Salad Rolls and Peanut Sauce

Salad rolls are delicious, fretting and ever changing. I hoped that it was easier to make but the trickiest part is getting the wrapping correct. I say don’t give up and try, try, try again! Here are the main ingredients to make salad rolls.

First you will need to get some rice wraps. You can find these in Asian supermarkets or the International section of a grocery store.

The other ingredient you will need is some vermicelli rice noodles. Prepare the rice noodles by soaking them in boiling hot water and leaving them for a couple minutes until the noodles are tender. Drain and cool the noodles before wrapping.

You will also need some lettuce, thai basil and cooked shrimp.

Once you have all your ingredients ready, you can begin wrapping. To soften the rice wraps, put some boiling water into a bowl and quickly dip the rice wrap in and out of the water. Don’t leave it too long because it will get too soft and hard to roll. This takes a bit of practice to get perfect.

Lay the rice wrap on a plate or cutting board. Start assembling the filling in the rice wrap.

I lay out three shrimp and then a layer of basil.

On the shrimp and basil, place a leaf of lettuce and a small amount of rice noodles.

Wrap the filling by folding the two sides in and rolling the filling up. This is probably the trickiest part (and hardest to photograph alone!). After doing it a couple of times, I still could not get it right. They still looked decent and edible (that’s the one thing that counts).

A salad roll would not be a salad roll without peanut sauce. I created my version of peanut sauce using ingredients in my fridge. I thought it turned out pretty decent.

Peanut sauce starts out with peanut butter. I used smooth peanut butter. You will need about 1/2 cup peanut butter.

You will also need 2 Tbsp soy sauce.

Grate 1 TBSP ginger into the peanut butter and soy sauce.

Add 1 TBSP lemon juice, 1 TBSP honey and 1 tsp sesame oil.

Mix everything together. The mixture should be thick. To thin it out, add 1 TBSP of hot boiling water. Stir until completely mixed. Keep adding water until you get the consistency you want.