Rice Noodle Rolls With Cucumbers

Why I love Rice Noodle Rolls?

I absolutely love rice noodle rolls for their smooth texture and nice bite.  Super nostalgic to me as they are found in a ton of Chinese and Vietnamese dishes.

You can steam rice noodle rolls and serve with any sauces you like.  You can deep fry them up for some crispy fun, or in this case, you can pan fry them with some soy sauce. I have zero bias when it comes to rice noodle rolls and the way they are prepared.  Maybe I’ll do an entire blog dedicated to them!  I felt like pan searing the shit out of them in some soy sauce would do me some good.  I typically will use the same soy sauce base like I used to make my pan fried rice udon noodles. To cut through the salt and savory, I chose to use some diced cucumbers as toppings. This is a super easy dish that anyone can make.

Preparation Is Key!

Cutting the rice noodle rolls into bite sized pieces always makes for a fun dish. For additional preparation, we’ll use a combination of red and white onion, diced cucumbers for toppings, and soy sauce mixture for pan searing. I also have some dry sherry to give a little bit of bitterness and acid to the dish.

Start With The Sear

To start, we’ll get a non-stick pan over medium heat and get some really nice color to these onions, frying them in a neutral oil. If you have a wok to do this in, you can use that too, but I find that rice noodles get too sticky on my wok at home. It’s way different if you had a super high flame in a restaurant where you could toss these rice noodles up in 20 seconds and be done.  I can only dream to have that setup at home!

Next, we’ll throw in the rice noodle rolls and let them pan sear in all the savory onion flavors for about 2 minutes. You’ll see the rice noodles get a translucent exterior texture, almost like we’re frying them up. Once we see that, we’ll go ahead and add a splash of dry sherry and cook that off for about 20 seconds.  Then, we’ll go in with the mixture of soy sauce, sesame seed oil, agave. I’ve prepared that in a measuring cup here to make it easy to pour over. Smell the aromas and hear the sizzle of that soy sauce hit the pan. That’s when you know this is gonna be a great dish! You’ll just want to flip and stir every 20 seconds and get that soy sauce seared into the rice noodle rolls. 

The trick to this dish is balancing the sear because if you leave the rice noodle rolls on one side too long, the soy sauce will burn and get bitter. While we want a nice sear to the rolls, we don’t want a super bitter burn on them, so really stay attentive to this part.

Plating To Eat!

For plating, we’ll top the rice noodle rolls with fresh cucumbers, which I’ve diced and removed the seeds from.  Finally some sprinkled sesame seeds to finish! This dish is perfect as a snack, a quick lunch, or whenever you just need to get your Chinese food fix on!