African Egg Rolls are delicious! These snacks, also called egg balls got a crispy outside and a soft inside. The dough is flavorful and wrapped around eggs. Deep-fried until crisp, it becomes a fantastic African appetizer. Delicious served with Sweet Chili sauce.

African Egg Rolls
African Egg Rolls are the vegetarian alternative to Scotch Eggs. It’s deep-fried and very easy to prepare. It’s said that Scotch Eggs were introduced by the British in West African countries. This snack is sold as street food in West Africa (like in Nigeria, this snack is called Nigerian Egg Rolls). The eggs are wrapped with spicy dough instead of being covered with sausage (like Scotch eggs). And both snacks are deep-fried.
These African Scotch Eggs are a spicy, tasty, meat-free, and crunchy snack. Delicious to serve with sweet chili sauce.
What do you need for African Scotch Eggs?
To prepare these African Egg Rolls, you need the following ingredients. You can find the correct amounts in the recipe card at the bottom of the blog:
- Eggs - Heat them until they’re hard-boiled. Peel them before use.
- Yeast - This recipe uses ½ teaspoon of instant yeast. If you prefer to use fresh yeast, you need ⅛ oz. If you use dry yeast, you also need ½ teaspoon. Note: You must first dissolve the yeast in lukewarm water with both fresh and dry yeast before adding it to your dough. Then it already starts doing its job.
- Milk and water - to make the dough cohesive. You can use any milk, including soy milk.
- Flour - In this recipe, you use all-purpose flour.
- Butter - Is used to get a flaky, light dough texture.
- Garlic, paprika powder, salt, and black pepper - flavor the dough.
- Sugar - The sugar needs to be added, so the yeast works. This will make the dough airier.
How do you make Egg Balls - Meatless Meatballs?
You can find a printable recipe with a step-by-step description at the bottom of this blog.

- Mix water with yeast and sugar and let it stand for 5 minutes: mix flour, salt, garlic, paprika, and pepper in a bowl.
- Add the yeast, water, milk, and butter to the flour mixture and knead until you’ve got a smooth and elastic dough. Let the dough rest for 30 minutes under plastic foil.
- Make six circles of 4 ½ inches (12 cm) of dough. Put a peeled egg into the middle of each circle.
- Form the dough around the eggs and seal the seams well. Let them rest for another 30 minutes. Fry the balls for 8 minutes at 355 °F in hot oil. Drain on a kitchen towel.
To serve, after draining them on a kitchen towel, I transfer them to a plate and add a bowl of sweet chili sauce.
Garnishes - I don’t use any garnishes here, as I eat this as an appetizer most of the time. But if I want to serve this as lunch or a small dinner, I would serve some white rice and a salad.

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📖 Recipe
RECIPE CARD
Equipment
- Deep Fryer
- Hand Mixer or knead by hand
Ingredients
- ¼ cups water
- ½ teaspoon yeast, instant
- 1½ tablespoons sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 cups flour
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon paprika powder
- ⅛ teaspoon ground black pepper, black
- ½ cups milk
- ½ stick butter, unsalted, room temperature
- 6 eggs, hard-boiled, size M, peeled
All my recipes are written both in Metric (gram / ml) and US Customary (cups / pounds). Here you can slect which type of amount you would like to see.
Instructions
- Mix the water with the yeast and sugar and let stand for 5 minutes. If you see bubbles, the yeast is ready to mix to become a dough.¼ cups water, ½ teaspoon yeast, 1½ tablespoons sugar
- Mix the flour with the salt, garlic, paprika, and pepper, and mix it with the yeast mixture.1 teaspoon salt, 2 cups flour, ½ teaspoon garlic powder, ½ teaspoon paprika powder, ⅛ teaspoon ground black pepper
- Stir in the milk and butter and knead into a dough ball.½ cups milk, ½ stick butter
- Let the dough rest for half an hour under plastic.
- Roll the dough out to about ¼ inches (½ cm).
- Make a circle of 4½ inches (12 cm) (use a plate or bowl) and cut out the dough. Repeat this six times.
- Put an egg in the middle of the circle.6 eggs
- Shape the dough into a ball and seal the seams well.
- Repeat for all eggs.
- Put the egg balls to rest for half an hour under a cloth.
- Heat during the last 10 minutes the frying pan to 355 °F (180 °C).
- Fry the balls (up to two at a time) for 8 minutes until they’re golden brown. Flip from one side to another to make sure they’re evenly baked.
- Remove them from the fat and drain on kitchen paper.
- Delicious with chili sauce!
Notes
- Refrigerator - Store in an airtight container for three days. Heat in the oven covered with aluminum foil until hot again (at 350 °F / 180 °C)
- You can’t freeze African Egg Rolls because the egg whites will become tough to eat.
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