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Spring Roll Bowls have all the flavors of your favorite fresh spring rolls without the work of rolling.  Fresh crunchy vegetables, rice noodles, tender shrimp and the best ever peanut sauce make this a flavorful and fast dinner.

Spring roll bowl with shrimp and peanut dressing

Deconstructed spring roll bowl

Many years ago, before I had kids, I liked to make spring rolls sometimes for dinner. In the spring and summer, it makes a light, cool and delicious meal – but spring rolls are pretty labor intensive, especially when you have to arrange and roll each one.  I started making these deconstructed spring roll bowls with the leftovers the next day and fell in love with how easy they were.  

Spring roll bowls with shrimp and peanut dressing.

The Best Peanut Sauce for Spring Roll Bowls

This recipe is actually the reason I worked so hard on developing my Best Peanut Sauce Recipe, and I do use a version of it here in this recipe as the peanut dressing.

The best peanut sauce for spring roll bowls

How to prepare vegetables for spring roll bowls 

For the veggies, be sure to slice them very thinly, or use a mandolin.  I used to cut the carrots into thin medallions, but then I rediscovered my food processor grating attachment and it is my new favorite thing.  It grated the carrots in about 0.3 seconds and they looked super fancy and beautiful.  If you don’t have a food processor you should get one ASAP but in the meantime you can grate the carrots on a box grater or do like I used to and slice them into thin medallions.

Ingredients for spring roll bowls Peanut sauce, cucumbers, shrimp, rice noodles, green onions, sesame seeds, carrots, salad greens, fresh basil.

How to cook shrimp for spring roll bowls

To cook shrimp, heat 1 tablespoon of canola oil in a frying pan over medium high heat. When oil is hot, add shrimp to pan and season with salt and pepper. Cook until they turn pink, about 1-2 minutes per side. Remove from heat and set aside. Shrimp cook very quickly so watch them closely.

Shrimp cooking in a sauté pan.

How to cook rice noodles for spring roll bowls

It is best to cook rice noodles according to package instructions. But if you don’t have the instructions, there are two methods for cooking rice noodles.

  1. Soak in room temperature water until soft. For the very thin vermicelli that I use here, that should take between 5-15 minutes. This method is prepared because you are less likely to overcook the noodles. Be sure to soak them until they are soft enough to eat because they won’t be cooked any more after this.
  2. Soak in boiling water – this should only take 1-2 minutes with the vermicelli noodles. When they are soft, immediately drain and rinse in cold water to stop the cooking process. The risk with using boiling water is that you can accidentally over cook the noodles and they will end up mushy, so you want to keep a very close eye on them.
Rice noodles for spring roll bowls.

Tips for making the best spring roll Bowls

  • Don’t skimp on the fresh herbs – I really like basil and mint here.
  • I like to use purple carrots sometimes for an extra splash of color.  You can use any color carrot you want.
  • If you don’t like spicy foods, start out with half a teaspoon of chili garlic sauce and then adjust to your preferences.  I use 2 teaspoons and find it to be pleasantly spicy, but that is my preference.
  • I used homemade peanut butter, so using natural will work best here.  If you use a sweetened peanut butter, you might want to adjust how much brown sugar you add to the dressing.
  • I used low sodium soy sauce.  If you use regular soy sauce this will probably be too salty.
  • Did you know that the easiest way to peel ginger root is with a spoon? 

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Deconstructed Spring Roll Salad

Prep 30 minutes
Cook 5 minutes
Total 35 minutes
Servings 4 Servings
This salad has all the flavors of a fresh spring roll without all the work of rolling them.

Ingredients 

For The Dressing:

For the Salad:

  • 1 pound Shrimp peeled and deveined,
  • 1 tablespoon canola oil
  • 4.5 ounces thin rice noodles I used half a package
  • 5 cups mixed baby greens or other lettuce
  • 3 green onions thinly sliced
  • 2 medium carrots grated
  • 1/2 cucumber cut into matchsticks
  • 1 teaspoon sesame oil for the noodles
  • Peanut Dressing see above
  • fresh mint
  • fresh basil
  • salt
  • pepper
  • black sesame seeds optional, for garnish

Instructions 

  • To prepare vegetables, thinly slice the green onions crosswise into thin medallions. Slice the cucumber into thin matchsticks. Grate the carrot or slice into thin medallions. Chiffonade the basil and mint leaves for garnish, leave some leaves whole to toss with the lettuce.
  • To cook shrimp, heat 1 tablespoon of canola oil in a frying pan over medium high heat. When oil is hot, add shrimp to pan and season with salt and pepper. Cook until they turn pink, about 12 minutes per side. Remove from heat and set aside.
  • To prepare dressing, add all dressing ingredients to a blender, and blend until smooth. If it is too thick, you can add just a little water to thin it out.
  • Prepare rice noodles according to package instructions. After draining, toss with 1 teaspoon of sesame oil to keep from sticking.
  • To put together the salad, separate the lettuce into individual serving bowls, top with rice noodles, shrimp, cucumber, carrot, green onions, drizzle with peanut dressing, and top with the basil and mint chiffonade. Garnish with black sesame seeds if desired.

Notes

*If you do not use low sodium soy sauce, adjustments will need to be made,as regular soy sauce will make this too salty.
Be sure to use gluten free soy sauce if making this gluten free!

Nutrition

Serving: 1serving | Calories: 478kcal | Carbohydrates: 42g | Protein: 32g | Fat: 21g | Saturated Fat: 3g | Cholesterol: 286mg | Sodium: 1404mg | Potassium: 514mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 8g | Vitamin A: 5780IU | Vitamin C: 22.5mg | Calcium: 210mg | Iron: 3.8mg

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

Additional Info

Course: Salads
Cuisine: Vietnamese
Did you like this recipe?Please comment, rate and share! And don’t forget to tag me on Instagram @foxandbriar AND #foxandbriar so I can see what you made!
Hello! I’m Meghan.

I am so glad that you are here! I am the recipe developer, photographer, and writer here at my blog Fox and Briar. I am a passionate, self-taught home cook and believe that most things are better homemade and that good food doesn’t need to be complicated.

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6 Comments

  1. 4 stars
    That sounds SO good! I like that you can see the Shrimp & Veggies thru the thin wrap…I, too, call them spring rolls~~I think I’ll try the dish version this week-end, light on the chili-garlic.
    Definetly peeked MY interest~?