!
Do they turn out similar if baked?
Thanks for the recipe and the good laugh.
That is exactly how we make Lumpia (Filipino egg rolls). We just add whatever meat is available. Right now, we’re trying to find a gluten-free version and the hard, need-to-be-soaked-and-take-forever-and-break-and-piss-you-off, rice spring roll wrappers are awful for lazy, clumsy cooks like me.
Mae Ploy and Sriacha are life savers!
Mmmmmm I love lumpia 🙂
THAT sauce is the best. I used to have it in college, and I’d eat it with fries and wraps and pretty much anything you’d use ketchup with. After graduating, I spent months looking for this particular brand, as I could not recall it. I was so happy when I found it. I still carry the large bottle with me! I think I’d try them with Miranda’s suggestion and put some sausage crumbles. That sounds awesome. Thanks!
YUM! I spent the better part of last week trying to find a low carb gluten free egg roll wrapper recipe. Yeah, no. Did not happen. Found a low carb one though. I just haven’t.. because I’m too lazy to get out the deep fryer. It didn’t even occur to me to pull out of the cast iron pans and fry them up that way. Which is funny, because I “deep fry” things that way far more frequently than actually deep frying anything.
I do like my porky egg rolls though, so I’ll likely pull out a baggie of precooked sausage crumbles to add into the cabbage. (Laziness around here means getting motivated enough on grocery day to precook pretty much every meat… purely to avoid doing so when I actually have to cook a meal.)
Miranda, could you share the low carb egg roll wrapper recipe that you used? One store bought wrapper is 13 net carbs and I am DYING for a crispy air fryer egg roll Ü THANKS!