Chicken Spring Rolls with Peanut Dip
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Want to learn how to make easy chicken spring rolls (chicken summer rolls) that are fresh and rolled in rice paper? Check out our pictures and realize homemade spring rolls are super easy to make! These are perfect for parties and healthy meals. They’re super easy to make and just as good as a restaurant. Our recipe was originally published in 2018 and continues to be a reader favorite.
What are Chicken Spring Rolls with Rice Paper?
Now to be clear, these are not the deep fried ones. These are the fresh rice paper wraps with raw veggies and herbs. If you love fresh spring rolls and love eating them, you’ll have a blast making them homemade! So many folks want to know how to roll fresh spring rolls and always think it’s complicated or way too hard to manage. With a bit of planning and prepping by cutting up some veggies, you can have a feast with these chicken spring rolls. If you don’t like chicken then not a problem! This recipe is totally versatile and the possibilities are endless when it comes to the fillings.
Video: Chicken Spring Rolls Recipe
How to Make Spring Rolls Recipe
Check out the recipe box below for all the detailed step by step photographs. These are very helpful to visually see how to work with rice paper.
- Dip the rice paper wrappers in warm water for about 5 seconds. Don’t over-soak the wrappers because this will tear the delicate rice paper. This makes the wrapper very flimsy, soft and hard to manage. When you dip the rice paper, it should still be slightly firm and still hold it’s shape.
- By the time you layer all your fillings, the rice paper will have become softer and perfect texture for rolling.
- Layer the filling on the 1/3 part of the rice paper closest to you. Leave enough free rice paper space to allow you to roll. Don’t overcrowd the rolls, don’t be a filling-hoarder and please don’t make them into “burritos”. If you add too much filling, you’ll tear the delicate soft rice paper and you’ll have a bad day. Let’s not do that. Make this experience fun by starting small with the fillings. Less is more people!
Favorite Spring Roll Ingredients and Tools:
It can sometimes be hard to find good spring roll ingredients and tools. Here’s some of the favorites:
Three Ladies Rice Paper Wrappers – Love these wrappers. Easy to work with. Consistently one of the best wrappers we’ve found.
Rice Paper Wrapper Water Bowl – The perfect bowl for dipping the rice paper at the table. These have been life changers when it comes to our spring roll parties. Easy for everyone to dip and takes up so much less table space.
Three Ladies Rice Noodles – One of our favorite dried rice noodles. Perfect for spring roll fillings.
Flying Lion Fish Sauce – This has been our house fish sauce for decades. Great stuff! We’ll use it to make our dipping sauces as well as marinades.
Red Boat Fish Sauce – 100% all natural first press extra virgin Vietnamese fish sauce. A solid craft fish sauce producer.
Koon Chun Hoisin Sauce – Our house favorite hoisin sauce. Great flavor. We use it to make a dipping sauce for spring rolls.
Chicken Spring Rolls Recipe with Peanut Dip
Ingredients
for the spring rolls
- 2 pounds (907 g) boneless skinless raw chicken , or use pre-cooked chicken that's sliced in strips
- 3 Tablespoons (45 ml) grape seed oil or vegetable oil
- 1 Tablespoon (30 ml) soy sauce or fish sauce (use Tamari for gluten free)
- 2 teaspoons (10 ml) sesame oil
- 3 cloves (3 cloves) garlic , minced
- fresh basil , mint or other herbs
- fresh lettuce , chopped or torn in small pieces
- carrots , celery, cucumbers, daikon radish or bell peppers, cut into thin strips
- rice paper , about 8 inches in diameter
for the Peanut Dip
- 1/2 cup (138 g) Hoisin
- 1/4 cup (65 g) Peanut Butter
- 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml) sesame oil , or to taste
- 2 teaspoons (10) rice vinegar , or to taste
- 1 teaspoon (5 ml) fresh lime juice , or to taste (optional)
- chili hot sauce or Sriracha Sauce (optional)
- 1/2 cup water approximately, or to preferred dip consistency
Instructions
- Make the dip and set aside: In a bowl, combine all dip ingredients except the water together (1/2 cup hoisin, 1/4 cup peanut butter, 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil, 2 teaspoons rice vinegar, optional 1 teaspoon lime juice, & optional chili hot sauce). Add water to the sauce until the consistency is what you like in a dip. If you're making a very large batch, you can add all the ingredients in a blender for a smoother dip. But make sure to keep adding enough water to make it dip-able.
- For the Chicken: If you're using leftover cooked chicken or pre-cooked chicken, skip this step and go directly to making the rolls. In a large bowl combine the 3 Tablespoons grape seed or vegetable oil, 1 Tablespoon soy sauce, 2 teaspoons sesame oil, and 3 cloves of minced garlic. Add the raw chicken and toss to cover marinade over the chicken. Cover well and allow to marinade for about 20 minutes.
