I’m slightly ashamed to admit it, but it took me way too long to get into the whole “jalapeño” hype. I was one a naïve little fool who believed jalapeños would be too spicy for me to handle, so I adamantly avoided them and every jalapeño dish I was ever confronted with.
Jalapeños on my Chipotle burrito bowl? Pass. Bacon-wrapped jalapeños? No thank you.
But thankfully that all changed the day I decided to give one appetizer, jalapeño poppers, a try. Now my love for jalapeño foods truly knows no bounds.
If you don’t know what jalapeño poppers are, I’m honest surprised you’ve gotten this far in life.
Let me break it down for you super quickly. You take a jalapeño, scrape out the innards, fill it with cheese, and then basically do with it what you please. Some people batter them and fry them, some people wrap them in bacon and bake them, and some people set them on the barbecue to give them a glorious char.
Whatever way you make them, you can bet your getting a delicious treat. The cheese perfectly blends with the spice of the jalapeño and dilutes it just enough that you still get a little spice kick, but nothing you can’t handle.
The great thing about our society is that we’re always coming up with new ways to reinvent food.
Any dish can have new life breathed into it with the right creative mind at the helm. We’ve seen this in food substitutes, like turning jackfruit into vegetarian pulled pork (see: above photo), or spaghetti squash into pasta, or almonds into milk.
But this can also be done with just a slight variation done to the way in which something is made, like using hashbrowns instead of bread to make the perfect grilled cheese sandwich, or putting taco filling inside a cheese shell instead of a tortilla.
Now prepare yourself for the best variation of jalapeño poppers possible.
This recipe from Delish substitutes the traditional batter-and-deep-fry method for something you may not have thought to use before: egg roll wrappers.
Now, instead of having to go through the process of battering up your popper or forgoing any sort of coating at all, you simply stick all the ingredients inside a single egg roll wrapper, roll it up tight, and fry it. Easy and delicious.
Set out a plate of these are your next party and you’ll get to watch them disappear in seconds — the perfect compliment for any host.
You can also use egg roll wrappers for a number of other delicious recipes.
Do you love mozzarella sticks? Of course you do. Who doesn’t? Next time you go to make some, skip the breading and try rolling your cheese up in an egg roll wrapper instead. Same goes for taquitos, pizza rolls, mini lasagna cups, bacon and egg roll-ups — the possibilities are truly endless.
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You can even use your egg roll wrappers for sweet foods, too.
They’re perfect for desserts, like making mini apple pie tarts or fried pie filling-stuffed rolls. Honestly, I’d go so far as to say these wrappers are one of the most versatile foods going. If you need something fried or baked, these are your guys.
They stay nice and tightly wrapped (as long as you don’t get too eager and overfill them), and they give areal satisfying crunch when you bite into them. It’s a win-win!