
Vegetarian Vietnamese Rice Crepes (Bánh xèo)
Crispy, crunchy and full of flavours, these Vietnamese vegetarian rice flour crepes are delicious and yet super light on your stomach.
The first time I had these amazing flavourful crepes was in this small Vietnamese restaurant in Portland, USA with my cousin. The crepes came with this huge filling of sprouted mung beans and a colourful variety of julienned vegetables. And with it, yet another big plate of fresh herbs, few rice papers and of course the nước chấm. I was simply blown away with the taste and the simplicity of the dish. On my visit to Vietnam years later, I made it a point to have the authentic crepes in Hanoi and it just took me back to my first taste of this crispy goodness and fell in love yet again! Traditionally it is made with rice flour + plain flour and cooked like an omelette with meat+seafood and then served with heaps of fresh green herbs and rice paper.
The name, xèo, refers to the sizzling sound that you hear when the batter hits the pan. And the word, bánh loosely translated means cake/bread. But don’t let the cuisine or the name intimidate you though, I found the technique of cooking these crepes quite similar to our rava dosa or an appam. Striking resemblance to our own dosa or appam and yet so different.
The filling of these crepes is quite versatile, in fact take the opportunity to use whatever few vegetables you have lying around in the fridge turning it into a healthy meal or a snack.
In my recipe, I have added apple, asparagus and carrot as fillers but the choices are endless. Do experiment with any vegetables you have in your fridge. Some ideas:
- Pineapple, cut in small cubes
- Cucumber, julienned
- Red or yellow capsicum slices
- Mushrooms sautéed
- Paneer, cut in small cubes
- Red cabbage sliced finely
These crepes are generally served with nước chấm which is a sweet and sour almost watery sauce made with lime juice, sugar and fish sauce. My adaptation includes soy sauce to replace the fish sauce and few other ingredients thrown together to make a vegetarian dipping sauce.
There are couple of ways you can eat them. Stuff it and have it like a stuffed crepe or wrap it in a lettuce wrap or even roll it in the rice paper. It tastes delicious any which way you prefer to go. Didn’t I say these crepes are super versatile? 🙂
You may like some of these other recipes too.
- Fried rice pad thai style
- Egyptian pita bread with taameya
- Tahini ice-cream with black sesame halva
- Masala penne with healthy cheese sauce
- Nepalese vegetable momos
Recipe Card
Vegetarian Vietnamese Rice Crepes (Bánh xèo)
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AUTHOR
Hema B Kathrani
CUISINE
Vietnamese
PREP TIME
15 minutes
COOK TIME
25 mins
SERVINGS
6 – 7 crepes
Author: Hema B Kathrani | Cuisine: Vietnamese | Category: Snacks
Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 25 mins | Servings: 6 – 7 crepes
Crispy, crunchy and full of flavours, these Vietnamese vegetarian rice flour crepes are delicious and yet super light on your stomach.
Ingredients
- For the batter:
- 1 cup rice flour
- 2 tbsp wheat flour (atta) (skip for gluten free)
- ½ cup thick coconut milk
- 1 tbsp turmeric powder
- Salt to taste
- 3 tbsp finely chopped spring onion (white and green parts mixed)
- 1 cup water or more as needed
- 2 tbsp oil
- For the filling:
- 1 bunch lettuce
- 1 cup bean sprouts
- 7-8 sprigs of coriander
- 15-20 mint leaves
- 1 bunch asparagus
- 2 apples sliced
- 2 carrots julienned
- ¼ cup sliced jalapenos (optional)
- For the dipping sauce: (make ½ cup)
- 2 tbsp lime juice
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 2 tbsp dark soy sauce
- 1 red chilly finely chopped
- 1 garlic grated
- 1 tsp ginger grated
- 2 tbsp water
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Oil to make crepes
Method
- Make the dipping sauce:
- Mix all the ingredients together and keep it aside for at least 30 minutes
- Make the batter:
- Make an almost thin watery crepe batter by mixing all the ingredients. Use additional water as needed.
- Keep the batter aside for 15 minutes.
- To make the crepes, heat a deep cast iron pan/non stick pan on a medium flame and brush it with little oil.
- Pour 1 big ladle spoon of the batter and swirl it around to make a thin crepe.
- Cover and let it cook for 2-3 minutes.
- When you see the brown edges around the crepe, put asparagus, bean sprouts and jalapenos and cover it for one more minute.
- Transfer the crepe from the pan into a plate and add lettuce, julienned carrot, apple slices, a spring of coriander, few mint leaves and fold it.
- Repeat the process to make additional crepes.
- Serve the crepes immediately with the dipping sauce.
Notes
- If you have thin coconut milk, take 1 cup of milk and reduce the water to ½ cup.
- You can make the batter ahead few hours in advance by skipping the spring onion. Add the onions once you are ready to make the crepes.
- The cast iron pan makes these crepes super crispy, however if you don’t have it, you can use a dosa pan with edges.
- I added asparagus, jalapenos and bean sprouts while the crepe was cooking so that they could soften a bit but preferred to have the crunch of apple, lettuce and carrot so added them after I took it off the flame. You could use your choice of vegetables in a similar fashion. The ones that needs a bit of cooking, can be added first.
- Skipping the whole wheat flour makes it equally delicious, just a wee bit less crispier.
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3 thoughts on “Vegetarian Vietnamese Rice Crepes (Bánh xèo)”
Thank you for sharing this interesting recipes. Can you please enable the print to pdf as it would be superhelpful when attempting to make it. TIA
Thank you for your feedback. I had a look at the printed version and it seems there is an issue with the plugin. We are working on fixing it and hopefully it should get rectified in a day or two. I will update you once it is fixed.
To update, the pdf in the print format is working now