A cold dinner is sometimes everything you can muster on a hot summer day. These summer rolls will satisfy your thirst for a savoury meal in the summer and still keep it cool.
These spring rolls are mostly raw so all the vegetables inside aren't cooked. This makes this meal refreshing and perfect for the summer, hence the name Summer Rolls.
They can be enjoyed for lunch and at dinner or a small snack depending on the amount you want to make.
These rolls are also a fun thing thing to assemble at the dinner table, enjoying a dinner with friends and family. Everyone could roll their own rolls, decide what they want in them etc.
These rolls I chose to make smaller than the usual rolls I’ve had at restaurants, where they're fist size big rolls. If they have too much filling it’s harder to roll them tight. Rolling them smaller with less filling will result in double layer rice paper, making them stronger and easier to roll tight.To make the rolls not seem like a thinly wrapped salad to dip in sauce, the double layer rice paper works great to get some texture, and the lesser filling helps with that.
If you're interested in seeing a dessert version of this recipe, you can visit my Exotic Fruit Summer Spring Rolls.
Like Asian inspired food in general? Then you also might like these Asian dinners:
- Vegan Sweet & Sour Sauce with Tofu & Veg
- Vegan Red Thai Coconut Curry
- Vegan Sushi
- Hearty Vegan Miso Soup
- Tofu Zucchini Stir Fry
- Miso Wasabi Glazed Zucchini & Rice Noodles
- Rice Noodle Coconut Green Curry Soup
- Fresh Rolls Peanut Butter Pulled Jackfruit
For 20 small rolls
Ingredients
- 20 Rice papers
- 1 pack diced Tofu
- Handful Spinach leaves
- 2 Carrots
- 1/4 Cucumber
- ½ Avocado
- ½ Red bell pepper
- ½ Mango
- 3 stalks of spring onions
- 1 small red onion
- Handful soy sprouts (or any other sprouts)
- Nuac Cham Chay Sauce for dipping
What you will need
- Cutting board and knife
- 1 glass
- 1 plate to wet the paper
- Mortar and pestle
- Bowl for the dipping sauce
- Bowls for the ingredients if you prefer to assemble at the table (optional)
Instructions
- Wash all the vegetables thoroughly as there not being cooked, but eaten raw.
- Cut the carrots, cucumber, avocado, bell pepper and mango julienne style – medium long thinner stalks.
- Wash the spinach leaves and let dry.
- Chop the spring onions on a sharp angle, this will make elongated oval slices.
- Thinly chop the red onion and then cut in half, to create crescent moon style slices of onion.
- The pack of tofu I use is already diced and ready to go, but if you have a solid block of tofu I would recommend to dice them and bake in the oven, or fry them on the pan before use.
- Place 1 rice paper on a plate. Fill a cup with lukewarm preboiled water that’s cooled down. Dip your hand in the water and transfer a generous amount of water to the rice paper to fully wet it, turn around the rice paper and wet it on the other side as well. The paper should soak up the water within 20-30 seconds, and meanwhile you can arrange the vegetables on the roll.
- Use little of each vegetable to allow the rice paper to be rolled twice. A few leaves of spinach, 1-2 slice of carrots, cucumber, bell pepper etc.
- Start with the spinach and the softer and not sharp vegetables. Then add your sharper and more pokey ingredients like sprouts, spring onions and carrots. Then add on top the softer ingredients again. This will make it easier to roll tight and will prevent the roll to break from the sharper ingredients.
- Folding: fold the two sides first, then take the small part in front of you and fold over the top of the two side folds. Pull the vegetables in your palm tight while doing the last fold, and fold the whole roll over until there’s no more paper showing. While you're rolling you can tighen it more as you go.
- Now the first roll is done, transfer it to a clean plate to let dry. Don’t worry if the rice paper still feels wet, it will soak up the water in no time.
- Continue to make the rest of the rolls. You can cut the rolls on a sharp angle and serve them with the angle up, this makes a good presentation.
Serve with Nuac Cham Chay dipping sauce.
Enjoy !
