Spring rolls are all about texture. The rice paper wrapper is so unique, almost skin like; a little sticky, quite stretchy and just really cool. Inside the stretchy wrapper you’ve got rice vermicelli, lettuce, other crunchy vegetables and usually some type of meat or seafood. So many textures, flavors and colors wrapped up in one little package. They’re so very cool.
You really can put anything in a spring roll: shrimp, tofu, pork, all veggies, whatever you want. I’m not super crazy about shrimp so I used krab (a mix of snow crab and pollock) and then added sliced mango, red bell pepper, cilantro, lettuce and bean threads. I meant to buy rice vermicelli but accidentally got bean threads instead. They look almost identical in the package but rice vermicelli needs to be boiled while bean threads only need to be soaked for about 10 minutes in warm water. The vermicelli is much softer but the bean threads still worked okay.
I also made a super quick, simplified peanut sauce for this recipe. I have made a peanut sauce from scratch in the past, but in this case I just wanted something quick and easy.
This recipe was definitely more difficult and costly than I had anticipated. That being said, it was still a really FUN project and I know a lot of you will be interested so I’m posting it anyway. The recipe also left me with a bunch of left over ingredients which I usually try to avoid (lots of left over wrappers, bean threads and lettuce). Luckily, most of it was dry goods that can sit safely in my pantry while I think about what other interesting fillings could be put in thescool wrappers. We’ll see… (feel free to suggest something in the comments!)
Spring Rolls & Quick Peanut Sauce
Spring Rolls & Quick Peanut Sauce
Servings 5Ingredients
SPRING ROLLS
- 10 rice paper wrappers ($0.66)
- 1/2 head red leaf lettuce ($0.75)
- 2 oz. 1/2 pkg. bean threads ($0.75)
- 1 med mango ($1.09)
- 1 med red bell pepper ($1.52)
- 1/2 bunch cilantro ($0.35)
- 8 oz. pkg. krab ($2.99)
QUICK PEANUT SAUCE
- 1/4 cup smooth natural peanut butter ($0.33)
- 1/4 cup hoisin sauce ($0.60)
- 1/2 inch fresh ginger, grated ($0.09)
- 1/4 tsp sriracha sauce ($0.02)
- 1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp hot water ($0.00)
Instructions
- Prepare the sauce by combining the hoisin sauce, peanut butter, sriracha and grated ginger. Add 1/4 cup of hot water and whisk the ingredients together. Continue to add hot water until the sauce is the consistency you desire. I used 1/4 cup plus two more tablespoons of hot water.
- Gather and prepare the filling ingredients. Slice the red bell pepper and mango, soak the bean threads, chop the lettuce and pull the cilantro leaves from the stems.
- When your fillings are ready to go, take one rice paper wrapper at a time and soak it in warm water for five seconds or until it is soft and limp like a wet paper towel. Lay the soft wrapper on a clean surface, place the fillings on top near one side and then roll the wrapper around them. Fold the left and right sides in as you roll to close up the ends. Here is an excellent video of how to roll them.
- Serve with the dipping sauce on the side!
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Nutrition
Step By Step Photos
Begin by making the sauce. This is a really pared down recipe for peanut sauce with only four ingredients.
Add the hoisin sauce, peanut butter, sriracha sauce and a little bit of grated ginger to a bowl.
Add 1/4 cup of hot water to the bowl and whisk the ingredients together. Add more hot water to achieve your desired consistency. I added 2 Tbsp more then it was perfect.
Here are the items that I used to fill my spring rolls: lettuce, cilantro, mango, red bell pepper, krab and bean threads.
Prepare the ingredients for filling. I thinly sliced the mango, bell pepper and lettuce. The bean threads were soaked in warm water for 10 minutes to soften.
These are the rice paper wrappers that I used. This pack has about 30 wrappers in it and only cost $1.99 at Whole Foods.
Here is the back of the package. You can see how simple the instructions are.
When the rice paper is dry, it is brittle and transparent.
After soaking the rice paper for five seconds, it gets soft like a wet paper towel and kind of sticky. Only soak and fill/roll one wrapper at a time.
Lay the rice paper out as flat as possible (this part is a little tricky) and then pile your fillings on top toward one side.
