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Harumaki is a crispy Japanese Spring Roll wrapped with a delicious filling of pork, chicken, shrimp, shiitake mushroom, carrots, and vermicelli. They make excellent finger food or appetizer.
Spring Rolls (or often called Egg Rolls and used interchangeably) is a dish found in East Asian and Southeast Asian cuisine. Savory filling wrapped in flour-based pastry sheet and deep-fried till the outer shell is crispy and golden brown.
In Japan, we call this dish Harumaki (春巻き), a direct translation of “spring rolls” in Japanese. Harumaki was originally introduced to Japan by the Chinese and adapted for Japanese tastes.
Watch How to Make Harumaki
Harumaki is a crispy Japanese Spring Roll wrapped with a delicious filling of pork, chicken, shrimp, shiitake mushroom, carrots, and vermicelli. They make excellent finger food or appetizer.
Harumaki Ingredients
Typical ingredients for Harumaki (Japanese spring rolls) include some type of meat (pork, shrimp, etc), carrot, shiitake mushrooms, bamboo shoot, etc. Each family makes them slightly different, and today I’ll show how I make my tasty Harumaki. I learned my recipe from my mom using 10 ingredients for the filling.
Her signature Harumaki includes three types of protein – shrimp, ground pork, and chicken tender. However, ingredients for spring rolls are really up to your preference. You don’t have to include all 1o ingredients that I used. You can pick a couple of your favorites or experiment with fresh seasonal ingredients.
The only difference between my mom’s and my Harumaki is that my mom’s Harumaki is wider, one and half times wider than mine. Growing up, I had trouble picking up Harumaki with chopsticks to eat them so I made my Harumaki size similar to typical Chinese spring rolls size.
Dipping Sauce for Harumaki
Depends on the filling, you may want to change the dipping sauce, but typical Japanese Harumaki is served with the combination of soy sauce and rice vinegar and you can also add Japanese karashi mustard.
Japanese Ingredient Substitution: If you want to look for substitutes for Japanese condiments and ingredients, click here.
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Harumaki is a crispy Japanese Spring Roll wrapped with a delicious filling of pork, chicken, shrimp, shiitake mushroom, carrots, and vermicelli. They make excellent finger food or appetizer.
- 4 dried shiitake mushrooms (0.5 oz or 13 g)
- ¼ cup water (to soak dried shiitake mushrooms)
- 4 shrimps (2.5 oz or 70 g)
- 2 chicken tenders (2 oz or 55 g)
- ¼ lb ground pork (113 g)
- 1.5 oz harusame (glass noodles) (43 g)
- ½ boiled bamboo shoot (7 oz or 200 g; Keep half of the bamboo shoot submerged in water and store in the refrigerator for 2-3 days)
- 1 inch ginger
- 1 negi (long green onion) (0.8 oz or 23 g; Use only white part)
- small bunch garlic chives (Chinese chives or Nira) (0.3 oz or 8 g)
- 3 inch carrot (3.2 oz or 90 g)
- 2.5 oz bean sprouts (70 g)
- 1 Tbsp sesame oil (roasted)
- 10 Harumaki wrappers
- 2 tsp soy sauce
- 2 tsp sake
- 2 tsp potato starch/cornstarch
- ¼ cup Shiitake dashi (reserved liquid from soaking dried shiitake)
- 2 Tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tsp kosher/sea salt (I use Diamond Crystal; Use half for table salt)
- freshly ground black pepper
- 2 Tbsp potato starch/cornstarch
- 2 Tbsp water
- 2 Tbsp all-purpose flour (plain flour)
- 2 Tbsp water
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Gather all the ingredients.
- Soak dried mushrooms in ¼ cup water to re-hydrate, about 15 minutes.
- Cut shrimp and chicken tender into small pieces. Mix the ingredients for marinade in a medium bowl. Add the shrimp, chicken, and pork in the bowl and mix well. Set aside to marinade.
- Cook the vermicelli in a boiling water for 2-3 minutes. Drain well and cut into 1 inch length.
- Cut the bamboo, ginger, dried mushrooms, Tokyo negi, Chinese chives, and carrots into long strips (2 inch julienned pieces). Wash the bean sprout and drain well.
- To make harumaki filling, heat sesame oil and ginger over medium high heat in a large frying pan. Once fragrant, add the shrimp/chicken/pork and stir fry until no longer pink.
- Add bamboo shoot and carrot and stir fry until coated with oil and slightly tender. Add the bean sprout, Tokyo negi, Chinese chives, and dried mushrooms and stir fry, then add vermicelli.
- Add the ingredients for Seasonings and mix well.
- Combine potato/corn starch with water in a small bowl.
- After a quick stir, pour the potato starch mixture into the harumaki filling and mix well. Transfer the filling from the pan to a baking sheet or plate. Let it cool completely and evaporate the moisture. Make sure there is no moisture in the filling. Otherwise, the wrappers will break easily before and during deep frying (and might explode in the oil).
- Slowly peel each harumaki wrapper one at a time and keep them plastic wrap or a damp kitchen towel to prevent from drying up while you work.
