Vegetable Spring Rolls with Spicy Peanut Sauce
Prep: 20 Minutes | Cook: 30 Minutes | Resting Time: N/A | Total: 50 mins
Makes 12 Servings
Ingredients
Spring Roll
Pack of Rice Paper (6” circle)
2 Carrots, julienne
1 Large Cucumber, julienne
1 Bunch Cilantro or Thai Basil
1 Mango, julienne
Shrimp (optional)
Pork Belly (optional)
Spicy Peanut Sauce
3 tbsp Peanut Butter
1 tbsp Soy Sauce
1 tbsp Lime Juice
2 tbsp Brown Sugar
2 tsp Chili Sauce
1 tsp freshly grated ginger
Water (add if necessary to get proper consistency)
Recipe Summary
Prepare mise en place (carrots, cucumbers, mango, thai basil)
Make peanut sauce
Roll spring rolls and serve with peanut sauce
Recipe
Spring Roll
Julienne all vegetables for your mise en place. Set aside each vegetable in a separate container for easy access when assembling your spring rolls.
(Optional) If using either pork belly or shrimp in your spring rolls, make sure to have it cooked already. Shrimp cook extremely quickly, but pork belly takes longer so plan accordingly.
Dip rice paper in a bowl of water for 2-3 seconds. Rice paper should be briefly submerged to ensure the entire surface gets equally soaked.
On a flat surface, place rice paper down and lay several pieces of each ingredient in the middle of the rice paper. Spring rolls are extremely customizable, so feel free to change some ingredients around and make it more to your liking.
Similar to wrapping a burrito, wrap contents in rice paper. The rice paper will seem hard and un-foldable at first, but as the water permeates the surface, it will become softer and almost gummy. There’s about a 1 minute window before the rice paper becomes extremely difficult to fold.
Peanut Sauce
Cut a 1 x 2 inch piece of ginger and grate it finely.
In a small bowl, add brown sugar, soy sauce, and lime juice. Stir until the brown sugar is fully dissolved.
Add peanut butter, chili garlic sauce, and grated ginger. Stir until the sauce is thoroughly mixed.
Sauce should smoothly fall from a spoon. If it is too thick, add water 1 tbsp at a time until the sauce is the desired consistency.
Why the Recipe Works
Spring rolls are a delicious appetizer that are fully customizable based on what you have on hand. Typically fresh and crunchy ingredients work best in spring rolls because they give the best texture to contrast with the chewy and springy rice paper rolls. Spring rolls are not unique to Thai cuisine (there are spring rolls in a lot of Asian food such as Vietnamese or Chinese food), however they do pair perfectly with the Thai influenced peanut sauce.
The Thai inspired peanut sauce has all 5 flavors in it:
Sweet: brown sugar, lime
Umami: soy sauce, chili garlic sauce, peanut butter
Bitter: lime, thai basil
Sour: lime
Spicy: chili garlic sauce