- Heat frying pan on medium-high heat (or for grilling heat the grill for direct heat over medium-high heat) and cook chicken until fully cooked through and nice crispy outside edge. Slice the chicken in thin slices, about 1/4-1/2 inch wide for rolling.
Making the rolls:
- Gather chicken, vegetables, herbs, rice paper, board or surface to roll on, and a large bowl of warm water (about bath temperature).
- Don’t over soak the rice paper. Dip the rice paper wrappers in warm water (bath water temp) for about 5 seconds. Don’t over-soak the wrappers because this will tear the delicate rice paper. This makes the wrapper very flimsy, soft and hard to manage. When you dip the rice paper, it should still be slightly firm and slightly hold its shape.
- Place rice paper on plate or working surface. If it feels too firm, don't worry because as the rice paper sits for a few seconds, it begins to absorb the water and become more soft and pliable.
- On the 1/3 section of the rice paper wrapper closest to you, start layering your fillings of lettuce, herbs, chicken and vegetables. Don’t overcrowd the rolls, don’t be a filling-hoarder and please don’t make them into “burritos”. If you add too much filling, you’ll tear the delicate soft rice paper and you’ll have a bad day. (Make sure to layer the lettuce first so it will help keep the firmer vegetables from poking through the rice paper.)
- Start rolling the wrapper over the fillings away from you, tucking and rolling the wrapper with your fingers, making sure all the fillings remain tight and round within the rice paper wrapper. When you are about 1/3 or 1/2 through the roll, gently fold in the ends of the softened rice paper to close the ends of the rolls.
- Continue rolling the rice paper spring rolls until they are fully wrapped.
- Serve immediately with hoisin peanut dip, or cover with plastic wrap to eat a few hours later.
Video
Nutrition Information per Serving
More Fillings for Spring or Summer Rolls
Our chicken spring rolls or chicken summer rolls recipe is super simple and if you eliminate the chicken, you have a delicious vegan or vegetarian roll for all your non-meat eating friends!
- Have friends who are pescatarian? Not a problem because you can substitute shrimp!
- Vegan rice paper spring rolls are plant based and meatless. You can use tofu, plant based protein or just vegetables.
- Watch the video on how to roll these beauties and read our tutorial below with a bunch of photos. After that, you’ll be pro before you know it and can make a huge platter of these for your next party. People will go nuts cause everyone loves these easy to eat and healthy chicken spring rolls!
- And oh, the dip. Everyone loves our easy peanut dip for spring rolls. You can even serve the dip with so many other things besides these chicken summer rolls. For a bold Vietnamese dip, try this fish sauce dip – it’s a classic to have with spring rolls.
How to Store Rice Paper Rolls
For storing: you can make them a few hours ahead of time and cover them with plastic wrap to keep them soft. If you’re making a lot of rolls, lay plastic wrap between the layers of spring rolls so they don’t stick together.
12 Comments on “Chicken Spring Rolls with Peanut Dip”
how many rolls does this make
Hi Conner, this should make about 16 rolls. Everyone tends to add a different amount of filling in each roll and sometimes too much. But our preference is to have smaller rolls, which is about 16.
thanks for such an amazing tutorial. I was over-soaking them in the water for so long. Now they don’t fall apart anymore! I loved that you used chicken for this recipe. It tastes so great with this spring roll.
The kids and I really enjoyed making this together. It was a lot of fun and delicious!
These spring rolls look delicious! I would like to try this recipe. I only found a package with 50 rice papers. Can I store leftover rice paper?
Hi Isabelle, yes you can store leftover rice paper in a dry place. We store ours in a drawer or pantry.
Could I substitute Almond Butter for the peanut butter? I am very allergic to peanuts.
Almond butter works great for the dip. We’ll do that frequently for those with allergies to peanuts.
Can I make them ahead for the week?
Hi Michele,
The wrapper will dry out. Best advice for “make ahead” is to have all the ingredients prepped ahead of time. Cut all the veggies and prepare the lettuce and fillings. If you want to make it for lunch, then you can quickly wrap a few in the morning and wrap them in plastic wrap. By lunch time the rolls will still be soft and enjoyable. Or if you want them for dinner, you can easy assemble them quickly as long as all the veggies are prepped and filling is pre-made.
These look delicious! Thank you for the recipe, I’m going to try them. I made springs rolls once before – in your suggested make ahead fashion. It was my first time and I was thrilled at how well the wraps worked. The next day the wraps were a little less sticky and stretchy, the day after that less and less sticky and stretchy. In the end, no matter what temp or how long I soaked them, they would not soften to sticky and stretchy! They just were wet and tore with zero stick. I stored the opened package sealed inside a ziploc bag in my pantry, was that a mistake? Thank you for your thoughts.
Hi Kate, Storing the opened package the way you did should work fine. That’s how we store our opened bags too. Normally we try to eat the rolls within a few hours so that the texture of the wrappers are still soft, pliable and delicious! Have fun!