Easter conjures up thoughts of spring and picnics in the park, hot cross buns and chocolate, chocolate, chocolate! If you’re anything like me, after demolishing several chocolate eggs and hot cross buns in quick succession, by lunchtime you’ll be craving something light, healthy and delicious to make up for this over-indulgence! These Rainbow Rice Paper Rolls with a delicious Peanut Dipping Sauce are just the thing. I found all of these ingredients at my local SPAR.
Preparation time:
0 minutes
Ingredients
- 10 Rice Paper Wrappers
- 1 large carrot (peeled)
- 1 large cucumber (remove the seeds)
- ¼ Large Red Pepper
- 2 or 3 red bell peppers (or chillies) thinly sliced into rounds (no seeds)
- A handful of very thinly sliced purple cabbage
- A handful of cooked and cooled rice vermicelli
- 1/3 ripe but firm mango, cubed
- 1/3 ripe but firm avocado, cubed and sprinkled with lime or lemon juice
- A few sprigs of fresh coriander (or mint)
- Half a lime, squeezed
- A teaspoon of honey
- I red chilli finely chopped
For the Peanut Dipping Sauce:
- 2 tbsp peanut butter
- 1 tbsp hoi sin stir fry sauce
- 2 tsp soy sauce
- 1 clove garlic, crushed
- 1 tsp sweet chilli sauce
- 1-3 tbsp warm water
- Mix all of the ingredients together to form a delicious dipping sauce to serve with your Rainbow Rice Paper Rolls!
Method
- Prepare the vegetables by julienning the carrot, cucumber, and red pepper into very thin strips, about 6cm long.
- Very thinly slice the bell peppers (or chillies if you prefer it spicy) so that you have a neat circle (remove seeds)
- Very thinly slice the purple cabbage.
- Dice the mango and avocado; take care to squeeze lime or lemon juice over the avocado to stop it from turning brown. (You can basically put anything you like into these rolls – so if you prefer others, use whatever you like! As long as it’s bright, fresh, and crunchy, it’s perfect.
- Cook a small amount of rice vermicelli in boiling water for 3 minutes. Drain and run this under cold water until it is cool, sprinkle with salt and pepper and leave aside.
- Mix the lime juice, honey and chopped chilli together to make a dressing. Sprinkle this over all your chopped ingredients so they are lightly flavoured but still crisp and not dripping!
- Soak one rice wrapper at a time in cold water for a minute or until it becomes soft and feels like a thin membrane.
- Remove the wrapper very carefully from the water, place it on a plate and pull any creases out very gently.
- Starting at the bottom third of the wrapper, lay your vegetables out starting with a sprig or two of coriander and the bell pepper circles then layering the other vegetables and a little bit of vermicelli on top. You will have to experiment on the first one to find the right quantity of filling for your rice roll so that when you roll it up it is neat and firm but not too skinny! The roll is transparent so put your pretty colours and shapes on the bottom and top of the pile so they show through!
- Fold the bottom of the rice roll up onto your layered vegetables and tuck the sides in, then start rolling it up, tucking the sides in neatly as you go. Make sure you keep the roll as tight as possible but do this gently so that the rice paper doesn’t tear.
- Repeat this until you have 10 completed rice paper rolls, and then use a very sharp knife to slice them in half diagonally, and arrange them on a plate with your Peanut Dipping Sauce. (The rolls can be made up to 4 hours in advance and covered with cling film in the fridge).