Spring rolls are a perfect, easy plant-based lunch. They are inexpensive, vegetable forward, and also don’t take a long time to make. Simply wet a rice paper wrapper in some warm water, add your vegetables, and roll it up. Dip it in any number of sauces, and enjoy.
Another reason I love spring rolls is you can prep all of your vegetables at the beginning of the week, make a couple dipping sauces to store in the fridge, and then simply haul them out to put together at lunch. You can be eating and incredibly healthy and satisfying plant-based lunch in a couple minutes. Don’t have these exact ingredients? Doesn’t matter – you can swap in and out based on what you purchased for the week. No cabbage? Use some lettuce instead. No avocado? Swap in some tofu.
Not only that, but as you can see above you are quite literally eating the rainbow!
California Fusion Plant Based Spring Roll
Ingredients
- 4 spring roll wrappers brown or white rice
- 1/2 avocado sliced
- 1/2 cup green cabbage chopped into pieces
- 1/2 cup cucumber sliced thin
- 1/2 cup daikon radish purple used here, cut into matchsticks
- 1/2 cup carrot cut into matchsticks
- 1/4 cup low fat tofu firm tofu, cut into spears
- 1/4 cup basil leaves thai basil or sweet/Genovese
Instructions
- Warm some water and place the warmed water in the center of a large plate or dish. Submerge the rice paper wrapper in the water for a few seconds, ensuring all parts of the wrap have been dampened.
- Transfer the wrap to a dry plate.
- Add the remaining ingredients to the center of the roll in a narrow diagonal line.
- Fold two sides of the wrap over the ends of the ingredients, and then tightly roll the wrap into a tube shape (see this recipe page for visuals).
- Enjoy with dipping sauce! See notes for a link to all of our sauces, dips and dressings (try the mango dipping sauce with this roll!)
Notes
The vegetables should all be cut into long, thin slices so they are easy to wrap into this roll. The rice paper will be very thin, and it’s easy to rip with large pieces of vegetable. You can use a spiralizer or a Julienne peeler. I use this julienne peeler from OXO.
Dipping sauces for this vegan roll
There are all sorts of dips that can go with this roll. You could combine a bit of soy sauce with vinegar and chili paste for a spicy basic sauce. Or, this plant-based mango ginger dipping sauce goes perfectly with the California Fusion spring roll, and it only takes a few minutes to make in your blender.
FIND this vegan dipping sauce on this page here.
Variations and substitutions
As mentioned above, this vegan roll is incredibly easy to switch up if you don’t have all the ingredients. If you don’t have an avocado, then you can easily substitute tofu, seitan, or tempeh as the main protein. If you don’t have daikon, you can use any other radish or even jicama. Bell pepper slices would also go well in this roll.
I used brown rice spring roll wrappers for the pictured version of this recipe, but of course white rice works well too. For rice paper spring roll buying tips, consult this excellent resource on VietWorldKitchen’s website.
