Summer Rolls Salad

Last weekend, my husband and I (okay, mostly me) made summer rolls for dinner. We used rice paper wrappers from our local Asian grocery store to wrap up a bunch of goodies. This batch of summer rolls included:

• Kale
• Sauteed tofu
• Snap peas
• Carrots
• Orange peppers
• Bean sprouts.

After slicing up the veggies and lightly sauteing the tofu (my husband's job), I moistened the rice paper wrappers for a minute or two in a dish of water (I used a Pyrex pie dish) until they become pliable. Then, I put in all of the ingredients and wrapped them up like burritos. We topped the summer rolls with homemade peanut sauce and sriracha.

Summer rolls taste amazing for dinner, but they don't make the best leftovers. Premade summer rolls get soggy and crunchy all at once the next day--the rice paper wrappers just don't refrigerate well. And, there is no way I would make them fresh at work. Can you imagine me at my desk dipping the wrappers into a dish of water!?

Instead, I re-purposed the leftover ingredients into a Summer Rolls Salad. 

The best part of making this salad is that I usually have enough left over veggies already washed and chopped from the summer rolls. All I had to do was take the veggies (kale, snap peas. carrots, orange peppers and bean sprouts), toss in some broccoli for volume and marinate them in a bit of rice wine vinegar over night so that the kale and broccoli would become more tender. I used the left over peanut sauce as dressing and tossed in a tablespoon or two of almonds. If you are wondering where the tofu went, we used all of it in the summer rolls!

Here's how to make the peanut sauce (also courtesy of my husband):

• 1/3 heaping cup peanut butter
• 1/3 cup room temperature water
• 3 Tbs soy sauce
• 2 Tbs hoisin sauce
• 1 Tbs sesame oil
• Sriracha to taste
• Garlic powder to taste

Mix all ingredients and then adjust to your taste--more water or soy sauce for a thinner sauce; more sriracha for a spicier sauce.

While this salad came about because I hate to waste leftovers, I will certainly be making it again even when summer rolls aren't for dinner the evening before!