Spring Rolls: Yum

[MegInNOLA 531]

This is not so much a recipe as a method. It's perfect for hot summer days. Now that I'm more than a year out, I'm still looking for ways to focus on getting my Protein in. My sleeve is super-picky STILL and doesn't like most meat/chicken/certain types of fish, but he LOVES shellfish and veggies. My husband and I love sushi and used to eat Thai food a lot pre-surgery (we're both sleevers). I decided to try making spring rolls at home, and it's SUPER easy and really tasty, plus I get in some good Protein. For us, it's a no-cook meal, since we live in Louisiana and have easy access to excellent pre-cooked shrimp at every grocery in town.

I use the regular-size spring roll wrappers; we get them at our local grocery, but you can order them online or through Amazon if your grocery doesn't have them; you can also find them at international or Asian food groceries. Ours are actually made with wheat flour, but they come made from rice, too. They're super thin; I "guesstimate" that one wrapper has probably 40-50 calories.

Just roll up whatever you want--I julienne some cucumber, shred some carrot, slice some boiled shrimp, and spoon up some "krab salad" (that surimi stuff that mimics crab). Sometimes I use those cellophane bean noodles--all you do to prepare those is soak them in warm Water and drain thoroughly. We use some shredded lettuce or cabbage--whatever sounds good and that we have in the house--and a bit of cilantro. If you hate cilantro, just leave it out or substitute some basil or mint. Then we just wrap these up in a wrapper, seal with a wet finger, and chow down. We dip in whatever sounds good, soy sauce or my personal favorite, a mix of Thai chili sauce (it's really sweet and hot) and soy sauce. Sometimes I sprinkle the lettuce with rice wine vinegar; sometimes I forget that. :-)

Perfect post-sleeve portion--one spring roll works for me, and two for my husband. We keep the fixin's in the fridge for a quick meal/snack, and they're fast to put together.

If you live somewhere without fresh shrimp available, you can absolutely get those flash-frozen shrimp and thaw a couple at a time for use in your spring rolls. You can also use grilled chicken, if your sleeve is cool with chicken, and sometimes I sneak in a piece of avocado--ups the yummy factor!! Enjoy!

[NancyJerry 139]

Wow! Sounds awesome! Will you come cook for me?? LOL! How fun that you and your husband both have the sleeve - I mean I've got great support but to have someone who "gets it" from the inside would be awesome! Thanks for sharing!

[kamrie37 134]

sound good! so you don't cook it after you roll it?

[MegInNOLA 531]

No, you don't cook it after you roll it. There are rolls you can cook--most Thai restaurants will have some fresh spring rolls and some "fried," but the fried ones usually have cabbage, baby shrimp, maybe some ground pork, etc., and they're deep fried, which is NOT sleeve-friendly for me at least. The fresh ones are light and delicious, no cooking required--well, except the seafood, unless you're into sushi. I have actually had these with sushi-grade raw salmon, which was delicious!! But my fav is with the shrimp, which is boiled and chilled (like the shrimp for shrimp cocktail).

[dewayna 1]

They could be air-fried yo get that crunch, with almost no added fat.

[ShoppGirl 5,072]

On 9/26/2024 at 7:04 PM, dewayna said:

They could be air-fried yo get that crunch, with almost no added fat.

I don’t think The rice paper wrappers would be good in the air fryer. They make a differnt wrapper that can be baked or air fried that is typically deep fried but the rice paper one is intended to be served cold. I’ve never tried it but they are paper thin. I don’t think it would work.

[Arabesque 7,594]

In Australia spring rolls are deep fried (Chinese) which I think you call egg rolls in the US. So when I read spring rolls I automatically thought yikes deep frying. We call what you made rice paper rolls (Vietnamese). Gotta love the differences in food and ingredient names around the world. 😁

Yes, easy to make and nutritious. I’ve had ones made without the rice paper but with lettuce too. Same filling but fewer simple carbs.

[ShoppGirl 5,072]

9 hours ago, Arabesque said:

In Australia spring rolls are deep fried (Chinese) which I think you call egg rolls in the US. So when I read spring rolls I automatically thought yikes deep frying. We call what you made rice paper rolls (Vietnamese). Gotta love the differences in food and ingredient names around the world. 😁

Yes, easy to make and nutritious. I’ve had ones made without the rice paper but with lettuce too. Same filling but fewer simple carbs.

We also call the rice paper ones Summer Rolls. It’s actually pretty confusing here when you say Spring Rolls because some people assume the ones that popped in your mind and others think of the rice paper ones. But to further confuse you, egg rolls and fried spring rolls are two differnt things here 🤣

I love them too, though. I just tried them for the first time post SADI with chicken, avocado and julienned veggies (I used cucumber, carrots, red pepper and red cabbage but you can just clean out your fridge). The recipe included a super simple peanut sauce that I love. It’s quite salty but I like salt anyways and you don’t use as much of the sauce that was. It calls for 2tbsp soy sauce and one tbsp Peanut Butter just mixed. I used fresh ground peanuts so it was better for me. My husband didn’t want to try them or I would make the sauce with reduced sodium soy sauce but easier for me because I like it the other way better.

Anyways I get about three servings out of that sauce recipe because it is salty so it goes a long way. actually whipped it up to have on some leftover chicken breast last night because I didn’t feel like doing anything fancy. I also learned for anyone who hasn’t made them it’s best to prepare the bowl of fillings but only roll up what you plan to eat. They didn’t do well on the fridge. The next day they stuck to the bottom of the container and broke apart and the second day the wraps got hard and I had to remove them and eat just the filling.