Spicy Tofu Salad Rolls with Cashew Butter Dipping Sauce

This creation is super loosely based off of this one from Foodess (not even sure I read more than the ingredient list, and definitely didn’t follow that) but salad rolls are easy and delicious and perfect for summer! All you need is:
– Rice paper wrappers
– Veggies that you can cut into thin strips
– Some sort of skinny noodle (actually this is optional)
– Some sort of delicious protein (optional too, but necessary if you want this to be a meal)

Follow the instructions on your rice paper wrappers, but basically you get them wet enough to be pliable but not disintegrate, pile the other stuff conservatively in the middle, and roll. You can be fancy and try to tuck in the ends, or not

– For the wrappers I used brown rice paper wrappers that apparently never expire!
– For veggies I used carrots, cucumbers, bean sprouts, scallions, and ginger (just sliced into really thin strips – delicious!)
– For the noodles I used bean threads, which I was excited to find in the store, but rice noodles are more traditional (since clearly that’s important to me)

– For the protein I had wanted to use shrimp, as called for by the original recipe, but the store I went to really only had one protein option: tofu. Tofu can be great or gross, depending on how you treat it. And I knew this had to be good because the other flavors in the summer roll are so mild.

I cut the tofu into little strips and set it to marinade in tamari and spicy chili garlic sauce, while I prepped the other insides. Then I sautéed it in sesame oil until the strips were brown and a little crispy

Then I made the dipping sauce:
Their recipe calls for peanut butter, which is normal, but I didn’t have any and I did have cashew butter which has a different flavor but ended up being delicious. Then I added in:
– Tamari for salt
– Honey for sweet
– Water to thin
– Ordinarily I would add in chili or something for heat, but since I’d apparently made the tofu super spicy, I decided to leave this out