I am always on the look out for easy, delicious (and generally nutritious) gluten free snacks. In my former, gluten, life I loved the ease and convenience of granola bars. Well, GF granola bars are either yucky, crazy expensive or SUPER hard to find. It’s rather frustrating. With that said, I have found one granola bar, which I LOVE-LOVE-LOVE (but can hardly find, because they are alway sold out). Nature’s Path has a dark chocolate chunk GF granola bar. This is the closest to my former love of granola bars. Delicious, and actually very reasonably priced. Hooray! Now, if only I could figure out when to get to the store before they are sold out! I’ve only found these little gems at ONE of my local target stores (believe me, I check ANY Target I walk into these days), so keep your eyes peeled, if you like granola bars, you’ll love these.
You’re probably wondering why the title of this post is Spring Rolls and I’ve been talking about granola bars. Well, um, excellent question. Can I say that was a little pregnancy-brain side track?
Spring (or as some people call them Summer) Rolls, I’m talking the fresh, not fried Thai appetizer. I adore spring rolls, but rarely take the time to make them. Over the weekend, I had some extra rice and a few on-hand ingredients so figured I’d see what I could concoct. Generally, I like to make spring rolls with more ingredients, but these basic ones are pretty delicious.
Start with rice paper wrappers – available in most grocery stores.
cooked rice (or rice noodles)
lime juice
rice wine vinegar
lettuce
shredded carrot
green onion
chili sauce (sriracha) – optional
I combined my cooked rice with some lime juice, rice wine, and a little bit of sriracha sauce. Soften your rice paper in warm water. Then, layer in some rice, lettuce, and shredded carrot. Roll those little buddies like a burrito. If you’re like me, your spring rolls won’t look super pretty. However, if you get all the edges pulled together, your ingredients should stay neatly tucked inside.
I have to say that my ingredient list wasn’t the tastiest spring roll combination I’ve ever come up with. It was pretty basic and somewhat bland. The sweet chili dipping sauce though made a huge difference. There are so many options when making spring rolls. Here are a few ideas off the top of my head. You can include cooked chicken or shrimp. Consider adding mango slices. Fresh mint or basil offers a nice touch. Don’t forget radishes as well. Mix-and-match ingredients to your hearts content. Let me know what you like (or what you don’t like).
Just a note, I use rice in my spring rolls because I make rice all the time, so it’s easy and faster for me than making rice noodles… however, rice noodles stay in the wrappers a little better while eating (and dipping).
Happy snacking friends.