Asian fried spring rolls are one of my favorite food. Spring rolls are a large variety of filled, rolled appetizers or dim sum found in East Asian, South Asian, Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian cuisine. The name is a literal translation of the Chinese chūn juǎn (春卷 ‘spring roll’).
In Chinese cuisine, spring rolls are savoury rolls with cabbage and other vegetable fillings inside a thinly wrapped pastry and are usually eaten during the spring festival in mainland China, hence the name. Meat varieties are also popular such as with pork, chicken or shrimps. Every culture makes their own variety of ingredients which make this appetizer so diverse and special.
My recipe is with chicken, but you can replace that with something else or just stay with a delicious vegetarian bite. If the latter, prepare with more vegetables and vermicelli.
Each time, I make a batch of unfried rolls and freeze them in for a next snacking moment. This would save me a lot of prep-time when I’m craving for an Asian crispy fried spring roll 😊
Cooking time: approx. 2hrs and serves ~15 rolls, including cool off time.
Tip:
- Make a batch and freeze unfried spring rolls in the freezer. You can fry frozen rolls easily and it taste like freshly made.
- Buy your dipping sauce or make it homemade: spicy sweet chili, soy sauce & rice vinegar or Vietnamese nuoc cham (fish sauce).
Ingredients & Tools
- 250gr chicken (thigh) filet or ground chicken meat
- 8-10x shitake mushroom
- 2x garlic clove
- 2x medium size winter carrots
- 4x stalk spring onion
- 1–2 chili, depends on if you like a spicy punch to it
100gr or 1 piece rice vermicelli, you can buy this in an Asian store. - 1x egg white
- Seasoning: sesame oil, soy sauce, pepper, salt
- Optional: romaine lettuce to wrap spring rolls for a refreshing taste
- Sweet chili sauce for dipping
Spring roll pastry sheets ~20x20cm, you can buy this frozen in an Asian store. Unfreeze the pack and try splitting the pack in batches or in half. Use 1 batch and put the rest back in the freezer for the next time.- 0,5 – 1 litre sunflower oil, depends how big your deep fry pan is. No need to fill it up, you just need a layer for about 5 cm up from the bottom.
- 1 big bowl
- Grater for carrots (thin slice grater)
- 1 big frying pan
- 1 big pan to deep fry
- Frying plier or long chop sticks
- Sieve
- Deep bowl and kitchen paper
- To keep extra spring rolls in the freezer, required: airtight bags or box and baking paper.
What to do?
- ————- Soften the vermicelli ————-
- Break the vermicelli in ~4cm length and soften it in hand warm water until it gets a little bit soft. Then drain it out in a sieve.
- ——–Cut ingredients & Pan fry ——–
- Cut the chicken filet in very thin sliced pieces (simpler way is to use ground chicken meat) and put in the bowl. Personally, I like to use chicken thy because its more tender.
- Season the chicken with a sprinkle of soy sauce, sesame oil, pepper and salt.
- Chop mushrooms in thin slices. Put in the bowl.
- Mince 2 garlic cloves. Put in the bowl.
- Grate 2 carrots. Put in the bowl.
- Slice the spring inion and put in the bowl.
- Optional: slice the chili very thin and put in the bowl including the seeds.
- Mix all ingredients in the bowl and add a pinch of salt.
- Pan fry all ingredients on medium heat until the chicken is cooked. Then switch off the heat.
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- Mix the vermicelli in the pan to make it softer by the heat.
- Let the ingredients cool off in the pan.
- When its cooled down, scoop the ingredients back in the big bowl.
- ————- Start rolling & Heat the oil ————-
- Beat 1x egg white.
- Heat the sunflower oil at the lowest stand.
- Take a sheet, put a layer of ingredients close to a corner and start rolling towards to the opposite corner. Important is to roll the ingredients tight in the sheet and there should be no empty spaces in between. Use the egg white as glue by closing the sheet end. Watch the video here on how to roll a spring roll.
- Storing spring rolls in the freezer: layer the rolls on a baking sheet with at least ½ cm distance from each other, the sheets should not touch each other. When you lay an extra layer on top, put a baking sheet between the layers. This is to avoid spring rolls sticking on each other.
- Put a kitchen paper sheet in a deep bowl. This is to drain out the oil after frying.
- Heat the oil up until you see little bubbles in the oil. Lower the heat stand a little bit, the oil must not overboiling.
- Gently put the spring rolls one by one in the oil pan. Do not fill the pan full as you need some space in turning the spring rolls with a frying plier or chop sticks.
- Fry the spring rolls until the sheet is hard and light brown, approx. 3min each side.
- Take the spring rolls out of the pan and let it drain upright in the deep bowl
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- Leave it for 3-5 min and layer the spring rolls flat on a plate.
- ————- Ready to Eat ————-
- Dipping sauce, most simple is to have a bottle of sweet chili sauce at home.
- Wrap a spring roll in a lettuce leaf, dip it in the sauce and bon appetite.