Make these rice paper noodles using rice paper sheets—the ones you wrap your Vietnamese rice paper spring rolls with! Served with easy chili soy sauce, in 20 minutes!
Why You Will Love This Rice Paper Rolls Noodles
Ingredients
- Rice paper sheets: Usually used to wrap spring rolls (like in my spicy noodle spring rolls), you can also turn them into gluten-free noodles in 2 minutes!
- Look for them in Asian grocery stores if you can’t find them in regular supermarkets!
- Water: Essential for softening the rice paper and making it pliable.
Now feel free to use any of your favorite noodle sauce. But below I provide an easy chili garlic sauce to serve your rice paper noodles with!
- Garlic: Adds a fragrant, savory punch to the sauce.
- Soy sauce: Provides a salty, umami-rich base for the sauce.
- Chinese Black vinegar: Also known as black rice vinegar, Chinkiang vinegar, or Zhenjiang vinegar. This gives the sauce a tangy, slightly sweet depth.
- Chili flakes: I’m using Szechuan chili pepper flakes, but any will do.
- Feel free to also sub with the crispy chili oil in jars (lao gan ma being one of the popular brands).
- Cooking oil: Used to sizzle the other ingredients when poured over the sauce.
And 3 optional garnish for your chili garlic sauce:
- Scallion: Adds a fresh, mild onion flavor and a pop of color.
- Sesame seeds: Provides a subtle nutty flavor and a bit of crunch for serving.
- Cucumber: I’m honestly not a fan of cucumber but in this dish, cucumber becomes irresistible! This is also why spicy cucumber salad works!
How to Make Rice Paper Noodles
Part 1: Preparing the Noodles
First up, make sure that you’ve wet your chopping board to make the cutting easier later on.
Now stack 3 rice paper sheets together and dip them in a bowl of room temperature water for 20-30 seconds.
Place the rice paper stack on the wet chopping board. Use your fingers to push out any air bubbles. Then cut the stacked rice wrappers into 6-8 strips.
If the rice paper is too hard to cut, use your hands to add a bit of water on top of the hard part. Let it soak for a bit and the rice paper should soften.
Let each noodle strand soak in a bowl of room temperature water for about 15 minutes as you repeat with the rest of the rice paper wrappers and prepare the sauce.
Dip your knife into the bowl of water in between cuts to make it easier!
You might also need to re-wet your cutting board with water when the rice noodles start to stick to the board.
You can use any of your favorite noodle sauce recipes, use the noodles in soups, etc. But if you don’t have any specific recipe in mind, I’ve prepared a simple chili garlic sauce for you below!
Part 2: Make the Oil Sauce
Combine garlic, soy sauce, black vinegar, red chili pepper flakes, and the white parts of the scallion in a serving bowl.
Heat oil until it’s almost bubbling, then pour it over the sauce ingredients and let it sizzle.
Drain noodles, mix them into the sauce thoroughly, and top with scallion, sesame seeds, and cucumber. Enjoy your rice paper rolls noodles!
Top Tips
- Use room temperature water for soaking the rice wrapper. Warm water can make the sheets too soft.
- Keep your chopping board wet to prevent the rice paper from sticking.
- Dip your knife in water between cuts to make slicing the rice paper easier.
- Remove air bubbles from the rice paper sheets to ensure they stay together.
- Let the noodles soak for at least 15 minutes in water to soften them fully before mixing with the sauce.
- Unless you’re using the noodles in a soup. Then you can let it boil a little together with the soup.
Serving Suggestions
Serve immediately as the noodles can become dry if left to sit for too long, or too soft when left in the soup.
Feel free to add extra vegetables like shimeji or enoki mushroom, bean sprouts, or extra protein like my Quick Marinated Tofu to make this a complete meal.
Pair these rice sheets noodles with Coconut Matcha Latte (either hot or cold), Lavender Matcha Latte, Mango Matcha Latte, or with my Korean Strawberry Milk to dampen down the heat.
Are rice noodles healthy?
Rice noodles are low-fat, gluten-free, and contain a moderate amount of carbs, making them quite a healthy option (source: Healthline). In terms of calories, rice noodles are 14-20% lower in calories when compared to pasta, but they have a similar calorie count to a serving of white rice.
But just to keep things simple, rice noodles and rice paper noodles are ultimately processed food. And we want to stick as much as possible to eating unprocessed whole foods for optimal health, as explained in this guide by Harvard.
Storage and Meal Prep Instructions
Storage: Rice paper gets dry and become chewy when stored in the fridge so it’s best to make them fresh. However, if you do have leftovers, store them in an air-tight container in the fridge for up to 3 days.
To reheat, add splashes of water to the noodles and microwave for about 1 minute.
Meal Prep: To meal prep, double, triple, or quadruple the sauce. Also cut your cucumber and scallions beforehand. Then you only need to spend 5-10 minutes to make the rice paper noodles fresh.
Freezing: Please do NOT freeze your rice paper noodles. Dry rice paper sheets are shelf-stable so this way, you’re also saving up your freezer space.
FAQ
Want More Asian Recipes?
If you like rice paper sheets, you would like my spicy rice paper dumplings! Or try my banana spring rolls!
For more spicy Asian food, try my kimchi loaded fries, gochujang fries, or kimchi sushi. This tandoori pasta is another easy dinner recipe that is full of flavor, similar to this chili garlic rice sheets noodles!
Rice Paper Rolls Noodles (from Rice Sheets Wrappers)
Ingredients
For the Rice Noodles
- 6 to 9 sheets rice paper the same ones used to wrap Vietnamese spring rolls
- water for dipping the rice paper
For the Sauce
- 2 cloves garlic grated
- 1 Tablespoon soy sauce
- 2 teaspoons black vinegar
- 1 teaspoon red chili flakes Szechuan is best but any red pepper flakes work
- 1.5 Tablespoons cooking oil
Garnish (Optional)
- ½ scallion chopped
- ½ teaspoon sesame seeds
- ¼ cup cucumber julienned
Instructions
Prepare the Noodles
- Fill a large bowl with tap water. Then wet your chopping board with water so the rice noodles won't stick later on. You want it to be quite wet, but not dripping wet.
- Stack 3 rice paper sheets together, then dip them into a large bowl filled with room temperature water for about 20-30s. You can just rotate the sides of your rice paper wrapper so that all sides are dipped.
- Place the stacked rice paper sheets on a wet chopping board. Push all the air bubbles out so the rice papers will stay as one sheet.
- Cut each sheet into 6-8 strips (depending on your preference for noodle thickness). To do this, first cut in the middle, then cut each half into 3 or 4 strips.Dip your knife into the water in between cuts so it is easier to cut.
- Place your cut rice noodles into another bowl of room temperature water to let them soak a little bit to soften.
- Repeat steps 2-5 above until you've made enough noodles. Let the noodle strand soak for about 15 minutes as you prepare the sauce.
Make the Sauce
- Add all the sauce ingredients (except the oil) into your serving bowl. Also add the white parts of your scallion if using.
- In a small saucepan, heat up your cooking oil just before bubbles form. Then pour your hot oil over the sauce and let it sizzle, about 5 seconds.
- Mix the sauce. Then drain and add the rice noodles. Stir well to combine, especially the sauce that is at the bottom. Top with the optional scallion (the green parts), sesame seeds, and cucumber. Enjoy!
So glad I came across the recipe. Helped a lot with the rice papers I had that were just sitting around!