I've been wanting to try making vegetarian sushi rolls for a long while now. When I was last at the store and saw the price of just the seaweed wrappers, I was kind of thinking I'd wait to stock up on supplies the next time I'm at the local Asian grocery store, where I already get big-ass 50 pound bags of rice. It's WAY cheaper in bulk and it lasts us about a 8 months to a year. I was going to just move on but my husband instead suggested rice wrappers used for making spring rolls. I have also wanted to make those myself, so yesterday I did.
The process took me about 2 hours to complete. I washed and grated carrots and fresh ginger, I pressed the garlic and chopped the cucumber and chives. I cooked dry rice noodles from a box, which was a delightfully fast process. It took longer for the water to reach boiling than it did to cook them. I also made the peanut sauce that was recommended on the back of the package of rice wrappers. It was cool that I already had a handful of the items needed to make it. Which means it'll be something easy to make again with stuff that tends to be in stock.
I made alterations, as these days I'm not keen on any regular consumption of meat, so I omitted the shrimp (or as my brother calls them, skrimp) and subbed out the mint as neither of us loves that flavor.
The process took me about 2 hours to complete. I washed and grated carrots and fresh ginger, I pressed the garlic and chopped the cucumber and chives. I cooked dry rice noodles from a box, which was a delightfully fast process. It took longer for the water to reach boiling than it did to cook them. I also made the peanut sauce that was recommended on the back of the package of rice wrappers. It was cool that I already had a handful of the items needed to make it. Which means it'll be something easy to make again with stuff that tends to be in stock.
I made alterations, as these days I'm not keen on any regular consumption of meat, so I omitted the shrimp (or as my brother calls them, skrimp) and subbed out the mint as neither of us loves that flavor.
The recipe I went with was this
Spring Rolls:
1/2 a package of dry, boxed Rice Noodles
4-6 leaves of Lettuce
6-8 shredded Carrots
1 package of Chives (or about 1/4 cup, chopped)
1/3 large Cucumber
1 package of Spring Roll Rice Wrappers
2 sliced Avocados
Peanut Sauce:
1 cup Unsalted Peanut Butter
1/4 cup Water
1/4 cup Rice Vinegar
1/4 cup Tamari Sauce
1/2 tbsp grated Ginger
2 cloves minced Garlic
Sprinkle top with Red Pepper Flakes
You gotta pre-cook the noodles, and I highly suggest cooking them with a bit of oil in the water. After straining the water, store them in the fridge until they're cool. They mess up the wrapping process if they're still hot or too moist.
The wrappers are small, and so about 3 of them is the size of a standard order I get from a restaurant, like Sawatdee. And Oh. My. Lawd. It is SO much cheaper to make them at home than getting them at the restaurant.
I get it, they're time consuming. Like I said, it took me about 2 hours to get them all made, but I also had never done it before, so I would likely increase my production speed in subsequent batches. Also, it should be noted that this fed both my husband and I for 4 meals, and I was not holding back on portions. Pretty sure we ate half of them yesterday for lunch and dinner and then finished them for breakfast and lunch today. That was 48 wraps, or 24 rolls per person. This means we each ate about 6 rolls each meal.
As we finished up the last of them this afternoon, we got on the topic of how much they cost to make at home so I did some math to find out. Once again I was totally blown away. I can't be the only person who thought that eating healthy was expensive, but this is yet another instance where I was totally wrong.
For context, an order of spring rolls from one of my fave places, Sawatdee, costs $7.50. That is approximately 1/2 of the amount we ate at each meal, so we each are going to need 2 orders, making our meal (before tax/tip) cost $30.
Do note that the prices listed are estimates, as many items were not used in full for this meal. For example, I did not used the entire $3 of Rice Vinegar - the recipe only calls for 1/4 cup, leaving most of the bottle left, so it's really closer to ~$0.50 worth of product consumed.
Rice Wrappers (whole package) - $3
Carrots - $2.50
Lettuce - $0.50
Chives - $3
Cucumber (1/2) - $1.50
Rice Noodles (1/2 package) - $1.50
Rice Vinegar - $0.50
Peanut Butter - $1
Tamari Sauce - $0.75
Fresh Ginger - $1
Fresh Garlic - $0.25
Red Pepper Flakes - $0.05
Avocado - $2
For a grand total of $17.55 for the food.
Each meal cost us $4.38, or $2.19 per person.
That is absurd. We either spend over $30 at a restaurant and someone else makes it for us, or I spend, like, $20 LESS to make it mah damn self.
Just sayin. Mind has been blown, yet again.
Hope everyone is having a lovely start to 2019! <3