Gado-Gado Summer Rolls

Name: Gado-Gado Summer Rolls
Yield: 4 Servings
Ingredients: ¼ cup plus 2 Tbsp. (or more) vegetable oil; ⅔ cup unsalted dry-roasted peanuts, preferably skin-on; 2 large shallots, thinly sliced; 6 garlic cloves, thinly sliced; 2 Fresno chiles, thinly sliced; 6 Tbsp. kecap manis, divided; Kosher salt; 8 oz. firm tofu, sliced ¼" thick; 12 8" rice paper rounds; 3 cups 2" matchsticks crunchy vegetables (such as carrots, cucumber, and/or bean sprouts); ½ head of romaine lettuce, thinly sliced; 4 hard-boiled eggs, halved; Prawn crackers (for serving)

By Lara Lee

March 16, 2021

Photograph by Emma Fishman, food styling by D’mytrek Brown

This recipe for crunchy, bright vegetarian rice paper rolls from cookbook author and recipe developer Lara Lee is a cross-cultural twist on two street food icons, one from Vietnam and the other from Indonesia.

The first source of inspiration is refreshing Vietnamese gỏi cuốn, which translates to “salad rolls.” In addition to the popular street food, they’re often served DIY-style at home; guests can fill rolls to their liking from platters of wrappers, vegetables, noodles, and pork or prawns. The second is Indonesian gado-gado, a colorful composed salad with a spicy peanut dressing. The salad, considered a national dish in Indonesia, traditionally includes tempeh, tofu, vegetables, lontong, hard-boiled eggs, and emping or krupuk crackers. These fresh gado-gado rolls are Lee’s homage to both culinary traditions; wrapping the fresh ingredients of Indonesian gado-gado inside Vietnamese rice paper wrappers.

To make tight and neat rolls: Soak the rice paper rounds until they’re just flexible and take care not to overfill them.(Watch Vietnamese cookbook author Andrea Nguyen roll them like a pro here!) Perfecting your rolling technique might take some practice, but we’re using that as an excuse to make these again and again.

Recipe notes