Fried Vietnamese Spring Rolls

Recently we posted a recipe for fresh Vietnamese spring rolls and I think most of you liked it a lot. So I thought let's show you guys another variation, where you can use a lot of the same ingredients as in the previous spring roll recipe. Otherwise, those wrappers will stay in your pantry forever 🤣

If you have ever been to Vietnam, you know they take their spring roll game very seriously. All kinds of fillings and wrappers are being used to produce these flavor bombs, and they also like to add fried spring rolls to salads and noodle dishes. During my last visit in Vietnam I mainly enjoyed eating them rolled in a salad wrap with fresh herbs and a tangy/spicy diluted fish sauce for dipping purposes. So that’s what I am going to show you today: traditional fried Vietnamese spring rolls!

If you don’t feel like making this recipe’s dipping sauce, feel free to replace it with sweet chili sauce or any other dipping sauce of your liking (e.g. hoisin, sriracha-mayo). The same goes for the use of beer in this preparation, you can replace this with water. In my opinion, the spring rolls get a bit more crispy when using beer, but you can also use warm water and this will work perfectly fine. I typically serve this as an appetizer or snack, but if you make enough of them it can be the perfect Friday night dinner. Preferably accompanied with friends and drinks 😉.

Let me know what you think and for now, enjoy!

Step 1
First, we need to soak the wood-ear mushrooms and the vermicelli in cold water in separate bowls for about one hour. Drain off most of the liquid by squeezing all the water out. This step is important because we don't want too much moisture inside our egg rolls when we start frying. Then finely chop the rehydrated mushrooms.

Step 2
Now finely chop your scallions, dice your onion, and grate your carrot. Add this to a large mixing bowl with the ground meat, vermicelli, mushrooms, eggs, white pepper, fish sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, grated garlic, and ginger. Mix all ingredients well until the filling looks like in the picture below. 

Step 3
For the dipping sauce, we dissolve the sugar in the water and add the fish sauce and finely chopped chili and garlic. As simple as that! Now it is time to roll the spring rolls. add your beer to a shallow bowl and soak the wrappers for about 4-5 seconds. Place on a cutting board and add a big tablespoon of filling. Roll as tightly as possible while preventing any air pockets. repeat this step until you finished your filling. Place the spring rolls on a baking tray lined with parchment paper and make sure they don't touch each other because they can be sticky in the beginning. let this air-dry on your counter or in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

‍Step 4
The final step is frying the spring rolls. Ideally, you will do this in a deep fryer or a large pot with oil, but you can also shallow fry them in about a 1 cm layer of oil in a skillet. Either way, make sure your oil is about 180 degrees Celsius and fry until golden brown. In the deep fryer, this will take about 4-5 minutes. When shallow-frying it will take about 2 minutes per side on all 4 sides. 

‍Step 5
When all of your spring rolls are done, serve them with the dipping sauce, lettuce leaves and fresh mint leaves (or other herbs). I like to roll a spring roll with 2-3 leaves of mint in a large piece of lettuce and then dunk it in the dipping sauce. Feel free to experiment with other dipping sauces and herbs.