Referring to a rolled, wheel type of dish. Though not exclusively so, the term most often applies to savory, meat based dishes and to pastries. In meat based dishes, the roulade is filled with cheeses, vegetables, and other aromatics; the roulade is usually browned, then cut into smaller wheels. Pastries may also be cut into smaller wheels, with the main difference being the filling being sweeter in nature (jams, chocolates, nut based spreads, etc.).

As a word, roulade can be traced back to 1672. However, this use case refers to specific singing technique. As a dish, that’s a little more tricky to pinpoint. There are records of German roulades going back to the 1700s, so they are at least that old. These were primarily savory in nature.

The last item I would like to mention is that roulade is the general, French term for this style of preparation. Rouladen are a specific preparation, German in origin, of a roulade. So, all rouladen are roulades, but not all roulades are rouladen.