If I’d been more organised, rice paper rolls would have been my entry in the inaugural morsels and musings festive food fair. But, you know, the demands of being festive and all that.

Rice paper rolls make a great Christmas time meal for vegetarians. For one, they’re light and refreshing, so are perfect for a hot day or as a vegetarian alternative to a fresh seafood banquet.

The other advantage is that they don’t take long to prepare. Even better, I often leave the fillings on the table and let guests make their own rolls. This looks very colourful and festive, is a lot of fun, and also works as a great compromise meal because you can still have seafood or meat options ensuring everyone’s special needs are catered for. This can get a bit messy and takes some space, so you might find this works better as a boxing day lunch.

The other great thing about rice paper rolls is that you can tailor the fillings to suit your tastes. The ingredients below are the standard items I’d use - don’t feel you have to use all of them! If you do want some non-veggie options, prawn, shrimp or fish would also work.

Rice paper rolls

Ingredients

Rice paper sheets
Iceberg lettuce, cut into thin strips
2 carrots, grated
1 cucumber, cut into thin stripsT
Seasoned tofu, cut into thin strips (I use Soyco Thai or Malaysian tofu)
1 red capsicum, cut into thin strips
1 avocado, cut into thin slices
Cooked vermicelli rice noodles
Vietnamese mint, cut into thin strips (can substitute coriander)
Satay sauce (optional filling for roll)

Dipping sauces

Soy sauce
Sweet chilli sauce
Hoisin sauce

Method

Fill a large saucepan with boiled water. Dip the rice paper sheets into the saucepan. Make sure all the rice paper is submerged and softened, then remove it.

Flatten out the rice paper sheet onto a plate. The quicker you get it on to your plate the better because the rice paper immediately starts to stick together.

About a third of the way along your rice paper, add ingredients of your choice in a thin line. Do not be greedy. Two much stuffing makes it hard to roll. A good mix is vermicelli noodles, satay sauce, tofu, carrot, avocado, lettuce and mint.

Starting at the side closest to the stuffing, gently fold the rice paper over the filling and keep rolling so that the filling is covered.

When you’re about halfway done, carefully fold the sides in front of the roll, then finish rolling.

At this point, your roll should look like this:

Keen-eyed readers might notice that the ingredients in the photo don’t entirely correspond to the list in the recipe. I blame this man. There was no way I could go out and buy fresh veggies while Mr Cricket was at the crease.

Share This