Packed with ripe mango, creamy avocado, and a rainbow of vegetables and herbs, these Sesame Lime Roasted Shrimp Summer Rolls are a quick and healthy meal option perfect for any day of the week.
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Sesame Lime Roasted Shrimp Summer Rolls with Mango & Avocado
Crunchy raw vegetables, sweet mango, creamy avocado, fresh herbs, and succulent oven roasted shrimp make for an absolutely delicious combination. These Sesame Lime Roasted Shrimp Summer Rolls are a simple to make, healthy option for lunch or dinner any day of the week. All you need is a little Sweet Thai Chili Sauce for dipping and a handful of crushed peanuts for a restaurant quality dish.
Jump to Recipe
A Healthy Mix of Raw Rainbow Vegetables
I’ve never been much of a salad person. Whenever I’ve tried to eat healthier, I’ve bought myself greens, cherry tomatoes, some avocado and cut them up as salad prep for lunches like everyone recommends. And again and again, I’ve found those things languishing in the fridge until I cave and turn them into dinner somehow – sides of sautéed spinach or salsa for tacos. Salads may not be the best option for me diet-wise, but I know I need more fresh vegetables in my life.
Then I discovered shrimp summer rolls.
I’ve always been a sucker for finger foods, and summer rolls are a deliciously fresh solution for a low calorie, veggie-packed lunch or dinner. They’re also almost as easy as a salad, with an extra step of folding up a rice paper wrapper. Just cut up a rainbow of colorful vegetables (red pepper, purple cabbage, orange carrots, green avocado), a bit of yellow mango for sweetness, a squeeze of lime for tartness and acid, and few chopped leaves of mint and basil for a bite of freshness. Add a handful of oven roasted shrimp for a light and lean protein, and it’s a perfectly packaged meal all wrapped up and ready to eat.
This particular recipe was inspired by a recipe in the Half Baked Harvest Cookbook. I recently reviewed this publication by award winning blogger Tieghan Gerard, and made her version of the recipe as part of the process. With a bit of tweaking, I made the version you find below.
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Folding a Perfect Shrimp Summer Roll
If you’ve never done it before, folding a rice paper wrapper around the filling correctly can take a bit of practice. The wrappers come dried and stiff, but become flexible when dampened slightly in water. The resulting wrapper is delicate, can tear easily, and has a habit of sticking not only to itself, but to a lot of work surfaces.
You need to work quickly, dampening the wrappers one at a time in a low, shallow bowl. Setting up your ingredients in an assembly line fashion will also help you work faster. Through a bit of trial and error, I found a wooden cutting board to be the best surface I had available to work on, resulting in minimal sticking (marble and ceramic were definitely not good ideas). If you have a better solution, please let me know in the comments!
After wetting the wrapper for a mere 10 seconds, place it on your work surface. Depending on the size of your shrimp, place three to four in a straight line at what would be the midway point of the wrapper, leaving about two inches on either side. Underneath the shrimp, layer a slice each of avocado and mango, two to three strips of bell pepper and carrot, and a few shreds of cabbage. Sprinkle some pieces of basil and mint to finish.
To form the shrimp summer roll, fold the bottom of the rice paper wrapper up from the bottom and over the arranged vegetables, and then fold both sides inward (it should look like an open envelope). Starting from the bottom, gently roll the wrapper away from you and over the shrimp, until the whole thing is tightly packed into a cylinder. If you do it just right, you should be able to see the pretty line-up of shrimp through the transparent rice paper. Lay the finished summer roll seam-side down on your serving platter, and repeat the process until you run out of shrimp (or wrappers). Voila! Perfect Shrimp Summer Rolls.
If you start to have a little trouble, I encourage you to take your time and do your best. I know my own technique needs some work, but luckily even a poorly wrapped summer roll tastes delicious! Practice makes perfect, after all.
