Spring rolls – simply vegan & gluten free

Actually, I was looking for some alternative, gluten-free strudel option, when I came across rice paper in an Asian shop. One more reason to love Asian cuisine… Rice paper is available in many shapes and sizes, is easy to work with and also pretty versatile.
I always liked spring rolls, if only ‘Id known how easy it is to make them at home… They also make a great (even if somewhat unusual) complement to our usual Hungarian pottages.

Rice paper is made of rice flour, tapioca starch, salt and water, so it is naturally gluten free. There was no nutritional info on the packaging, so I estimated the carb content to be about 80g CH/100g. One sheet weighed approx. 6-7g, so rice paper contains approx. 5g carbs/piece. Based on its ingredients, its glycemic index should be rather high, however, stuffed with lots of crunchy vegetables, I think it can be considered a low glycemic index meal.

Ingredients for approx. 15 pieces:
15 rice papers
1 medium carrot (mine weighed 175g)
2 small spring onions (mostly the white part)
500g cabbage
1 clove of garlic
1-2 tablespoons of gluten free/tamari soy sauce
salt to taste
coconut oil for frying

1. Let’s prepare the filling first. Cut the vegetables into thin slices, or julienne, if you can. Heat one tablespoon of coconut oil, toss the pressed garlic, let it turn golden and then stir-fry the thin vegetable stripes. Be careful to fry, rather to steam them in their own moisture. Now add soy sauce and salt to taste. Stir until all the vegetables are slightly gold and crispy. (They don’t need to be done entirely, as they will be fried again in the rolls.)
2. For the actual rolling, you’ll need a cutting board to work on and a bowl of water to wet the rice papers. The papers look like this when dry:

Slide the rice papers through the water with a lazy hand gesture (this should take a couple of seconds), then set aside.

It takes approximately 30 seconds for the rice papers to soften, so they are easy to fold. on the picture below you can see, that the one on the left side is already workable, while the one on the right is still need a couple of seconds.

3. Now you can fill the rolls: I put a tablespoon of the filling on each paper.

Fold the lower third of the paper over the filling:

Now the two sides:

Finally, roll it up:

Here’s your first rice paper roll!

4. Heat coconut oil in a small skillet, approx. an inch deep. Fry both sides of the rolls: they are ready in a couple of minutes. Be careful, because they love to stick together, or even to metal kitchen tools: use wooden tools to flip them.

This is how they turned out:

Wet only as many rice papers, as you can work with simultaneously.
If the rice paper doesn’t get soft enough, don’t put it into water again, rather wait wait a few seconds and it should be OK to work with.
If it dried out, and the sides begin to break, you can wet it slightly with your hands.
And the most important note: wet rice papers stick! To everything: the rolls to each other, to the sides of the dish while frying, metal kitchen tools, etc. Don’t forget to use wooden kitchen tools.

Note: If the rolls seem stuck to the bottom of the pan when you try to flip them, you just need to be patient: thye need a couple of seconds more to fry.

Following all the cautionary notes, don’t worry, rolling rice paper rolls is not rocket science: from my first 10 rolls only one sprang a leak while frying and only once they stuck together while frying but I managed to separate them. All in all, it’s pretty simple to work with these rice papers and it’s also not absolutely necessary to fry them: you can fill them with anything you like, they make a great low carb, gluten free sandwich substitute!

The amount described in this recipe yields approx. 15 rolls. We had it with green pea pottage (recipe coming soon), but they also make a great dinner on their own. Carb content of one roll is approximately 9g CH/roll, vegetables included.

What do you think, will you give it a try?