Vietnamese Noodle Salad with Spring Rolls

@DuncanLu’s authentic Vietnamese noodle salad brings the vibrant flavours of Vietnam straight to your table! This traditional Vietnamese noodle salad features handmade spring rolls packed with pork, prawns, and fresh vegetables for incredible texture and taste. The secret to this Vietnamese noodle salad is Duncan’s homemade fish sauce dressing that balances sweet, sour, salty, and spicy perfectly. Fresh herbs like mint, coriander, and Vietnamese perilla give this Vietnamese noodle salad that distinctive aromatic quality that’s absolutely essential. Complete with spring onion oil and crunchy peanuts, this Vietnamese noodle salad delivers a restaurant-quality experience at home! Perfect for when you want to explore authentic Vietnamese cuisine with guidance from someone who knows the real techniques. Subscribe for more incredible recipes from talented chefs sharing their cultural expertise!

Full Recipe: https://everydaygourmet.tv/recipes/vietnamese-noodle-salad-with-spring-rolls

Ingredients:
Spring Roll Mixture
25g rice vermicelli glass noodles
10g dried wood ear mushrooms (optional)
400g pork mince
1 tsp anchovy salt
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1½ tsp sea salt
½ tsp cracked black pepper
1½ tsp sugar
2 tsp sesame oil
400g prawn cutlets
1 medium carrot, grated
1 small brown onion, grated
250g taro, grated

Spring Roll Wrapping
1 packet of 30 large spring roll pastry
1 egg (egg wash)
500ml neutral cooking oil

Spring Onion Oil (optional)
½ bunch spring onions, finely sliced
½ tsp salt
½ tsp sugar
50ml neutral cooking oil

Dressing
3 bird’s eye chillies, de-seeded (optional)
3 cloves of garlic
1 tsp anchovy salt
5 tbsp of fish sauce
5 tbsp of apple cider vinegar
6 tbsp of sugar
150ml cold water
1 lime juiced

Other
400g rice vermicelli noodles
100g gourmet salad leaves
1 bunch mint, roughly chopped
2 bunches Vietnamese perilla, roughly chopped
1 bunch coriander, roughly chopped (optional)
2 Lebanese cucumbers, cut into small batons
1 bag (250g) bean sprouts
Vietnamese pickled carrots or 2 grated carrots
Roasted crushed peanuts (optional)

Method:
To make the spring rolls, rehydrate wood ear mushrooms and glass noodles in warm water for 20 minutes then strain, rinse well and finely slice and chop into 3-5 cm strands respectively.

In a large mixing bowl add pork mince and all dry and wet seasonings and mix well until pork mince becomes sticky then set aside.

Separate the tail third of the prawn from the main body and cut the tail third of prawn into small pieces and set aside. Chop main body of prawns until it turns into a paste-like texture then add to the mixing bowl and combine with pork mince.

Add remaining spring roll mixture ingredients into the mixing bowl and mix until well combined, then fold through prawn tail pieces.

Cut square spring roll pastry diagonally in half to form triangles. Place approximately 1½ teaspoons of the mixture at the base of each triangle (longest side). With gentle but firm pressure, fold the pastry over the mixture twice, then fold the sides in towards the center. Using your fingertips apply firm pressure and roll forward to form thin cigar-sized scrolls. Use a touch of egg wash to seal the spring rolls when you get to the end. Continue with remaining ingredients.

Store in air tight container and place in the freezer for 3 hours before frying, for best results freeze overnight.

To cook the spring rolls, deep-fry from frozen for 4-5 minutes or fresh for 3 minutes, or until golden, in cooking oil at 180°C.

For the spring onion oil, in a small saucepan bring cooking oil to smoking point. In a small bowl add the spring onions, sea salt and sugar and mix well. Pour hot oil into the bowl and mix well.

For the dressing, in mortar and pestle, crush and pound chillies, garlic into a paste then add remaining ingredients and mix well until sugar dissolves and sauce becomes slightly viscous.

Let’s make the noodle salad bowl: To boil the noodles, in a large pot of lightly salted boiling water for 8-9 minutes or until just beyond al dente then strain immediately and rinse under cold water.

In a large serving bowl place a serve of noodles, 4-5 spring rolls cut into bite-sized pieces, garnish with a small handful of lettuce leaves, chopped herbs, cucumber, pickled carrots, bean sprouts, a tablespoon of spring onion oil, crushed peanuts and dress generously with 5-6 tablespoons of dressing. Mix well and enjoy.

