Vietnamese Summer Rolls with Shrimp and Peanut Sauce
July 20th, 2010 by katie
Summer rolls are a perfect summer food. They require very little cooking and are great room temperature or chilled. Full of fresh summery herbs and dipped in a pungent peanut sauce they are a flavor packed yet light meal. Much like a hand-held salad, they are no more difficult to make than a sandwich wrap. You can fill them with anything you like from left over chicken, pork, or shrimp or even make them vegetarian with all veggies and noodles.
Once again, I’ve got my julienne peeler
Summer Rolls
serves 4 (makes 8 rolls), prep 30 min
- 1/2 lb small shrimp, peeled, cooked, tails removed
- 2 cups rice stick vermicelli noodles
- rice paper wrappers
(spring roll skins)
- 16 large leaves Thai basil (or regular if that’s all that’s available)
- 16 small leaves mint
- 1 small bunch cilantro
- 2 carrots, julienned
- 1 large cucumber, julienned
- several torn lettuce leaves, Boston or butter lettuce
- Cook shrimp in boiling water if necessary, I bought cooked cocktail shrimp to speed up the process.
- Cook noodles in boiling water per package instructions, about 3 minutes, then rinse under cool water.
- Add warm water to a large dish and place one rice paper wrap in the water to soften, about 30 seconds to 1 minute.
- On a dry surface, place soft wrapper. Layer with a small amount of noodles, about 4 small shrimp, 2 large basil leaves, 2 small min leaves, several pinches of fresh cilantro, julienned carrots, julienned cucumbers, and a torn lettuce leaf (use only the soft part of the leaf, tear and discard the tough stem piece).
- Fold the right and left sides of the wrapper over the filling in the middle, fold up the bottom of the wrapper over the middle and roll the roll up until the rice paper meets at the top and seals.
- Set roll aside in a dry place and continue until filling runs out. Wrappers may stick to each other and tear if you place them too close together at first.
Paired with a salty, tangy peanut sauce these summer rolls mimic the flavors in my favorite Vietnamese Bun dishes. They are also great dipped into a spicy remoulade or Nuoc Cham.
Peanut Dipping Sauce
makes 1 cup, prep 5 min- 1/2 cup peanut butter
- 3 tbsp fish sauce
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 1 tbsp hot chili sauce
- 4 tbsp water
- Combine all ingredients in a small bowl or measuring cup, stir to combine. If peanut butter is too stiff, warm briefly in the microwave.
- Adjust sugar and water to taste, if you use pre-sweetened peanut butter you may need less sugar.
Posted in Easy, Main Dish, Salads, Snacks/Appetizers
July 20th, 2010 at 9:00 am
Oh my, these do sound tasty. I haven’t made summer rolls in a few weeks. I’ve begun substituting grilled chicken for the rice noodles to up the protein, though, and I’ve become quite addicted to it.
July 20th, 2010 at 9:23 am
I am a summer/spring roll FREAK. These look so good right now I am tempted to go get some for lunch.
“Wrappers may stick to each other and tear if you place them too close together at first.” Yes, that. Can you please remind some of the restaurants of this??
July 20th, 2010 at 11:00 am
Those look amazing. I could eat a dozen…right now. I’m hungry, lol.
July 20th, 2010 at 3:17 pm
Just had something very similar to this at a restaurant, but it was made with fried tofu!! Definitely bookmarking this for later!
July 20th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
I did a preemptive post about these. I’ve wanted to make some for the longest time and I am in the perfect position to do so tonight. Thank you for the recipe!
July 21st, 2010 at 6:56 am
these summer rolls look so refreshing. i would gobble these up on a hot day…cold day too probably! 🙂
July 21st, 2010 at 8:52 am
Lovely! I am going to talk about this post on my blog. Thanks so much for sharing!
July 21st, 2010 at 12:24 pm
I’ve been dying to make these. Yours look so tasty and would be perfect today!
July 21st, 2010 at 3:21 pm
my favorite thing in the world is spring rolls!
July 21st, 2010 at 11:43 pm
Healthy dish! 🙂
July 25th, 2010 at 8:29 pm
yum yum yum! I want.
July 27th, 2010 at 7:29 pm
Hi Katie!
I love your website. I made these tonight and they are so, so good! I love the dipping sauce. In my local Washington state market, I have a contact at the asian market that you should ONLY use the three crab fish sauce and I have found that to be true. I have ruined a couple of recipes by using another brand before I talked to her and it was too salty and fishy.
Thank you again!
August 15th, 2010 at 4:48 pm
My local Pho restaurant in Dallas uses Squid brand fish sauce (I asked), but they dilute it to taste, and it has worked fine for me in my home cooking. I LOVE their Summer Rolls.
April 26th, 2015 at 9:40 pm
These were amazing! That sauce is better than the restaurants! The only issue I ran into was they fell apart. I think i needed to double up on the rice paper wraps per roll. Definitely going to make these again 🙂