Spring Rolls with Peanut Sauce

Fresh Spring Rolls with steamed shrimp, avocado, shredded cabbage, carrots, and a delicious homemade peanut sauce for dipping! This fun appetizer recipe is perfect for making and sharing with friends and family! 

Back in 2014 when I first shared this recipe for Spring Rolls, I was on a massive fresh Spring rolls kick of epic proportions. 

My obsession got to the point where I had to level with myself. “Okay, Julia. You’re spending quite a pretty penny on spring roll takeout. How about you learn how to make them at home?” I said to myself. 

So I began my journey.

Since I had never made spring rolls, nor did I really know what they are made out of, they seemed very enigmatic to me. How does the roll come to be? Why are they so mysterious and sexy? 

I did some googling and a great deal of wandering around my local grocery store. After gathering my ingredients and watching a couple of YouTube videos, whipping out the enigma rolls was a cinch. 

Mystery: solved. Hunger: satisfied. Spring roll OD: affirmative.

Not to be confused with fried spring rolls or egg rolls, fresh spring rolls (also known as salad rolls or fresh rolls) involve no frying (or oil) and plenty of fresh ingredients. 

Once you get the hang of it, making spring rolls is fairly straightforward and easy. Not to mention, fun!

I love making them with my husband using a variety of different additions to create loaded spring rolls as an entree. 

The most challenging part about preparing spring rolls is handling the rice paper wrappers. But no sweat if this is your first time! I have a photo tutorial and a video showing you how to make spring rolls to eliminate the guesswork.

Let’s chat about your must-haves for this recipe. All of them can be found at a regular local grocery store, Asian market, or online.  

Basic Ingredients for Spring Rolls:

Spring Roll Wrappers: Used to wrap the spring roll ingredients into one delicious bundle, we need rice paper wrappers.

Most brands of rice wrapper are made out of tapioca starch and rice starch. They come dry in the shape of a circle with small patterns on them.

Great news for my gluten-free friends! Fresh roll wrappers are naturally gluten-free, making these Spring rolls gluten-free as well.

Rice wrappers come in various sizes with one standard size and also larger sizes to make big spring rolls.

Vermicilli Rice Noodles: These strange little guys come dehydrated and are made out of beans or rice.  You cook them the same way you would pasta. These are the funky fresh noodles you find inside your spring rolls.

Steamed Shrimp: Most spring rolls come with steamed shrimp inside, unless otherwise specified. Pick up pre-steamed shrimp from the seafood counter of your local grocery store to save time!

Many local restaurants here offer avocado rolls, swapping the shrimp for avocado or sometimes even sauteed shiitake mushrooms or chicken.

Be sure to pick whatever hearty ingredient you know you’ll love.

Fresh Herbs: Classic fresh rolls often include fresh herbs like fresh basil and/or fresh cilantro and fresh mint. I prefer using just Thai basil leaves, but you can easily add cilantro too if you like it. 

Fresh Vegetables: While fresh veggies aren’t mandatory, I like adding them for extra crunch and some nutrients.

My favorites are grated carrots, shredded red cabbage and avocado. Many people use bean sprouts, red bell pepper, butter lettuce, pieces of cucumber, or green onions too. 

I find this combination of ingredients makes a fresh tasting spring roll with a variety of textures and subtle flavors.

I make my peanut sauce a little differently than a traditional recipe for peanut sauce. Let’s discuss the ingredients, as each one serves an important purpose.

Ingredients for Peanut Sauce:

Creamy Peanut Butter: The star of the show here! Delicious peanut sauce is made using creamy peanut butter. I use natural peanut butter but regular peanut butter that has been sweetened works too.

Full-Fat Canned Coconut Milk:  Full-fat canned coconut milk gets mixed with the peanut butter to form a rich and creamy sauce.

Be sure to use full-fat coconut milk from a can (not a carton, and not light coconut milk) for the best flavor and consistency. You can also add sesame oil for sesame flavor and more richness.

Liquid Aminos: Bringing some umami flavor to the peanut sauce, we need liquid aminos or soy sauce. If you have fish sauce on hand, feel free to add a small amount in, too.