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Sweet Thai Chili Sauce & Other Accompaniments
These Shrimp Summer Rolls aren’t complete without a perfect dipping sauce. You can buy store-bought, or make your own homemade Sweet Thai Chili Sauce. A sprinkling of crushed roasted peanuts adds just the right amount of salt and crunch to complete the meal.
Looking to expand your menu with a few more options? Here are a few more finger foods from my archives and those of my blogger friends:
- Pork and Mushroom Dumplings
- Boiled Egg Endive Salad Rolls with Cashew Dipping Sauce
- Summer Rolls with Tropical Sweet Chili Garlic Sauce
- Chicken Satay with Spicy Peanut Sauce
Sesame Lime Roasted Shrimp Summer Rolls with Mango & Avocado
Ingredients
Sesame Lime Roasted Shrimp
- 1 pound medium or large shrimp, cleaned and deveined
- 1 ½ tablespoons sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon black sesame seeds
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon pepper
- Zest and juice of one lime
Summer Rolls
- 1 avocado, sliced thin
- 1 mango, sliced thin
- Juice of one lime (2-3 tablespoons juice)
- 1 red bell pepper, sliced into matchsticks
- 2 carrots, sliced into matchsticks
- 1 cup purple cabbage, shredded
- ¼ cup fresh basil, chopped
- ¼ cup fresh mint, chopped
- 12 circular rice paper wrappers (for summer & spring rolls)
- ½ cup crushed roasted peanuts, for topping (optional)
- ½ cup Sweet Thai Chili Sauce, for dipping (optional)
Instructions
Cook the Sesame Lime Roasted Shrimp:
- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F and prepare a baking sheet by covering it with foil. Rinse the shelled and deveined shrimp in a colander and pat them dry with paper towels. Combine the rest of the ingredients – the sesame oil, sesame seeds, salt, pepper, lime zest and juice – in a medium sized bowl and toss with the shrimp until evenly coated.
- Spread the shrimp out on the prepared baking sheet, drizzling any remaining oil mixture over them. Bake the shrimp for 7-10 minutes, until pink and cooked through. Transfer the shrimp to a clean bowl, cover, and chill in the fridge for 10-15 minutes as you prep the summer roll ingredients.
Prepare the Filling:
- Slice and chop the vegetables, fruit, and herbs as instructed. The mango and avocado should be sliced very thin, and left their full length. Squeeze the lime juice over the mangos. Cut the red bell pepper and carrots into matchsticks between three to four inches long (about the length of your finished summer roll). Slice about one-fourth of a head of purple cabbage into thin shreds (reserving the remaining cabbage for another use).
- In the order they listed above, set up all of your ingredients in an assembly line so that you can build the summer rolls quickly. Remove the shrimp from the fridge, and add them to the start of your assembly line.
- Assemble the Summer Rolls:
- Fill a low bowl with warm water. Working one at a time, submerge the rice wrapper in the water for 10 seconds to soften it, and then transfer the wrapper to a clean work surface.
- Line up the three to four roasted shrimp just below the mid-way point across the wrapper, leaving about 2 inches on either side. Underneath the shrimp, layer the avocado, mango, bell pepper, carrot, and a few shreds of cabbage on top of each other, sprinkling them with a few pieces each of basil and mint.
- Starting at the bottom of the wrapper closest to you, gently fold the wrapper up and over the stacked vegetables. Fold both the left and right sides inward and over the vegetables, so that the wrapper looks like an opened envelope with the veggies inside. Tightly roll the packaged filling away from you. Place the finished summer roll onto a serving plate seam-side down, and repeat until you run out of wrappers or shrimp.
- To serve, put out a small bowl of Sweet Thai Chili Sauce (LINK) and sprinkle the platter with the crushed roasted peanuts. These summer rolls are best when fresh, but can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for 12-24 hours.
Notes
Nutrition
Packed with ripe mango, creamy avocado, and a rainbow of vegetables and herbs, these Sesame Lime Roasted Shrimp Summer Rolls are a quick and healthy meal option perfect for any day of the week.
Adapted from the Half-Baked Harvest Cookbook.
Makes about 12 shrimp summer rolls