Super easy meal for a busy day: Egg Roll in a Bowl

 

 But, you're thinking: egg rolls need to be filled, and wrapped, and deep fried.  How is that an easy meal?

It's easy because this is just the egg roll filling, or something that resembles it anyway, and it is served in a bowl.  If you like, you might also choose to serve a side of some sort -- either vegetables or a salad.   Not rice, because that would defeat the low-carb properties of this meal.  And searching for low-carb recipes is what brought this main dish across my radar in the first place.  

This recipe, if you can even call it that, is incredibly flexible.  The basics needed would be ground or chopped meat (pork, beef, lamb, chicken, turkey or even ham); fresh vegetables like onion, celery, zucchini,  green beans, etc.; and a package of coleslaw mix.  And some seasonings like salt, pepper, soy sauce, garlic powder, ground ginger ...  Ginger paste from the produce aisle works nicely too instead of the ground spice.

If you are starting with ground raw meat, cook it in a large skillet, adding some bacon fat if necessary to keep it from sticking.  Next, add in any fresh vegetables you like, sliced in bite size pieces or, in the case of zucchini or summer squash, in sticks about 3 inches long.  Cook and stir the mixture until these veggies are nearly tender.  You may wish to cover the skillet to hasten this process.  At this point add the coleslaw mix and stir well.  Continue to cook, adding more bacon fat or some butter if it seems necessary.  Cook until the cabbage (and there may be carrots in the mix, too) is tender.  Add in seasonings -- some garlic powder, ground ginger, salt and pepper -- and add soy sauce to taste.  Serve piping hot.

I have made this with chopped leftover turkey, chicken or ham.  When using already cooked meat, I usually begin the preparation with cooking the fresh vegetables in a little bacon fat or butter (I try to avoid seed oils).  When the vegetables are tender, I stir in the meat, the seasonings, and maybe a little chicken broth and heat through before adding in and cooking the cole slaw mix.  

This recipe comes together in less than a half hour and is really delicious.  It has become one of my husband's favorite meals!