Look! A savory thing! I’ve really been meaning to populate this blog with a variety of food types, but I fear I’m doomed to always be posting about dessert. It’s not really a problem per se, just not how I envisioned the content of this website skewing.
You see, I only shoot in natural light, which means I have to take my photos in the morning or afternoon. I’m not a snob about my lighting or anything, I just don’t happen to have any unnatural lighting equipment at the moment. As a serious night owl, this can be a little challenging. My mornings are most peoples afternoons, which means the sun is setting right around my lunch time.In winter, this can make my window of opportunity for good lighting just a couple of hours. Cooking savory dinner items as soon as I wake up can feel a little bit odd. Cupcakes, muffins, scones, tarts, and other baked goodies though? I can whip those up in the wee late hours of the night and then style and shoot them while I sip my coffee the next day. The moral of this story is I need to suck it up and sacrifice a little beauty sleep in order to share my favorite evening eats with everyone.
Moving on to the food. I decided to do a little spring roll tutorial. They’re one of my favorite light and fresh meals. They’re not exactly cozy winter food, but when the hot summer sun comes back they’re the perfect no cook meal. You can change up the specific ingredients to suite your preferences, the ones I made in the photos have tofu, carrots, cucumber, micro greens, and fresh mint.
Once you have a pack of spring roll wrappers, and rice vermicelli noodles stocked in your cupboard, spring rolls are easy to throw together using whatever veggie and protein you have in your fridge. The only challenging part about making them, is handling the wrappers and rolling them up. I took a gratuitous amount of photos of the assembling and rolling process to help explain, which you can find below!
PS. I just restocked my sriracha supply, which I believe is an essential spring roll eating condiment. I bought this many bottles.
Micro greens.
Vermicelli rice noodles.
Yup, noodles.
In goes my protein, tofu.
Crunchy vegetables. Carrots and cucumber.
Aromatic herbs. Mint in this case.
Folding the bottom up.
Bringing the sides in.
Keeping everything tucked in while rolling.
And ta-dah! Spring rolls.
How To Make Fresh Spring Rolls
No specifics here! Make as many or as few as you like.
Ingredients
A fully cooked protein. Tofu, chicken, pork, or shrimp are all great options.
Spring roll wrappers(8-10 inches)
Rice vermicelli noodles.
Lettuce. I used micro greens in these photos, but any soft lettuce will work.
Crunchy vegetables. I usually pick 2 or 3. Carrots, cucumber, daikon radish, cabbage, green onion, bean sprouts, etc.
Aromatic herbs. Mint, basil and cilantro are my favorites. Use one or multiple.
Instructions
- Cut your protein and vegetables into 5-6 in long pieces. Cut into quite thin pieces, and proteins into fairly thick ones(If using shrimp, leave it whole).
- Prepare rice noodles according to package directions and drain. Most just require a brief soak in hot water.Set aside.
- Fill a shallow and wide bowl or dish with warm water(I use a pie pan).
- Submerge a single spring roll wrapper in water completely, and let it soak for about 5 seconds. Wrapper will still be fairly firm.
- Lay wrapper out flat on a clean surface. It will continue to soften.
- In the center of your wrapper, add lettuce, protein, small portion of noodles, vegetables, and herbs. Lay ingredients horizontally.
- Fold bottom edge of wrapper up over pile of ingredients as far it will reach without moving them.
- Bring edges from each side of wrapper in to center.
- Using fingers to keep ingredients tightly tucked in, roll wrapper upwards until it is a tight bundle.
- Enjoy immediately.
Notes
I recommend dipping them in sriracha, soy, or a combination of the two. They would also be great dipped in the sauce for my scallion pancakes, which you can find here.
The wrappers are stretchy, but still a bit delicate. If one rips, I just roll the whole thing in a second rice paper wrapper.
These do not keep well. The wrappers will eventually become dry and crunchy in the fridge, so make them to eat within a couple of hours.
*Disclaimer: this post contains affiliate links.
