Lumpia wrappers substitutes

The same product with a different label. Brands like Spring Home TYJ sell the identical par-cooked wheat sheets, usually in 25 or 50 sheet stacks in the freezer, in several sizes.

Best for

lumpiang shanghai, vegetable lumpia, turon and banana lumpia, any fried lumpia

Genuinely indistinguishable in the finished roll. The only thing to check is size, since spring roll wrappers come in everything from 12 to 25 centimetres square while Filipino lumpia skins are commonly around 20 centimetres. A smaller sheet means a smaller roll or a double wrap. Some brands are slightly more brittle when cold, so let them come up to fridge temperature before peeling.

Thicker sheets of raw egg-enriched dough from the refrigerated section, and the substitute most American supermarkets can actually supply.

Best for

lumpiang shanghai, hearty meat-filled lumpia, baked or air-fried rolls

These fry into a bubbled, blistered, distinctly chewier and breadier shell rather than the thin snap of a lumpia skin, and the roll ends up noticeably heavier. They are raw dough, so they need a longer fry at a slightly lower temperature or the outside browns before the middle cooks. Roll them as tightly as you can to keep the wall thin. Do not use them for fresh unfried lumpia, where they are unpleasantly doughy.

Made from similar dough to egg roll wrappers but much smaller, which makes them a workable option if you are willing to overlap two per roll.

Best for

cocktail-sized lumpia, lumpiang shanghai, using up a packet

Fries crisp and a little brittle, thinner than an egg roll wrapper but with the same faintly eggy flavour. The overlapped seam is a weak point and will occasionally open in the oil, so seal it well with flour and water paste and fry seam side down first. Best accepted as small lumpia rather than fought into full-size ones.

A genuinely good option for a different kind of crisp, and the one that works best if you want to bake rather than deep fry.

Best for

baked lumpia, turon and dessert rolls, party food made ahead

Phyllo shatters into buttery flakes instead of giving the smooth glassy snap of a lumpia skin, and it browns much faster, so bake at 200C for 15 to 20 minutes or shallow fry briefly rather than deep frying hard. The fat between the sheets is not optional; without it the layers do not separate and you get a tough sheet. It also dries out in minutes, so keep the stack under a damp tea towel while you work.

The right answer for fresh rolls and a workable one for fried, as long as you know that it behaves nothing like wheat wrappers in oil.

Best for

fresh spring rolls, gluten-free fried rolls, chewy blistered fried rolls

Fried rice paper puffs into a bubbly, glassy, uneven shell that chews rather than snaps, and it goes soft again within five or ten minutes of coming out of the oil, so it cannot be made ahead. Dip it for two seconds only and let it soften on the board rather than in the water, since a sopping sheet sticks to itself instantly and will spit violently in hot oil. Use two layers or the filling will burst through.

Not a compromise at all: the soft wrapper of lumpiang sariwa is a crepe, so if fresh lumpia is what you are making, this is the real thing rather than a substitute.

Best for

lumpiang sariwa, fresh vegetable lumpia with peanut sauce, gluten-free versions using rice flour

Whisk the batter smooth, rest it fifteen minutes, then cook thin pale rounds in a lightly oiled non-stick pan for about a minute a side without letting them brown. They come out soft, tender and faintly eggy, which is exactly right for a fresh roll and completely wrong for frying, since a crepe in hot oil goes leathery rather than crisp.

Worth doing once if you cannot buy wrappers at all, and closer to the real thing than any of the swaps above.

Best for

fried lumpia when no shop stocks wrappers, small batches, cooks who enjoy the process

Make a thin, pourable batter, then either swipe a thin film onto a hot dry non-stick pan with the back of a ladle or wipe a ball of stiff dough across the surface, cooking about thirty seconds until the sheet sets and lifts at the edges. Do not brown them. Homemade skins are slightly thicker and less even than commercial ones, so the fried roll is a little sturdier and less delicate, but it snaps properly. Stack them with cling film between sheets.