Shrimp Summer Rolls with Spicy Peanut Sauce.

Rice paper wraps filled with red cabbage, cucumber, carrot, cilantro, Thai basil, mint, crushed peanuts and shrimp – or lobster served with a spicy peanut sauce and lime wedges.

This is one dish I could eat every single day. It’s so fresh so light and jammed packed with flavor.

My love for fresh spring rolls, also known as summer rolls, began in college at one of my favorite Boston Vietnamese restaurants, Pho Pasteur. I would go there at least twice a week in college and grad school because those fresh spring rolls were so cheap and so good – and you could make your own with mint, carrots, tofu or shrimp, rice vermicelli and lettuce. They were served with peanut sauce and hoisin sauce for dipping. They were so crisp, fresh and packed with flavor.

And my love for these fresh summer rolls continues decades later. So much so, that when I was pregnant with Lucca, I would beg Adrian to bring me home fresh summer rolls from Market Basket each night when he got home from work. That was my only real pregnancy craving, but it was very strong!

Making your own fresh spring rolls is easy. The most time consuming part is washing and chopping all the fresh veggies. Then you’ll assemble the rolls by dipping the rice paper wrappers in warm water, then layering the shrimp, brown rice and veggies on top, then wrapping the rolls up like you would a burrito.

We serve these fresh shrimp summer rolls with a homemade peanut sauce.

We always serve our rolls with a homemade peanut sauce. No store-bought peanut sauce has ever come close to homemade and the homemade version is so easy to make – why bother finding a substitute. In addition to using this spicy peanut sauce as a dipping sauce for these spring rolls, it makes a great dipping sauce for pan fried or baked tofu.

As for the spiciness of the peanut sauce, that comes from the sriracha, so adjust the amount you use based on your heat tolerance.

Make these rolls according to your likes and what you have on hand.

These fresh rolls are a little different each time we make them. Sometimes we use shrimp, sometimes tofu. And here, I had some leftover lobster meat, so we used half shrimp half lobster. Sometimes we add avocado for creaminess. Normally we’ll use both cilantro and mint (love the combo) other times we use just one or the other – and this year we have Thai basil growing in the garden, so I added that to the mix.

Oftentimes too we will add rice vermicelli (rice noodles) which is traditional to these Vietnamese summer rolls, but you can also use sushi rice, brown rice (we used that here), etc. The bottom line is, personalize these fresh spring rolls depending on what you like (veggies, herbs, protein) and what you have on hand.

Everyone can make their own fresh spring rolls.

The best part about making the fresh spring rolls at home? It makes for a fun hands-on dinner – everyone assembles their own, adding what and how much they want of each ingredient. Also, if you have a vegetarian or vegan at your table or other dietary restrictions, each guest can construct their summer rolls according to their dietary preferences. And, because you need to make your own rolls, it forces you to slow down when you eat because you’re making them as you go.

You can also assemble these summer rolls a few hours ahead of time, if you prefer. Just don’t assemble more than a few hours ahead, because the rice paper wrapped become stiff as time goes on.

How gorgeous are these ingredients?

These fresh rolls make a great dinner or appetizer. We typically have them for dinner, but at Vietnamese restaurants, they serve as more of an appetizer.

Here’s how to make these Shrimp Summer Rolls:

PIN these Shrimp Summer Rolls for later:

Looking for more easy shrimp recipes?

Grilled Asian Shrimp Sliders

Blackened Shrimp Tacos

Buffalo Shrimp Sliders

This recipe was first published on January 21st, 2015, but has been updated with new images.