Recipe: Chicken Fajita Spring Rolls

This past weekend, I spent Saturday afternoon cooking up a storm of mostly freezer meals, along with dinner and a fun snack. As Josh and I eat the freezer meals, I will share them with you, but today, I want to share the recipe for the delicious snack that I made - Chicken Fajita Spring Rolls.

I got the idea because we are constantly buying the Lean Cuisine version because we really like them. But Lean Cuisines aren't exactly inexpensive and so they can slowly start to add up. Making them from scratch saves us money and creates a few extra meals as well. I made these in 2 steps, first making the filling in the crock pot and then rolling that in the spring roll wrappers.

First, to make the chicken fajitas, I gathered together all of my ingredients.


3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 onion
2 green bell peppers
1 can black beans
1 can corn kernels
fajita mix
large number of spices, all sprinkled: salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, chili powder, crushed red pepper, cumin, oregano and paprika
1/3 cup chicken broth


Then, I added everything to the crockpot, beginning with the chicken, and adding in each additional ingredient in the order listed above. For the spice mixture, I simply sprinkled each container in an even layer over the top of the crock pot. You could skip this step and simply buy an extra packet of fajita mix for extra flavor if you'd like.




Once they were all in the crock pot together, I mixed it together and set the crock pot to cook on low for 5 hours.




When the fajitas were done cooking, I removed the chicken, shredded it and placed it back into the crock pot for an additional 30 minutes.




After the 30 minutes was up, I put aside a bowl of fajita mix and put that in the refrigerator to cool and placed the rest into a larger tupperware to be used for making regular fajitas later on.



Then, I took the spring roll wrappers out and defrosted them, per the directions on the package. 




After they were defrosted, I removed my now slightly cooler - about room temperature - fajita mix out of the refrigerator, and set up my rolling station.



To roll each spring roll, I took a heaping tablespoon of fajita mixture and placed it in a line near the end of the sheet.



Then I slowly rolled up to the middle, brought in both sides, and continued rolling until complete. I made sure the end stayed in place with a little dab of milk.





When they were all rolled, I heated up canola oil, about an inch or so high, and slowly fried the spring rolls. (Note: I'm sure these could probably be baked, but I took these directions on how to roll and cook the rolls and went the frying route.)





After each batch fried, I placed it on a wire cooling rack over a paper towel (to catch drips) and let them cool. 


Then I froze them on a baking sheet with parchment paper in between the two layers overnight. 


The next morning, when they were fully frozen, I dropped them all into a labeled bag.



Josh ate some for an afternoon snack and they were delicious!  


To enjoy, simply wrap 3 at a time in a paper towel and microwave for 2 minutes. You can serve plain or with a little sour cream on the side.
Have you ever worked with spring roll wrappers? Do you stick with a traditional filling or have you branched out? Made any other delicious snacks lately?