Roll up the spring roll, making sure to fold the sides in so that the ends of the roll are sealed. Again, here is a video showing how it’s done. My spring rolls were far from perfect looking but guess what? They still taste great! So, don’t worry if they’re rolled kinda messy.
Continue filling and rolling until you run out of ingredients. I got ten spring rolls before I ran out of mango and krab.
Serve the spring rolls with the peanut sauce on the side. They’re like little salad pouches that are dipped in dressing!
When I make these I like to put basil, shredded carrots, cucumbers, avocado, scallions, and sometimes either i cook tofu in sesame oil and honey, or maybe chicken. This is one of my absolute favorite things to make!
@Diana: It’s good to know you can make them just as good with other things, and still love the taste of them! There are a few ingredients in this recipe my son can’t have; he’s got a LOT of food allergies, though I think with some adjustments (your beef, mushrooms, onions and asparagus suggestion sounds fabulous!) he should be able to eat them, too. My kids are very different from me, and are very picky eaters (I was always crazy to try new foods as a kid, and loved my veggies), but I’m anxious to get them to try new and intersting things.
@Beth: Regarding the peanut sauce – the above-mentioned allergy-prone child is allergic to peanuts, too, but can have cashews, and loves them. Do you think this same sauce would work just as well, and be just as tasty, if I used cashews, instead?
I just made a batch of them tonight. My son was very impress that the dinner was entirely homemade (including the delicious sauce). He ate two with a big spoon of sauce and finished with a high five to the chef!
I put tiny slice of cucumbers, big cooked shrimps sliced in two, and avocado instead of the mango.
You can add what you want and have in your kitchen.
Ciao
these look so great! I might be having a sushi night soon and these would make a great appetizer!
I love spring roll and I made these with rice paper roll, with different fillings of course. But you know, the rice paper becomes chewy .. what am i doing wrong ? May be i will follow this recipe to the T.
I love spring rolls! These look sooo delicious! I can’t wait to try them out!
Mary xx
Delightful Bitefuls
I like making some with dessert in mind.. Usually some mango, strawberries and maybe some sort of melon, or whatever is on sale. Then with some mint and sometimes rosemary with the melon, wrap up the goodness!! :0)
Wow, your rolls look unbelievably good! I was actually thinking about making a Thai peanut sauce with raw peanuts recently. Just curious, is there a reason you chose smooth peanut butter over chunky peanut butter besides personal preference?
I’ve made spring rolls similar to these, easy and delicious. A word of warning though – they don’t keep very well. After a couple of hours, any moisture in the ingredients will soak into the wrapper and make it soggy and gummy, and eventually it’ll start to break down the wrapper. Even in a fridge I wouldn’t keep them for more than a day. Eat them quickly (like that will be a problem)!
Alana – thanks for the tip!! I can’t wait to try that… I want to make them pretty and prefect looking and I’m sure that will help.
Lois – I can’t believe you just happen to have the ingredients on hand! hahahha, you must have a very well stocked kitchen :D
YUM! I’ve got all the ingredients… Just need to make them. Thanks for the recipe!
I love them with basil, mint, pork or chicken, carrot, cucumber…they are very versatile. Something that has helped me in my attempts at making spring rolls is to not soak them so long. Soak them until they *just* start to change texture, then lay them down and roll them. They’ll continue to absorb residual moisture as you assemble the filling, and by the time you go to roll, they should be pliable and soft, but not unmanageably so. Give that a shot next time :-)
I am so excited about these! I love to get fresh spring rolls from my favorite Thai place and I can’t wait to make them myself.
My family always fills our ‘goi cuon’ (spring rolls) with mushrooms, asparagus, grilled pork or beef, scallops, onions, cucumber, shrimp, tuna, oysters…you can put almost anything in spring rolls as long as the flavors fuse well together (does that make sense?). We always have vermicelli, cucumber, and lettuce as a “base” though. My fav combo would have to be grilled beef with asparagus, mushrooms, and onions. Delish! And when putting meats in spring rolls, it’s best to cook as you eat. We have one of those table top grill things that we use when making spring rolls. Just put some butter on it and throw on the meat and veggies as you eat. Marinating the meats is important, but I have no idea how my mom does it so I can’t tell you. =(
Does this mean you’re making some pho to go with them next?? You wouldn’t just leave me all stranded w/just Vietnamese spring rolls and nothing to eat them with would you? :)