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Develop your prowess in the kitchen with one of Australia’s most loved cooks, Justine Schofield on Everyday Gourmet.
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If you’ve ever been to a Vietnamese restaurant, you would have tried their delicious noodle salads. I love them, particularly with the spring rolls in it. And Duncan, you’re here to show us how to make it from scratch at home. Fantastic. We definitely are. We’re going to do some pork and prawn spring rolls today in a beautiful noodle salad. So, we’ll start with the mints. It’s quite important to get the mints right. So, I’m going to just go straight into seasoning it. So, just a little bit of salt. Okay. Salt and pepper. Nothing too fancy there. Okay. A bit of sugar just to bring a bit of sweetness. We we’ll be adding vegetables in there too. So, a bit of sugar will just overemphasize that sweetness. Y some oyster sauce again. Just a bit of umami. But with spring rolls just in, we got to be careful not to add too much moisture cuz at the end of the day, we will be deep frying and we don’t want to um you know, we don’t want many explosions in our um frying. We don’t want that. Sesame oil there. A bit more umami here. Can I please have the anchovi salt there, Justine? Yes. Now, tell me about this. You sell this online. Yeah, that’s right. So this is from FW. This is like the Mecca of fish sauce. Um so this it under goes a 12 month fermentation process. So it actually takes us about 18 months to to get it to Australia. So here we go. Straight in like that. So lots of you mom here. It’s an intense smell, but it just gives such a unique flavor to your spring rolls. What else do you use this for? So I love it in vegetables. You know, obviously seafood, but anything that you can stew, braze. My key tip for using the anchov salt is it needs a little bit of heat. So that unlocks that flavor, gets rid of that fermenting funk, and then it just releases all that umami that we all love. Now I’m going to start chopping these gorgeous mushrooms. What are these called? So these are wood ear mushrooms. They usually come dehydrated. We’ve hydrated them here for about 15 minutes. Um such a wonderful feeling. That is and that’s exactly right. You know, the reason why I love these in spring rolls is it brings a nice texture to the spring roll. It’s all about textures with the spring rolls. And how did you want me to chop these? Roughly chopped is just fine. That’s it. Beautiful. And so what is the consistency we’re after with the meat? Yeah, good question. So with spring rolls mixture, we want it nice and bouncy. In a way, it kind of binds everything together. Nice one. You can see here that pork mint is starting to come together. I’m really vigorously mixing this. Yeah, we want it quite gluey. Okay, so with the prawn, we’re going to treat it two ways here. We’ve got the tail third and then we’ve got the main body. Okay, you can separate those for me. We’re going to use that main body and turn it into almost like a paste or a mousse that will intertwine with our bouncy pork mints to create another texture. Fantastic. Okay. And the tail thirds, don’t throw that away. Make sure you chop it up in into small chunks. So when you’re biting through the spring roll, you see these beautiful, you know, delicious chunks of Australian prawns. Fantastic. All right, I’ll just give this a little blend until it’s quite sticky. Yeah, perfect. Yep, that’s it. [Music] Yep, that’s it there. Pass that to me. I’ll pop it straight in here. Thank you. Look at that. See, straight away we’re going to move that into there. You can see it’s already sticky. You see that? Yeah, absolutely. Okay, we’ll mix that in. And then I just roughly chop them. Yeah, just roughly chop the meat. There’s two things you can do. You can pop those chunks in and fold it through. But sometimes if you don’t want the guess work, I usually separate them. Just put them to the side and as I’m rolling, I’ll add one or two. Oh, that’s great. So I know for sure no one’s going to get short of some prawns. Good idea. So we’ll pop them over here. Yeah, go for that. Okay, great. All right, that’s looking right where I want it there now. So I’m going to go in with some fresh uh vegetables now. So this is the onion. While I get the rest of this in, could you please grate some taro for me? All right. So, probably half of that will be all right. So, taro is a beautiful vegetable in this. Yeah. So, what’s the the taro going to bring to this? So, it’s going to give an element of creaminess. Okay. So, as you can see as you’re grating it, it’s bring all this milky sap from that natural taro. Um, but also with spring rolls, we’ve got to be careful with again moisture. So, the taro will assist in absorbing any excess moisture and that’s what the noodles will do as well. That’s a clever idea to add taro to some spring rolls. So, how’s that? Is that enough? Oh, yeah. We’ll go with that. That’s perfect. Thank you. Yep. Just toss it straight in when you’re ready. There we go. I’ll just keep mixing away in with some carrot. And I guess every Vietnamese family does their spring rolls differently, right? Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. Every every family does it different. Some people don’t have prawns. Some people do pork and chicken. I love spring rolls. Just any spring roll. But when they’re freshly made with love, you can taste the difference, can’t you? Yeah. You really can’t beat a homemade spring roll. Absolutely. Okay. So, some just some rice noodles. Some rice noodles again to absorb the moisture. And then the last thing we’re going to finish off here, Justin, is your beautifully chopped woody mushrooms. Toss them in. We’re going to fold that through all that texture. Look at that. And that’s exactly where you want it. The mixture is kind of gluey, kind of sticky, but it’s not loose. Okay? Make sure it’s not loose. If you think it is loose, just keep mixing. I promise you, it will come together like glue. I think it’s really nice that you really emphasize on that tip of making sure that mixture is not too wet. It needs to be quite dry and adding ingredients to absorb any of that liquid. So, the taro and the noodles. All right, let’s talk spring roll wrappers. I’ve just been covering them with a tea towel so they don’t dry up. So, what you’ve done there is perfect. So, we want to peel them. And always make sure you are covering them with a bit of a tea towel cuz they do dry up quite quickly. Now, this is something you can do at home with the kids. So, if you have young kids at home, please give this a go. They’ll love it. Especially the peeling of the spring roll wrapper themselves. My son’s My son’s four. He loves it. Like, you can see him just salivating from from focus just from when when when he’s trying peeling the the wrappers. Peeling the wrappers. That’s right. That’s the job that I don’t like to do. So, maybe I’ll get my little one to do that. You don’t tell them that though, do you? Exactly. Exactly. Okay. So, I’ve just cut it in half diagonally there. So, we’re just going to separate that. So, I’m going to pass you one. We’re going to wrap this together. Does that sound all right? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So, pointed to the top. So, point away from yourselves. Okay. So, what I’m going to do here, I’m also going to slice the ends off here. Okay. And I’ll show you why a bit later on, but I’m going to slice that end off. You want to slice your corners off. Can do. And now, don’t don’t throw these away. These are still quite good at the end of the day. It’s what is it? It’s pastry. So, you can actually fry them up just before you fry your spring rolls. You can add it to your noodle salad for a bit of extra texture. Okay. I’m not all about wasting that, that’s for sure. I’m all about saving. Okay. So, there we go. Now, you want about a teaspoon to a teaspoon and a half of this mixture right on the bottom there. With wrapping spring rolls, it’s there. It’s very similar to wrapping rice paper rolls. Okay. And the technique or the analogy I like to use is it’s like cradling a bird. Cradling a bird. Yeah. So, you want to wrap you want to wrap it with enough pressure that you don’t want the bird to fly away, but not too much pressure that you’re going to hurt the bird. That’s lovely. That’s the best way to explain it. So, we want to roll it first here. Okay. Up like so. Now, what we want to do as we’re rolling, we want to distribute the pastry evenly across the entire spring roll. So, we’re not left with like a dense bit of pastry. Yep. Okay. So, what we’re going to do next, we’re going to roll one side in. Roll one side in. Yep. Yep. Pressure. Bring that pressure. Roll it around. Roll again. Okay. Yep. And because we’ve cut those ends off, you can see when I’m rolling across, I’m not getting too much flapping on the sides. Oh, that’s a great little tip. Okay. So then otherwise that would just burn when you fry them. And then just keep rolling up. Put a bit of egg wash in there. Mhm. I’ll do yours. There we go. And egg wash is quite important here. You won’t get away with just using a bit of water. Um you can use water for dumplings, but for spring rolls, please use an egg wash. For those with an allergy, you can use a cornstarch or a potato starch slurry. Y. And then you just kind of roll it again. Roll it again. And there we go. Ready to the front. Mine needs a little bit more work. Too bad. That’s pretty good. And I love that they’re little because they’re going into a salad. So you can have lots of little spring rolls in the salad. Nice one, Duncan. Let’s make a few more. Let’s do it. [Music] So, we’re going to fry the spring rolls now. I’m going to dunk a few of these guys in just to a bit of neutral cooking oil. Okay. Ah, perfect temperature. Yeah. 180 is what you’re looking for. Mhm. Now, with the spring rolls, you can freeze them beforehand, and I recommend that. Yes. This is such a great idea. You’re saying your family together will make at least 100 in one batch. Yeah, definitely. When you’re heading down to the supermarket, where are your spring rolls? In the freezer aisle. So, put them in the freezer before