Vietnamese Prawn Summer Rolls

by - November 09, 2015


Easy and fun prawn Vietnamese summer rolls recipe. Nutritious, no cooking involved and makes a great team building activity.



These were hilarious to make! I recommend trying to make them just for 'lols' in addition to the fact that they are delicious! It's like an afternoon at the Sealife Centre trying to fish the slippery jelly-like rice paper-turned jelly fish out of the bowl! 

Once assembled, however, the reward is fantastic - well worth the effort! We found it was better to make them all and plate them up rather than wrap and eat, one by one. Although if you do wrap and eat, wrap and eat the whole process has a more ceremonious feel and it becomes an activity. Great for team building or doing with a group - you could even run a competition, who can make the best?

I used the BBC Good Food's recipe for the sauce, but the rolls were interpreted to omit the traditional noodles in favour of more vegetables. 


For the sauce (makes 12) So double/triple it if you need to:

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 small red chilli (deseeded if you don't like it too hot), finely chopped
1 tbsp finely chopped ginger
1 tbsp golden caster sugar
3 tbsp fish sauce
juice 1 lime

For the filling:

You can use whatever crunchy salad items you have. I used these guys: Cucumber strips, grated carrot, shredded little gem, bean sprouts and coriander to go alongside the butterfly-cut king prawns (in half length ways)
You'll also need round rice paper wrappers - best place to find these is an oriental supermarket as most main supermarkets aren't stocking them (yet).


Whiz all your sauce ingredients together in a blender. Done.

Now comes the fun bit - soak each rice paper wrapper in a bowl of warm water for about 3-5 minutes. We made the mistake of putting ALL the wrappers in a bowl at the same time and it turned into a jellyfish. Funny Yes, a waste of all the rice paper? Yep! Luckily we had more! 

Ok, let's start again. 

Soak ONE rice paper wrapper in a bowl of warm water until it is a slippery character. Fish it out and then spread it onto a clean tea towel, taking care not to let it curl up. Keep it flat. Then, when some of the moisture has been absorbed by the tea towel transfer it to a plate. We didn't realise how important a step this was and were transferring it to a plate straight from the water which resulted in trying to wrap a wet gluey paste around our filling, resulting in much confusion and frustration. 

Once on the plate you can put filling of your choice down the center of the paper and then wrap it up! Try to secure each end so that no filling comes out when you're dipping but if they're wrapped tightly it won't matter too much. Plate up and enjoy! They really are delicious when you finally get there! 






Have you ever made these? What was it like for you? Let me know on the comments or across my social media channels below and above! 

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