- To make harumaki, lay the harumaki wrapper with a corner pointed towards you (diamond shape). Place the filling neatly just below the center of the wrapper. I use an ice cream scooper to transfer the filling so the amount of filling for each wrapper is somewhat standardized. Start folding the bottom corner over the filling towards the top and tuck under the filling nice and tight.
- Roll the wrapper once to cover the filling, and fold the right and left corners of the wrapper in. They should overlap each other a little bit. Then roll toward the remaining corner. When you start rolling upward, the wrapper may flair out. Make sure both sides of the wrapper to taper inwards.
- Using your finger, put good amount of flour + water paste on the top corner. Then roll and press firmly to seal. Continue with remaining wrappers.
- Once you finish wrapping, start deep frying immediately before the wrapper gets soggy. Deep fry the harumaki in a deep fryer/wok/pot with 170°C (338°F) vegetable oil until light golden brown and crisp, about 5 minutes. Drain the excess oil over a wire rack or paper towel.
- If you prefer to bake, preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F). Arrange the harumaki in a single layer on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Brush the tops of the rolls with vegetable oil then bake them for 10 to 12 minutes, rotating after 6 minutes, until they're golden brown and crispy.
- Make a dipping sauce with soy sauce, rice vinegar, and Japanese karashi mustard as you like and serve with harumaki.
Recipe by Namiko Chen of Just One Cookbook. All images and content on this site are copyright protected. Please do not use my images without my permission. If you’d like to share this recipe on your site, please re-write the recipe and link to this post as the original source. Thank you.
This looks really good. I’ll have to make an ingredient list next time I go to San Jose. The Harumaki wrappers are the same a regular spring roll wrappers that they use for Lumpia right?
Also step 5 says “heat sesame and ginger oil over medium high heat” and I think you meant to say Sesame oil and ginger.
Hi Kat! Thank you so much! Yes, Harumaki is usually thinner than typical Chinese wrappers I find in Asian stores. However, for Lumpia or Singapore brand (I think it was Singapore) wrappers are about same thickness.
I just edited the recipe. Thank you for catching my mistake. 🙂
How beautifully golden they look! I’m sure you learned from the best. =)
When I was little and when my mom fried up spring rolls, she would do some savory ones and then a few sweet ones (just the wrapper filled with red bean paste) to satisfy my sweet tooth.
Thank you so much Kimmi! I’m totally going to make red bean harumaki!!! 😀 I make cheese and nutella sometimes but haven’t even thought of red bean. Shame on me… I love red bean so much! Thanks for sharing!
Oh my stars, those look amazing. Shall definitely play with this recipe! I know I can’t get all of the ingredients here… Thank goodness the recipe is so versatile. Loved the accompanying video — very well done. 🙂
Hi Elizabeth! Yes, play with the ingredients you have/enjoy and it’ll be delicious! I am glad to hear you enjoy my video. Thank you so much for watching and following my blog! 🙂
Since when are spring rolls and egg rolls interchangeable terms?
I’m not sure – In direct translation of Harumaki (春巻き) is “Spring (春) Roll (巻き)”, but I’ve seen the term “Egg Roll” is used here in the U.S. In fact, many calls “Spring Roll” for non-deep fried, and “Egg Roll” for deep fried.
Thank you for a delicious recipe! It seemed like it would be tedious to prepare all the ingredients but it was actually pretty quick.
I followed your recipe but made a few changes:
-I haven’t found a good Japanese-sourced dried shiitake brand here in the US so I just used fresh ones
– I used half a packet of dashi powder (tea bag type) to sprinkle on the stir-fried mix for flavor instead of the dried shiitake water
– reduced the amount of salt and actually think next time I will omit it as there was enough flavor
– I only used shrimp and ground pork since I didn’t have chicken, and also omitted the bamboo shoot
Hi Ponyo! Thanks so much for your kind feedback! Glad you enjoyed it! 🙂
I have celiac disease and used Vietnamese rice wrappers for these. Yumm.
Thank you so very much for your recipes! My family is grateful.
Hi Aimeé! I’m glad to hear you and your family enjoyed it. Glad to hear the rice wrapper made it work! Great alternative!
Nami can you make the harumaki filling the day before and then wrap and fry them the next day or will that cause too much moisture to build up in the fridge overnight?
Hi Jason! I would definitely make the filling first, then wrap before you deep fry. I wouldn’t keep the harumaki wrapped already for a long time as the wrapper gets wet. 🙂
Hi,
I reallly love and enjoy your recipes.
I would like to know if I can freeze Harumakis before cooking and what is the best way to cook afterwards.
Thank you
Hi Maria! You can freeze harumaki BEFORE deep frying. The skin will stick together, so you have to wrap individual pieces (only if you save a few) in plastic then put in a Ziploc bag etc, OR flash freeze until outside layer is frozen then put the frozen harumaki in a ziploc bag to freeze for up to 1 month.
You do not need to defrost and deep fry from the frozen stage. The oil should be 320 F (160 C), lower than usual, as you have to cook inside the filling that’s frozen. Make sure to get rid of any ice or frost around the harumaki to avoid oil splatter. 🙂