For soy-free, use coconut aminos.

Pure Maple Syrup: Bringing sweetness to the sauce, we need some form of sweetener. I like using pure maple syrup because it promotes a smooth texture (versus a gritty texture) and keeps the sauce refined sugar-free.

If you prefer sweet peanut sauces, keep adding maple syrup until it reaches your desired taste.

Chili Garlic Sauce: One of my must-haves for Asian-inspired cooking!  I use it for stir fry, and all sorts of Asian sauces. It adds a great deal of flavor and a little kick.

I add chili garlic sauce to the peanut sauce for some delicious flavor. Skip it if you don’t typically cook with it.

If you have hoisin sauce on hand, you can use it for dipping as well.

Now that we’re experts on the simple ingredients for spring rolls, let’s make them!

How to Make Spring Rolls:

Prepare the Sauce:

In a small bowl, stir together all of the ingredients until well-combined. Taste the sauce for flavor and add more pure maple syrup, or some rice vinegar for added sweetness or acidity.

Set aside (or refrigerate) until ready to use. If the sauce thickens up substantially, you can add a small amount of water to it in order to get it to your desired consistency. The goal is for the dipping sauce to be thick but still dippable.

Make the Spring Rolls:

Bring a small pot of water to a boil, then remove it from the burner.

Add the vermicelli rice noodles and allow them to sit for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally (or follow the package instructions).

Strain the noodles, put them in a bowl, and refrigerate until cool. The noodles will stick to each other as they sit and cool down – this is normal.

Slice the cooked shrimp down the center lengthwise and cut in half so that they lay flat in the spring rolls instead of puffing out.

Add warm water to a wide-mouth saucepan or large bowl. The water should not be so hot that you can’t touch it, but it needs to be warm. Lay one spring roll skin (wrapper) flat on the warm water just until wet.

Place it on a flat surface (such as a plate or piece of parchment paper).

Lay three to four shrimp halves on the rehydrated wrapper.

Next, add your desired amount of vermicelli noodles, one basil leaf (or cilantro or mint), shredded carrot, purple cabbage, avocado slices, and any other add-ins you fancy.

Wrap the stuffing just as you would a burrito. First, fold the bottom of the wrapper up toward the center of the ingredients.

Fold in the sides of the spring roll. Finally, fold down the top of the wrapper, sealing up the spring roll.

Repeat for the remaining ingredients.

Serve with peanut sauce for dipping, and enjoy!

How Long Do Spring Rolls Keep?

Spring rolls are best when served fresh. While you can save them for up to 24 hours after preparing them, I recommend only making the amount that you are planning on consuming.

If you do have leftover summer rolls, wrap them tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 24 hours.

Spring Roll Tips:

The only tricky part about making this fresh spring roll recipe is hydrating the dehydrated rice wrappers.  

You need to dunk the wrappers in hot water, but they rehydrate very quickly, so you pretty much skinny dip them. 

In, out. Bang boom. 

For this process, I heat water in a wide-mouth shallow saucepan on the stove until boiling, then allowed it to cool enough to be able to touch the water.

I take one wrapper at a time and quickly wet the whole circular edge. I then lay the wrapper flat on the surface of the hot water for a split second so that the middle rehydrates too.

I am then able to lift it out without it collapsing the wrappers.  

The wrappers will collapse or fold over on themselves if you leave them in water for too long. 

Lay the rehydrated rice paper on a piece of parchment paper sitting on a cutting board. Stuff it with the fillings and wrapped it up.

That’s it. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. 

Let’s be honest: while spring rolls are great and everything, they’re really a fabulous caravan for peanut sauce. It’s all about the peanut dipping sauce! Which is the holy mother of all sauces in my peanut loving experience. 

If you love delicious finger foods like fresh rolls, also try out these delicious appetizers!

Explore More Appetizer Recipes:

• Air Fryer Steak Bites  
• Sweet Potato Rounds with Herbed Ricotta and Walnuts 
• Cream Cheese Stuffed Baby Bell Peppers  
• Bang Bang Shrimp 
• Gluten-Free Crab Cakes  

Fresh spring rolls for dinner!

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