Fresh Vietnamese Spring Rolls
I’d been wanting to make these for the looooongest time, and I finally made my way to the Asian grocery store to get some ingredients that I couldn’t find anywhere else. I’m glad I did, because they were fast, easy, and oh so good. You can fill them with different ingredients, but here’s what I chose…
Ingredients:
- Rice wrapper rounds (banh trang)
- Rice vermicelli (super thin noodles) -I ended up buying green bean vermicelli and it worked well
- Chicken strips (marinated in BBQ sauce, soy sauce, black pepper, and lime juice)
- Mint
- Cilantro
- Basil
- Red leaf lettuce
- Bean Sprouts
- Mango
These were seriously easy to make:
Step 1: Marinate Chicken
A lot of people make these rolls with shrimp, but I decided to do BBQ-ish chicken. I marinated a few chicken tenderloins in BBQ sauce, soy sauce, black pepper, and lime juice.
Step 2: Cook the Chicken
I love this grill. Fast and easy is how I roll.
Step 3: Prepare the fillings
A lot of people julienne carrots and cucumber, but I couldn’t be bothered with that. I chose to use red leaf lettuce, mint, cilantro, and basil. I ripped them into slightly smaller pieces and piled them on my cutting board. I also bought a small bag of bean sprouts (which I forgot about until about half of the rolls were made).
You’ll also need to soak the vermicelli (super thin rice or bean noodles) in hot water for about 10 minutes, or until softened.
Here are all of our fillings (except the mango- oops), ready to get all wrapped up. Mmmmm…
Step 4: Soften the Rice Paper
You can use a big bowl of hot water, or quickly run it under hot water from the sink, like I did. I was worried it would break or stick to itself, but it’s pretty sturdy stuff.
Step 5: Put Fillings in Wrappers
After softening the rice paper, set it on a plate and start adding the fillings.
I made a few rolls with mango chunks instead of chicken and those were my favorites. I could do without the chicken and be perfectly content. Tim liked the chicken ones better- he’s such a carnivore.
All the pictures of me adding the greens were blurry thanks to low light, unsteady hands, and growling bellies. Don’t be upset.
Step 6: Roll it on up
Fold over the sides…
Then roll it up real nice and tight…
Viola!
Tasty fresh spring rolls that we ate with super hot vietnamese chili sauce (coincidentally what we had in our fridge)
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Carrie
Wow! I stumbled upon your site. Thank you for the pictures! They actually made this recipe seem doable. Thanks!
Tim Luukkonen
I love these…I used to always order them at a small authentic Vietnamese restaurant in AZ
Sara
Hey! It was fun checking out the updates on your site. Those look truly delicious. A little market just opened up by us that I think might have some of those ingredients.
Mindy
I love stuff like these. There’s this little thai place in San Diego, Saffron, that makes a smoked trout roll, delish…now that I know the names of some of the ingredients (thank you margaret) I might attempt them. P.S. the restaurant is just around the corner from the pier 1 clearance store.
Amy
Looks pretty!! I’m not sure if I’d ever make them though…. haha. Maybe if i’m feeling adventurous!!
Lenae
Mm, these look delicious! I will definitely add them to my list!