My family has been making Egg Rolls for quite a while. They've always been a fan favorite. And honestly, I think it's all about the sausage. If you aren't using a good sausage than your egg rolls just aren't going to turn out. Today I made just a couple of simple swaps to make this meal less inflammatory and more nutritious!
Original Recipe:
20 egg roll wrappers
1 lb jimmy dean sausage
32 oz cole slaw mix
3 tbls sesame oil
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp garlic
pan spray
When I broke down the recipe and really thought about what swaps I could make, it was super simple and honestly, the flavor was just as good, if not better! So here's what I ended up making:
Nutrivation Egg Rolls
16 spring roll wrappers
1 lb homemade breakfast sausage (or I would have chosen one like Applegate or another organic brand)
16 oz cole slaw mix
16 oz broccoli slaw mix (for added vitamins and minerals)
3 tablespoons avocado oil
1/4 cup coconut aminos
1 tsp ginger (dried)
1 tsp garlic (dried)
1/2 tsp salt
Have you ever made breakfast sausage? If you haven't you should! Most sausages are full of inflammatory ingredients like high fructose corn syrup, sugars, natural flavors, and some even have caramel flavoring (which is very similar to a food dye). I typically just add some sage, thyme, coriander, salt, red pepper flakes, and a couple tsp of pure organic maple syrup! Lately I've been using my game meat to make it, but you could easily use ground beef or pork.
The spring roll wrappers I used had 4 ingredients, rice flour, tapioca flour, water, and salt. When buying packaged foods I try to buy foods that have less than 5 ingredients. If it has more than 5 they're typically fillers or toxic additives. We have always cooked with your traditional egg roll wrappers, but as soon as I looked at the ingredients I couldn't do it anymore. Those egg roll wrappers had "enriched wheat flour (wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine, mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), water, salt, potato starch, citric acid. Dusted with corn starch." Another rule of thumb...if you don't know what the ingredient is without looking it up, then it's most likely harmful to your gut/microbiome.
Broccoli slaw is a great way to get even more fiber and more vitamins. Typically our cole slaw mixes are from your pale green cabbage. It's great, but we can always do better. So that is why I added a package of broccoli slaw to the mix. And no one will even know you p
ut it in there!
Soy is a GMO crop, which means it's sprayed with glyphosate and carries harmful chemicals on it that will hurt our guts. A super easy swap for this would be either an organic soy sauce OR coconut aminos!
Seed oils are highly inflammatory. Our bodies can't digest them so they eventually leak through our guts and seep into the blood stream causing inflammation all over the body, including the brain. If you are struggling with your mental health, I highly recommend cutting out all inflammatory oils to reduce any inflammation you might have in your brain! For tonight's dinner, I swapped sesame oil with avocado oil. My meal already has enough flavor, I didn't feel like I needed to add inflammatory oils to it to make it taste better. Avocado oil is a great oil to use for all sorts of cooking!
To make this meal, I simply browned the sausage in a large pot. Once it was cooked thoroughly I added the remainder of the ingredients (minus the wrappers). I covered the pot and allowed the veggies to cook down until they were nice and soft (about 10 minutes). Once I was done, I followed the instructions to the spring roll wrappers and prepped them accordingly. I then added about 1/3-1/2 cup of sausage and vegetable mix to the middle of each wrapper and rolled it up burrito style.
I did try to deep fry a few in avocado oil but that just wasn't working out for me. So we opted to just eat the egg rolls as is and it was delicious! W
e served them with a side of fruit for a complete meal!
Note: if you choose to use a dipping sauce, I recommend picking out an Organic Sweet and Sour sauce or Organic Sweet Thai Chili sauce. Either one of them will contain sugar, just be mindful of how much sugar is in a serving and try to keep it minimal.
I hope these tips helped you see the importance of swapping out ingredients for foods that will serve our bodies more than harm them.
Enjoy!
Danielle
Comments