you fry them. It allows us to to cook them for a little bit longer. Yes. Giving off a more crispier result. While that’s frying, if you could really help me out and make my nukem dressing. Um just in a mortal and pestle, just crush um some chilies and some garlic for me. Perfect. If you don’t like a hot, feel free to deceed it. Okay. Um but I like a bit a bit of spice in it. So just crush it well. And that will give the nukem a nice red glow to it as opposed to looking a bit bleak. I reckon I think by using the mortar and pestle, you also get a nice intense flavor. So once that’s pounded, what go in with a bit of vinegar acid, balance the vinegar with a bit of sugar, okay? Some fish sauce and a splash of cold water. And I like to not use hot water to dissolve the sugar cuz I find that natural agitation of it creates a more viscous sauce. Very good. [Music] All right, our gorgeous spring rolls. They’ve finished cooking. They’re still lovely and hot. And then we’ve made this gorgeous nocam sauce. I reckon it’s time to put it together. What do you think? Absolutely. Okay, so rice vermma chili noodles. Yes. A bit of gourmet leaves. Some Vietnamese pickled carrot. So the pickled carrot gives it that extra zing. Okay. Bit of freshness. And so what do you pickle it in? Okay. So the it’s a very simple solution of sugar, salt, and vinegar. And it’s a fresh pickle. Okay. So you don’t want to keep it there for too long. Okay. Still crunchy. Yeah. Still crunchy. Correct. And we’ve got the recipe for that online when you check out this full recipe. Cucumber. Okay. Fresh cucumber. So it’s adding so much freshness now. You can see what’s happening. All these flavors are building and it’s all going to offset the flavor of those those anxious spring rolls. This is why Vietnamese food is so popular because it is so fresh, so healthy too. And lots of variation with the herbs and the different vegetables that you add to it. Um, mint, throw it in. Mint, just pick it and throw it in. I’ve got some coriander there as well. And the thing about the Vietnamese herbs is go with what’s in season. Get what you can. Um, and if you can get basil, get basil. If you can get pilla leaf, get pill leaf. With this, you know, just kind of I’m just going to grab a pair of scissors and just kind of chop it in. Oh, I like that. That looks very good. And smell that. That is the perfume of Vietnam right there. So, we’re going to um really bring the the flavor to it. Now, bring that beautiful nuke mom over here. And then if you want to just ladle and you want to be quite generous with it. I reckon about four ladles of that there. Look at that. Go. One more. Beautiful. You can always serve some more on the side, too. Oh, absolutely. For people that love a bit more zest, zingy flavor, they can always add more. And what we’re going to do, we’re just going to simply transfer that to the platter. Oh, the smell. It smells great. Get it all. Don’t leave any passengers behind. Look at that. All right, that looks good. Take that away from you, Duncan. Perfect. Now, we’re almost ready to garnish. You want to pop on some peanuts? Sure. Sprinkle the peanuts on there. Lovely. There we go. And then a bit of a spring onion oil. That just brings added fragrance. And if you want to get fancy with this spring onion oil at home, you can do it actually with um pork l. So render your pork l off and then bring it to boiling point and then pour it over your spring onions. But neutral cooking oil is just fine as well. It’s very traditional. Beautiful. Okay. Okay. Is that enough? Yep. That’s perfect. Lovely. I love that. All right. Now, I’m just going to grab some spring rolls. At home, what we do is we literally just cut the spring rolls in half. All right. And look at this. Yum. Look at that. That is the perfectly fried spring rolls. Well, Justine, thank you, Duncan. I do love when you go to a Vietnamese restaurant and you order this salad. Sometimes you get the spring rolls and you can also add on top of that some grilled barbecue pork. What else? There’s grilled barbecue pork. um grilled pork which is like a marinated pork belly that they do over charcoal. So good. It really is. This is real street food too. You can find that on the streets in Vietnam. Maybe we can squeeze one more. Hey, what do you go on? There we go. So good. Well, I’ve got my bowl ready. Make sure I get all of the good stuff, which is all of it. Get those spring rolls in there. There’s so much texture as you go through this. You can see bit of crunch, a bit of chew, and then that flavor just Wow, it’s so good. I feel like I can’t go and eat at my local Vietnamese restaurant anymore cuz your spring rolls are better. Thank you. That’s a huge compliment. Thank you. They really are that good. And now that I have the recipe, I’m going to do exactly what you do, which is roll a big batch with the family, get them in the freezer, so when you want to make this delicious salad, you can make it with ease. Vietnamese food. It is simply the best. And Duncan is one of the best Vietnamese cooks I know. Cheers. Thank you so much. My pleasure. Enjoy. [Music]