thebigfatnoodle

Cheap and cheerful 30 minute suppers: Vietnamese-style spring rolls

Posted by thebigfatnoodle on August 23, 2011 · 6 Comments 

Cheap, Easy to make. No cooking required. Perfect!

This is another one of my lazy but easy 30 minute mid-week suppers. It’s a great way to use up leftovers and works brilliantly with cold chicken or prawns, beef, lamb, tofu – just about anything! On top of that, it’s a really affordable dish as the rice paper wrappers are really cheap.

Another dish that's totally customisable to your taste.

Because I’m using Vietnamese rice paper wrappers, there’s no cooking involved, just the 10-15 minutes it’ll take you to chop up or wash whatever vegetables you want to add to your spring rolls.

I’ve made these heaps of times as a starter when friends come over. It’s a great party dish because you can get everyone to build their own spring rolls, which means less work for you! And if you make your friends roll their own spring roll, you don’t have to worry about whether they like any particular ingredient or not because they can choose what they want to put in it – genius!

Magic rice paper

Kids love them too and whenever they see the crisp hard sheet of glossy paper turn all soft and floppy after soaking them in water, they all go ‘WOOOWWW’ 🙂

A perfect foil for using up leftovers

My not-so-secret-anymore special sauce

I have to say though that what makes this dish extra special is my secret special sauce, not so secret anymore since I’m about to share it with all of you! It’s dead easy to make and I guarantee you’ll find yourself making this dipping sauce again and again and again. It’s sweet, tangy, slightly spicy and fruity, perfect to have with these spring rolls or with barbequed meats too.

The asembly line

But be warned, it can be messy work on the assembly line, as you’ll see from the sauce splashes on my dress when we shot a video to show you how to roll on of these babies. Excuse the mess on my dress, it was for a good cause! Anyway, if like me you love playing with food, then making spring rolls will be right up your street. Click here for the recipe.

Here’s a video of my husband’s first attempt rolling his own…

bigmonster’s how not to make a vietnamese spring roll

Lots of love and happy eating!

Thebigfatnoodle