Sweet Chilli and Soy Chicken Rice Paper Rolls
Serves: 8 rolls
Time: 30mins
Rice paper rolls are very popular in our house. If you have the rice papers on hand, they can also be a great dish to make as a pantry dinner and use up leftover veg items like red cabbage. We also had snow shoots left over from last week and while they look really cool they aren’t so practical to eat so I haven’t included them in the recipe (trust me we ended up pulling them out).
A little tip from my logical and smarty pants husband is to eat these from the top down - he watched me eat through two before making this suggestion. I don’t know why but for some reason I eat mine from the base up and everything falls apart (oh dear!).
Need a little more filling?
If you need to add some carbs then vermicelli noodles would work great in the rolls.
You can either serve them pre rolled or make it into an interactive dinner where people can roll their own.
Leftovers
Because there are no carbs in this dish, I go quite heavy on the protein to fill up, the hubby and I tend to use all the chicken, but these actually taste really yummy with tuna and mayo so lunch is the same just a bit different.
What you'll need
1/8 of a red cabbage
2 large carrots
1 red pepper
1/2 bag baby spinach
1 avocado
1/2 a bunch of coriander
1/4 bunch of mint
2 chicken breasts
8 rice papers
From the Pantry
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons sweet chilli
Optional Extra for Veggo’s
Tofu instead of the chicken
Optional Extras for Lunch
4 rice papers
2 small tins of tuna in chilli oil
1 tablespoon mayo
Feeding Four
The dinner for four shopping list would have given you an extra avocado, red pepper and chicken. You'll also want to use more soy and sweet chilli.
Prep and Cook
Marinate Chicken
Slice the chicken breasts into thin strips about finger size.
Mix the sweet chilli and soy sauce with 1 tablespoon of olive oil.
Wash the coriander and chop the roots only up nice and fine and add to the marinade.
Mix the chicken through and set aside.
Preheat oven to 180c
The frypan or the oven?
Tonight I am cooking the chicken in the oven because I'm not in the mood for mess but this chicken would fry up lovely in a hot pan with coconut oil. It will spit a little as it cooks and you would need to cook the chicken in batches but the finished result will be a more caramelised flavour.
Once the oven is hot, line an oven tray with baking paper and spread the chicken out. As much as possible, try not to have the pieces touching - a little is fine but the more space the better.
Place in the oven to cook for 15 minutes. Check the chicken is cooked through by cutting a piece in the centre of the tray in half if satisfied remove from the oven.
Prep Vegetables
Peel and finely slice carrots.
Shred cabbage.
Slice pepper very thin.
Pick the leaves of the mint and coriander.
Peel and slice the avocado into thin lengths.
Boil Water and Roll
Fill a large bowl with boiling water.
Dip the rice papers quickly into the boiling water, but the trick is not to leave them in for more than 10 seconds as you don't want them to come out soggy.
Layout flat on a surface such as a chopping board or plate and load up with fillings.
I start with the spinach, then the chicken and build the veg up on top, finishing with the herbs so that you can see them through the rice paper.
With large loaded rice paper rolls it is often easier not to fold both ends in, so all I do is I pull the bottom up over the filling, then tuck one side over and roll up nice and tight. Use your fingers to apply pressure constantly as you pull and roll at the same time.
Plate it Pretty
Serve on a large platter with some Asian dipping sauce and a little sweet chilli and soy. Any extra herbs can be used to garnish the plate.
Enjoy!
Lunch tomorrow
Drain the tins of tuna and mix well with 1 or 2 tablespoons of mayo depending on personal preference.
Use all remaining ingredients that you have to fill the rolls and top with tuna then avocado. And this time fold over both ends and roll up nice and tight.
It is a good idea to wrap your rolls in baking paper or at least lay some between each roll so that they don’t stick together.