Vietnamese Summer Rolls

Cooking new foods is an invigorating process for me. I feel like I always get stuck in a rut with dinner, so finding new recipes and actually making them is a big step. This recipe for Vietnamese Summer Rolls I pulled from Pinterest, and literally had zero idea how they would turn out. I've never done any kind of roll or wrap before, but this one seemed easy enough to replicate. 

Ingredients for the rolls:

Handful of lettuce

Cilantro

Carrots

Rice sticks

Chopped mango (I used mango salsa)

Steak (the recipe didn't call for this, but I thought it'd be a nice addition)

Rice paper

Mint (the recipe calls for this, but I did not use it)

1. Soak the noodles in boiling water for 3 minutes or until soft. 

2. Cook steak (or meat of your choice in sesame oil)

3. Chop lettuce, cilantro and carrots

4. Dip the rice paper in water and soak for a few seconds. Dry off.

5. Put the cilantro, lettuce, noodles, meat, carrots and mango salsa on the first third of the wrap.

6. Fold over the end closest to you (where the ingredients are), fold in each side, then roll.

7. If you wanted to bake or fry the roll at this point, you could. However, eating them raw is great. And better for you. 

Ingredients for the dipping sauce:

4 tbsp soy sauce

4 tbsp warm water

1 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp rice vinegar (I used white wine since I didn't have rice vinegar on hand)

Ground ginger and/or garlic

Red pepper flakes

1. Mix all ingredients together. Make sure the sugar dissolves in the mix.

I highly recommend a dipping sauce of some sort (even if you don't use this one). The flavors are a little bit bland, although the mango salsa kicked it up a little bit. I really liked this dipping sauce, and you could probably do any variation of these ingredients, or any of your choice. 

I loved making this as it gave us a needed break from baked chicken, tacos, and spaghetti. They would be great for an appetizer at a party, or as part of a bigger meal. I really loved them, and hope you'll give these a shot! Here are some iPhone pictures of my ingredients, but I'll replace them with real pictures once I get them on my computer.