Salad Rolls with Almond Butter Sauce : A healthy vegan finger salad!

Salad Rolls with Almond Butter Sauce are the most fragrant and healthy way to eat salad as a finger food. They are easy to make, and so much fun to eat!

With a lot of vegetables folded into rice wrappers, and dipped in almond butter sauce, this dish can be great for a party dish or for meals.

We usually eat Salad Rolls during summer when we can pick fresh herbs such as mint, basil, and cilantro right from our own garden.

However, this summer was different as we spent the entire summer traveling, we didn’t get to grow our own garden, so no fresh herbs for us to pick. Luckily, I can still get all the herbs I want locally from the farmers markets. Before they are gone for the year, I had to make sure we could eat Salad Rolls like we used to.

When we eat Salad Rolls at restaurants, they are usually served with peanut sauce. As we eat a lot of them, we always end up eating a lot of peanuts too. If you are trying to avoid peanut intake from the sauce, almonds are a much better choice.

Recently, I switched from peanut sauce to almond sauce, and guess what? It also tastes delicious. My 13-year-old daughter even asks me to pack Salad Rolls with Almond Butter Sauce for her lunch at school—and some weeks, I pack them for her twice!

To prove it’s very delicious, and why a teen child asks to have them for lunch, let’s try making them now.

Here is what you need, to make 3 generous servings:

Note: The measurements of the ingredients are approximated to guide you, but I encourage you to adjust everything according to your own liking.

For the almond butter sauce:

1. ⅓ cup (85g) more or less of almond butter.
2. 1-2 cloves of garlic
3. 1 teaspoon (4g) of finely grated ginger
4. 2 teaspoons (8g) of fresh squeezed lemon or lime juice, soy, and sugar
5. A little bit of filtered luke-warm water

For the salad rolls:

1. ½  a pack of noodles. I use brown rice noodles
2. 9 to 12 sheets of small rice paper wraps (most Asian stores have them, but you might be able to find them in the Asian section at many health food stores)
3. 1 head of lettuce or mixed salad (this time I used mixed micro greens that I can get locally)
4. ½ or a whole cucumber
5. 1 to 2 carrots
6. ½  a red onion
7. A few stems of basil, mint and cilantro
8. A little bit of fried garlic oil

How: 

1. In a medium pot, start heating the water for the noodles.
2. While waiting for the water to boil, start making the sauce. In a small bowl, combine almond butter, sugar, soy sauce, lemon juice, garlic, ginger, and water together. Mix well, and adjust the taste to your liking–set it aside.
3. When the water comes to a boil, add the noodles, followed by a teaspoon or so of good salt (optional), and cook according to the package instructions.
4. While waiting for the noodles to cook, prepare the salad, but check the noodles often (some kinds of noodles, such as brown rice, take a long time to cook). Wash and rinse all the vegetables thoroughly: start by cutting the cucumber into thin slices, grate the carrot, slice the onion, and prepare the herbs.
5. Back to the noodles. When they are cooked and rinsed, add some garlic oil to prevent them from sticking together, and to make them taste good (you can just use another good oil if you don’t have fried garlic oil on hand)
6. In the meantime, boil some water for softening the rice paper wraps. When you have all this prepared, it’s time to roll them.
7. In a flat bowl or a small frying pan, pour some hot water in, but make sure that its not too hot to touch.
8. Put a sheet of the wrapper in the water and give it a quick soak, then put the wrapper on a damp chopping board.
9. Now you can put a little bit of all the prepared vegetables on the wrapper. I like to put lettuce in first, but today I use mixed micro-greens, followed by carrots, cucumbers, onions, noodles, and herbs. When you have everything piled on the wrapper, you can roll it.
10. Cut and arrange them on a plate, and serve with almond butter sauce.
11. Enjoy!
    

    Things you need for making Salad Rolls with Almond Butter Sauce

    

    Combine all the ingredients in a bowl

    

    Mix well

    

    Ready to roll them

    

    Pile a little bit of everything on the wrapper

    

    Keep repeating ’til you have enough

    

    Brush a little bit of garlic oil when put them on top of the others

    

    Arrange them on a plate and enjoy them with almond butter sauce

I hope you find them as delicious and healthy as I do. Now you understand why even my teen asks to have them for lunch.

Have you made Salad Rolls with Almond Butter Sauce before? Please share it with me, I’d love to hear from you!