Sloppy joe egg rolls are fun to make at home for dinner!! Kids love them and they are a perfect football party appetizer. With a homemade sauce and 4 ingredients, these are wrapped in an egg roll wrapper for a new favorite meal.
So I made our sloppy joes recipe for my family the other day. I thought I should try the ground beef filling served in a whole new (fun) way and they were a huge hit! Now we’re here to share how to make them with you. (affiliate links present)
How fun right??!! Of course the kids got a kick out of them and anything finger foods is a big winner with 3 kids at home…but my husband and I liked them too. You’re first going to make the filling with ketchup, mustard and brown sugar or our not so sloppy joe sauce.
We are going to omit the bun this time and instead use our homemade egg roll wrappers instead. We love anything out of the norm. It is really quite simple to make (nothing I make is complicated), let me share how to make these with you.
Ingredient Notes
Egg roll wrappers is what we used instead of buns, you can buy them at the store or make your own (linked above). Ground beef or sausage should be precooked before mixing with the sauce. Or make lentil sloppy joes with the legumes boiled.
Mustard will give you that tang that you expect, use yellow vs. Dijon. Ketchup is the base of the sauce for richness, we prefer organic Heinz for this dish. Brown Sugar is how you get it sweet, adjust as you wish to get it just right.
To add heat to your stovetop or Instant Pot sloppy joes mixture you can use Sriracha, red pepper flakes or Red Hot Sauce. I have left these mild and adjust each sauce item to our liking.
To try you will need enough Vegetable oil to fill the pan halfway full. If you want to “fry” a healthier way you should use an air fryer. In this case you only need some olive oil spray to crisp the outsides.
Step by Step Directions
While you are waiting for your meat mixture to cook, or your slow cooker sloppy joes are done, get a cutting board out with a small bowl of water and take 1 egg roll wrapper out so you are ready. Put it in a bowl next to your wrapper. Spoon some on like this and leave some room at the end and on the sides of your egg roll wrapper.
Brown your ground beef or turkey and drain before adding these ingredients. Lay an egg roll wrapper down. Fill wrappers with filling and then fold the end up. Fold over the sides like this and then roll over and over.
Before rolling all the way over wet the very end with water and then roll all the way over so it sticks and doesn’t come apart. While you’re rolling the first few sloppy joe egg rolls turn your oil on high heat so it can get the outsides golden brown.
Cooking Options
Fried on the stove
Test the oil by putting a tiny piece of egg roll wrapper in and see if it fries nicely, doesn’t just sit there or fry way too hot and burn. Adjust heat accordingly before you put your egg rolls in. Set paper towels on a baking sheet so you can set them on top when they’re done and absorb the excess oil.
Cooked in Air Fryer
We are going to fry these on the stove with a bit of oil. If you wanted to cut out those calories you could cut that out by following the cooking directions in our air fryer egg rolls post.
You will not need oil more than just a spray on top if heating with hot air like our air fryer frozen egg rolls. A healthier method for sure but won’t be quite as crispy or authentic.
Sloppy Joe Egg Rolls Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 lb ground beef
- 1/8 c mustard, give or take depending on how much you like, taste at the end before adding into wrappers
- 3/4 c ketchup, give or take
- 2 tbsp brown sugar
- 1/2 c onion, diced, optional
- 1 pkg egg roll wrappers, homemade or store bought
- 3-4 c vegetable oil, for frying
Instructions
- In a pan on the stovetop cook ground beef and diced onions until pink is gone, drain grease.
- In a bowl add your meat, add ketchup, mustard, brown sugar and mix until well combined.
- Taste and add more of any of these depending on how wet or mustardy you like your sloppy joe mixture.
- Lay out 1 egg roll wrapper and fill with 2 tbsp or so of sloppy joe mixture on one end as you see in pictures in this post.
- Leave space on the sides so you can roll them up.
- Fold sides in and roll the meat up into the wrapper. Once you reach the other end use your finger and dab with water and roll the filled end over on that end so it is well sealed and won’t come undone.
- Do this until all sloppy joe mixture is gone.
- Wait until your oil is hot, hot enough to sizzle a little piece of egg roll wrapper that is dropped in but not burn it immediately when dropped in.
- Put sloppy joe egg rolls into oil just until lightly browned on one side, flip and put on paper towel when both sides are light brown to absorb remaining oil.
- serve
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Variations
This is just one of our recipes using egg roll wrappers here on The Typical Mom blog. One you get the hang of it you will learn that you can fill with all the things. You could choose to add some shredded cheddar cheese inside if you wanted too in this case.
Want to make these with NO oil? You can!! Just stuff as directed, preheat air fryer and set egg rolls inside just sprayed with a bit of oil on top to get cfrispy. If you love this you’ll love our pizza egg rolls too.
