Office lunch made easy

Lots of people chat with me about lunch ideas that get them away from the boring and carb loaded sandwich or wrap. These rice paper rolls might look complicated, but trust me, they are easy. Once you get a few under your belt, you’ll be trying all sorts of different combinations! The recipe today is a classic Vietnamese style rice paper roll with a satay sauce, but as I pointed out you can try anything your heart desires! This recipe will make approx 12 rice paper rolls. I find 3 plenty as a lunch time meal but if you store some wrapped in moist paper towel and in an air tight container they will keep for an extra day. I tend to make them the night before as dinner and then have a couple of left over ones for lunch the next day. If I make them same day I tend to layer ingredients straight on to the rice paper roll and this is where you can get quite creative with pomegranates, shredded carrot, cucumber and all sorts of ingredients! Traditionally rice noodles are also added but I find this too bland and chewy so I like to add lots of fresh ingredients and some sort of protein.

INGREDIENTS

Rice Paper Roll Ingredients

• 12 x 22cm rice paper roll rounds
• 1 cup Pulled Chicken, Pulled Pork or Shreeded Tofu (roast chicken, prawns or mince would also work)
• 1/2 cup Bean Sprouts (cut in half)
• 1 small red capiscum (thinly sliced)
• 1/8 Wombok thinly sliced (Chinese Cabbage)
• 1/3 cup mint leaves (fresh)
• 1/2 cup corriander leaves (fresh)
• 2 tblspoons Lime Juice (approx 1 lime)
• 1 tblspoon Fish Sauce

Sauce Ingredients

• 1/8 cup Tamari
• 1 tsp Lime Juice (simply steal a tsp from the rice paper roll recipe)
• 1 tblspoon Peanut Butter (or other nut butter)
• 1/8 – 1/4 tsp Chilli flakes depending on desired spice

Tip: For allergies omit the peanut butter, it’s still quite nice without it!

METHOD

Making the filling

1. Combine the chicken, bean sprouts, red capsicum, wombok, mint, corriander, lime juice & fish sauce in a mixing bowl until well combined. Set aside while you prepare your first rice paper roll.

Putting your rice paper rolls together

1. Place the rice paper roll on a decent sized flat and clean chopping board.
2. Splash some water onto the rice paper roll and spread around with your fingers until it soaks in (the rice paper roll will go moist and will now be pliable – you may soak them in shallow warm water if you prefer but I find this moistens them too much and they go kind of soggy).
3. Arrange 1/4 cup of mixture onto the rice paper roll in a horizontal row slightly off centre towards you. Any ingredients that have remained long, line up across ways to make the rolling process easier.
4. Fold the edges in and roll up tightly rolling away from you to enclose the filling.
5. Continue this method until all the mixture is used up. The beauty of this method is that if you don’t use all the rice paper rolls, it doesn’t matter simply store them for next time!

Satay Dipping Sauce

1. Combine ingredients in a small bowl and whisk with a small whisk or fork until the peanut butter has dissolved.
2. Take to work in a small jar for less mess, just make sure the jar has a wide enough mouth for dipping your rice paper rolls into!

That’s all there is too it! Let me know if you come up with any delicious recipes of your own or share here at the end of the blog post for everyone to enjoy! Props to taste.com which is where I got the foundation of this recipe and adapted it from.